Hours you work?

[RACHACE]

How many hours a week do you work?

For the purpose of my question, include your travel time per day, to and from work. This might vary from one week to the next in some professions. If so, just include an average travel time.

The main reason I’m asking is to get some sort of consensus on what folk would actually do in order to earn enough £££ for their lifestyle.

I do a hell of a lot of hours and my vocation also requires me to be away from home a lot if I want to earn the higher end of the pay scale.

A 60+ hour, 5 day week one week is followed by a 70+ hour, 6 day week the next which can include 3/5 nights away will earn me between 38 & 42k a year. Not a huge amount but for someone who left school with no GCSE’s and has worked in factories, telesales, customer services, labouring for most of their working life to date, it pays more than the earnings made from any other job I’ve had. But the hours are long.

Don’t get me wrong, those hours working aren’t me crushing rocks in the hot sun but nevertheless, I know I’ve done a weeks graft when I get home. I did have a couple of years as a middle manager in my late 20’s but the salary was crap compared with the hours and stress levels involved. Management wasn’t for me.

So, what do you do? Are the hours long or unsociable? would you work longer hours in order to earn more if your job allowed?

Do most jobs these days require you to work long hours or travel long distances in order to earn an above average salary?

I don’t expect anybody to divulge what they earn by the way. It’s your personal choice whether you do or don’t. The main aim of the thread is to get more of an understanding of how many hours people actually work, in what industry and whether working harder/longer for more is something they do regularly.

 

[bluethrunthru]

I work from home and regularly did - note DID - 50+ hour weeks. Then my employer started dishing out the P45's making "efficiency savings " - i.e. expecting the same productivity from fewer of us which equates to even more hours. They tried the scare tactic of " its a big bad world out there " scaremongering but as all the people they made redundant found work easily that didn't really work. The result? Most of us are doing more like a 35 hr week productivity has bombed and we sit here waiting on our payoff to be sent on to pastures new. I am afraid British management are still stuck in the mindset that they need to sweat their assets to make things pay but in actual fact there is a shortage of skilled workers that is growing and will get worse post Brexit in some industries if immigration is restricted - I find there is a much greater churn of staff where I work and amongst friends and family - we have raced to the bottom so they all offer the similar shit pension and other t&c's so its all about the money and some have realised they need to start offering the take home wedge to get the best people and retain them

 

[Tuearts right boot]

7 days a week sometimes 6.00 am starts with late finishes during the spring, summer and autumn, calming down now 5 days late starts and early finishes. Got good staff and good systems in place so it makes life a lot easier, sometimes a bit boring......The business is ticking along as they say. As long as I can get home for the match,walk the dogs or take the car out etc etc

 

[lust overlord]

I work around 55 to 60 hours per week on a day shift including a weekend day.
This can be occasionally a fair bit more.
I work local so no real travelling maybe half an hour both ways.
I'm contracted to work 38 hours per week.
The rest is paid overtime,it's kind of expected however.If I was to sod off home every day having done my "shift" there would be questions asked.
My contract requires flexibility re overtime.
Going back to working nights one week in 3 from the end of October.
I'm not a fan of working nights,but a typical night shift will work out around 7 hours,and we get paid for 10 at premium rates.
To be honest, I've got to the stage in life where I no longer chase the extra money.
May look at a career change.

 

[bluemoon32]

Usually work about 60 hours in the office and another 6 hours from home.
I'm only contracted to work a 38 hour week but the company recognise this when it's annual bonus time in December.
Due to time differences and the need to talk to customers in Asia, US, South America, Australia etc it would be difficult to just keep to my contracted hours and still do my job.
Sometimes i am very resentful of this but it's my choice to do this ultimately and if i don't like it i should get another job.
As a single parent with kids in 6th form and their Mother pays nothing towards their keep then i can't really afford to.

 

[Dicko69]

I work a 37 hour week, takes 15 mins to get to work and 30 mins to get home due to more traffic on the road. on top of that I do 2-3 hours overtime a week but I don't take the extra money I take it as toil because I value my extra time off with the kids more than the extra money. I feel the work/life balance is very important to me. I don't earn mega money (27k) but I have a comfortable lifestyle and myself and my family don't go without. I'm 40 years old and will be mortgage free next year, although we are thinking of moving to get a bigger house, extra bedroom, which would only be a small mortgage, 40k ish which with small payments would again get me mortgage free again at 50. that's the plan anyway

 

[bugsyblue]

I work 5 days a week, I usually get up at 6am and get home around 8pm. However I'm on emails usually in the evening and occasionally at weekends.

I have a great job though and feel very lucky but the sacrifice is my personal time.

 

[Old Punk]

No wonder capitalism's thriving with all those hours worked. Do people not have a life?

Or is work their life?

Slaves to the system come to mind.

 

[ErlingHaaland]

Used to work 12 hour days at least 5/6 days a week . Done it for the last 3 years and all it was doing was slowly making me ill . The stress levels was immense at times and thought I was going to have a heart attack !

Got sacked in June though which totally changed my outlook . Now have a 40 hours a week job , 5 days a week and no stress . Pay isn’t as good but by god I feel better for it !

 

[taleofbluehalves]

Around 52+ hours plus some work at home at the weekend. On top of that 11 hours of commuting. Holidays are good but I shattered by then. The pay is good but to be honest I wouldn’t like to look at my hourly rate some weeks!