Longer hours, shorter life

dLockers said:
Dingdingding. The final sentence being the killer blow.

These are the same folk who complain about no pay rise and being overlooked for promotion as a newcomer takes the spot.
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I have to agree, we have a similar problem. A few years back, I used to work on a team where you had a daily call every day (nothing new) explain workloads, basically justifying your existence.

People who slack would be torn to shreds or if you were the one to be seen as making excuses, even resentment set in and colleagues turned against you. People slacking were weeded out very quickly.
 
Puzzled said:
Then they put a load of tracking software on our devices so they could see what we were doing which put an end to it.
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I wish they'd do that for two people I work with, management would be shocked.

I'm contracted for 30 hours over 4 days and I've talked them into 3 days at home but I never stop.
 
Hades said:
This is quite a relevant topic for me at the moment. Frankly I'm getting fedup with my working hours, ofetn a lot more and level of stress. It's now crept up to a minimum of 12 hours per day and often a lot more (only get paid for 7 and don't get paid overtime although to be fair the pay is still good). I am on call 24x7 constantly as an escalation point and often get brought into problems at the weekend. It's not just the hours but the constant pressure of urgent work, reports to quite senior management, the nature of the job being that literally any second something big could break and I have to divert onto it and then being accountable for the teams issues if something wasn't done quite right. I often have to cancel sick leave as I'm too busy and arrange any time off so that I still cover early morning calls if no-one else can cover it. It's extremely stressful and after many years of it I think it is starting to have an affect on my health. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I need to change jobs and maybe even the type of job I do. I recovered from cancer in 2011 and it wouldn't surprise me if stress was partly to blame (no evidence of course) but since then the job has become even more stressful.

I'm not looking for sympathy and I know it's down to me to resolve this "lifestyle". But I think it's quite relevant to the thread and stress shortening your life.
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I'm pretty sure this is illegal. It is here in Finland.
 
dLockers said:
Nope. Is it sad to be a world class actor, singer or athlete?
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Are you a world class actor, singer or athlete? I can understand for some people who lead exceptional working lives then it could be a wrench to leave them, but for most people digging roads, working in retail, pushing buttons on a computer keyboard etc etc then naah, there's more to life than that. Working for me has always been a means to an end, not the reason for my existance.
 
Uther said:
Are you a world class actor, singer or athlete? I can understand for some people who lead exceptional working lives then it could be a wrench to leave them, but for most people digging roads, working in retail, pushing buttons on a computer keyboard etc etc then naah, there's more to life than that. Working for me has always been a means to an end, not the reason for my existance.
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You've missed the point of what was said. Just because you don't lead an exceptional working life, nor do you consider road workers, retail workers, or "computer button pushes" exceptional working lives, people can take pride in what they do and work "off the clock" if it is their passion. It is a shame you don't enjoy what comprises the vast majority of your healthy life.
 
BUDFORCE said:
Sure I could do more, but why should I? Nothing would ever come of it, been there done it, you do more, they expect more, cycle continues. No thanks. I dont want to run the company, I dont want a promotion. Why should I work my ass off, all it achieve is some capitalist pig company director being able to get teh upgraded leather seats in this years top of the range sports car.
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Couldn't agree more, I work hard, for our customers sake, but don't really get any thanks from the boss, I'm salaried, I earn no more no matter how many hours I do, but if I did less hours I'd not get paid! One drivers been at the firm about 40 years, must have earned the company a fortune, the thanks he got was was trying to have retirement forced upon him, when others who had been there a much shorter time were made redundant, this over twelve years ago, he's still there, still just getting mucked about.
 
I've been a lot happier since I reduced my working days from 5 to 4. I'm only 37 and a structural engineer. Much better work life balance at the cost of making less money, but it's worth it right now.
 
dLockers said:
You've missed the point of what was said. Just because you don't lead an exceptional working life, nor do you consider road workers, retail workers, or "computer button pushes" exceptional working lives, people can take pride in what they do and work "off the clock" if it is their passion. It is a shame you don't enjoy what comprises the vast majority of your healthy life.
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Oh I've enjoyed it, but always had a plan. I never worked just for the sake of it. If it's your passion then fair enough, it's your life, do with it what you will. For me family life and free time to do what I want is much more important.
 
dLockers said:
It's getting worse tbh. And the return to "normal" is causing massive anxiety amongst many of my colleagues. As I'm sure you are aware when working the office, not every second is a productive second. There is time to walk between meetings, grab a coffee, chat to people outside of your immediate team. Let's be fair and say productivity is 120% per person.

Working from home, you are in back to back calls, regain your commute time for further work, and have very little external stimuli to not be productive (office banter, water cooler chat). The average worker at my firm is now 160% productive. And expectations are held at 160% into our next target setting round. We are all receiving token extra payments and recognition for this, so it isn't unrewarded.

Going back to the office will still see us having the 160% productivity target.
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I've noticed an increase in people requesting WhatsApp groups be set up for projects to make 'communicating more efficient'.

To me, this is a sly way of putting people on call for no extra pay. Never existed pre covid but seems rife now at our place. I've refused to hand my personal number out and don't have a work phone luckily.
 
dLockers said:
You've missed the point of what was said. Just because you don't lead an exceptional working life, nor do you consider road workers, retail workers, or "computer button pushes" exceptional working lives, people can take pride in what they do and work "off the clock" if it is their passion. It is a shame you don't enjoy what comprises the vast majority of your healthy life.
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reckon enjoying what you do for a living is a big factor in how much of it you can do without it affecting you, certainly the last thing i want is to work a job that i hate regardless of how much it pays.

DB_SamX said:
I've been a lot happier since I reduced my working days from 5 to 4. I'm only 37 and a structural engineer. Much better work life balance at the cost of making less money, but it's worth it right now.
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a situation i'm aiming to acheive at some point, maximising ones earning potential and trading it for time. after all no point having money if you don't have the time to spend it.
 
Kreeeee said:
I plan to retire at 55 and work 24 hours a week. I’d much rather delay retirement than waste the best years of my working for someone else, and I think this gives a good balance of living now and retiring early.
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Tbf it isn't a bad strategy. I know people who have retired at 52 and spend 53 and 54 doing DIY, and then 55 finding a part time job.
 
My hours have dropped from 55 per week with horrendous split shifts and frequent swing shifts to ~40 hours per week with no split shifts and far fewer swing shifts. I bit the bullet and asked for my contracted hours to be changed. Furlough proved to me that I can manage fine with less income, so I chose to have less income and more life. My days and hours are still variable, but it's now usually 3 11 hour days with an hour's break and 1 6 hour day. And I usually finish work by 2130. Luxury! I'm far better off for it and I still have enough income to manage well enough. I'd never have been able to retire early anyway, so that hasn't changed.

Work to live, not live to work. It's different if you're fortunate enough to be able to earn a living doing something you enjoy and would probably be doing anyway, but that's a luxury few people have.
 
In my 20's I worked a three week cycle on dredgers comprising 14 consecutive day or night shifts with 7 days off. The shifts were 12 hours so it was 168 hours over the three weeks. I could not do that now if I wanted to so it is often a question of age and fitness. Also enjoying the work.
 
Kreeeee said:
I plan to retire at 55 and currently work 24 hours a week. I’d much rather delay retirement than waste the best years of my working for someone else, and I think this gives a good balance of living now and retiring early.
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Most people wouldn't be able to retire at 55 on full hours let alone 24 a week so you'll be doing very well if you achieve that.

There is no right answer but I've always been on the side of enjoy today rather worrying too much about tomorrow. None of us know how many years we have left. You could work yourself ragged to retire at 50 only to drop dead 6 months later.

Remember talking to guy a few years ago who worked here for 6 months of the year and spent the other 6 months travelling, sounded pretty good.
 
AiiR said:
I've noticed an increase in people requesting WhatsApp groups be set up for projects to make 'communicating more efficient'.

To me, this is a sly way of putting people on call for no extra pay. Never existed pre covid but seems rife now at our place. I've refused to hand my personal number out and don't have a work phone luckily.
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How? You just silence it between non-working hours and don't look at the group. No different from receiving emails out of work time, just ignore them until you are ready to work.
 
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