Over the last two years I’ve probably averaged a 9-7 with a half an hour lunch. Probably 8 hours/month on the weekends. Too much CF time and some hungover mornings hurt productivity, but typically I work pretty quickly. And there are always things piled up. I haven’t been without a backlog of work in the last ten years.
How much actual work do you do?
- Thread starter HGoat1
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Less adderall, more THC. You don’t need those laboratory chemicals.
You know how teenagers will say they're sleeping over at a friend's house, and the friend will say they're sleeping over at your house? Sometimes parts of my job feel like that.
A lot of my job is being there when my boss calls because the client has a question, or a client's client changes what they want and affects what we produce. That's the worst part about what I do, that my 20 hours of "not busy time" are never in a big chunk where I can take it off and do something productive elsewhere. I may have a 15-minute phone call Tuesday morning and 1/2 hour email to work through Tuesday afternoon and nothing in between. But the way my industry is is I need to be by the computer in order to manage those tasks which makes sneaking off very difficult.
EDIT- reading this thread and knowing some people work really hard really crappy low-paying jobs makes me feel kind of bad.
A lot of my job is being there when my boss calls because the client has a question, or a client's client changes what they want and affects what we produce. That's the worst part about what I do, that my 20 hours of "not busy time" are never in a big chunk where I can take it off and do something productive elsewhere. I may have a 15-minute phone call Tuesday morning and 1/2 hour email to work through Tuesday afternoon and nothing in between. But the way my industry is is I need to be by the computer in order to manage those tasks which makes sneaking off very difficult.
EDIT- reading this thread and knowing some people work really hard really crappy low-paying jobs makes me feel kind of bad.
I tend to get in earlier than anyone in the office, and socialize less than anyone in the office. And I leave earlier too, which gets some grumbles from some in the peanut gallery. I don't care. My work gets done more consistently than anyone, so they can **** off.
I'm self employed, so if I don't do the work, nobody does. Right now trying to get trained for one job and still handle another is about running me in the ground. They should work well together, but I need to work the trainors schedule in order to be able to do it independently later. I will be an independent contractor when trained in.
I work hard at my job and I am good at it. However, I leave my desk all the time and do random things when I should be working. At the same time if I just sat at my desk the whole time "Doing Work" I would burn the hell out and be bad at it. So I have now justified in my head that surfing Fanatic, Doing chores, and doing other things is actually a good thing for me to be doing. Otherwise, I would suck at my job and either get fired or quit for not making money.
This is a very good topic. My situation the hardest thing for me is finding ways to stay productive and finding my next opportunity however it presents itself. I'm the one that has to make those opportunities happen no matter what. I catch myself on CF, wanting to go golf or go grab the kids from daycare and go to the pool. Then as I realize sometimes what I'm currently doing needs to stop and get back to what I do. Working from home sometimes makes it even harder, just have to focus even harder then.
Man ... I need to get the jobs you guys have.
I am hourly, paid decently with good benefits. But I feel stuck. Given 50 hours of work to do each week and only allowed to work 40 hours (42-43 with permission). Constant stress, constant pressure from management like "why didn't you get this done timely?" "Well, because you refuse to hire enough people to do the work."
I have to take 30-40 minutes per day of downtime to take a breath and survive. I am kinda wanting out at this point.
I am hourly, paid decently with good benefits. But I feel stuck. Given 50 hours of work to do each week and only allowed to work 40 hours (42-43 with permission). Constant stress, constant pressure from management like "why didn't you get this done timely?" "Well, because you refuse to hire enough people to do the work."
I have to take 30-40 minutes per day of downtime to take a breath and survive. I am kinda wanting out at this point.
You're in a position that a lot of people are but to be honest you'll just have a different kind of stress. A good option is to look into investing in others if you have a little extra cash around for example. Find someone with a small business and invest in them to get their business to the next level, help them build their business and increase your income without a ton more time involved...just the money. You have to be careful but this is something I learned a while back and its really paying off.
My weeks are all over the place. I might have 5 hours worth of work a week while I'm waiting on somebody else to finish their part of a project and I might have to put 60 in to hit a deadline. I usually surf CF while my time is being wasted on a conference call which could be 6 hours out of the day.
Not me!!!! The entire reason I went to college was so I could get a job where I can make good money but not do much work. My dad always told me that should be my goal.
I try to keep this in mind, as well. Rather than complain about being bored, I try to be grateful that I have a job which allows me freedom to run errands during the day, brainstorm woodworking projects, etc. Given the good pay and benefits I had, I'd be hard pressed to find anything better. I may be bored at times, but I'm also grateful I'm not under constant stress.
Right on. Don't feel guilty, just be grateful. I have the flexibility to take a little longer lunch to go work out, or leave a little early if I need to go hit the grocery store or pick up the kids from daycare, or whatever else pops up during the day. It's great to have that flexibility, especially if you have a spouse who works crazy long hours and has a lot more responsibility in their career. The downside is having a job that you maybe don't have much personal investment in, but as long as you're productive in other areas of your life it all kind of balances out.
I work from home. I have an office in our basement, no TV. If I had that, I wouldn't get anything done. It depends last week I was on the east coast for 5 days, does all that time constitute as work? I am on company time. When at home I probably get at least 5 hours of work in day. But I also do things work related on the weekend and with email on your cell phone it all seems like I do some work everyday. We had July 5th off, but I still had people call me and I answered emails and called some people. When the company pays for you cell phone bill, you really are at work 24/7 and being is sales you need to be available. I can be on vacation in Hawaii and people call. What are you supposed to do not answer it. Plus we have clients in Hawaii, so company does pay for most of my trip. I guess I'm just one that is "working" all the time.
Hot Tip: if your leader or boss asks how it’s going or how you feel about your workload the answer is always:
“I’m at capacity, if I need to take something new on I would need to get rid of something else”
This sets you up perfectly to either not get stuck with something new or to shed something you really hate depending on your leader or bosses response.
“I’m at capacity, if I need to take something new on I would need to get rid of something else”
This sets you up perfectly to either not get stuck with something new or to shed something you really hate depending on your leader or bosses response.
I have a cousin the used to work for the US Census Bureau in DC. He could work ANY 40 hours he wanted 24/7. All he had to do was tell supervisor what 40 hours he was going to work the next week.
That would be amazing. I'd be working 6am until 2pm for sure.
Salary can have it's own downsides too (@Cyclones_R_GR8 is a good example) but I'd be looking around if I were you. It sounds like poor management if they consistently expect you to do more work than the hours available because of their refusal or inability to hire more people.