Eight to five
This is a real email string between me and Steven last Tuesday, posted without his permission. It was after I told him I thought I would be late getting home from work:
Steven wrote: Why don’t you ever try to catch the 5:20…whatever earlier train. The one that you would have to leave the office right at 5?
Kim wrote: Because I don’t want to get accused of leaving on time.
Steven wrote: Ha ha. But it is OK if you do it SOMETIMES.
What is sad is that I actually do feel guilty if I leave the office at 5:00. Even if I have worked a 9-hour day, and had lunch at my desk. And only gone to the bathroom three times. And not left the building.
Back in October, my boss told us we should all put in 48-hour work weeks. We were swamped with work (which is good) and short on staff, so it made sense.
Now, we have hired four more people, but are even more swamped. I like what I do, and don’t feel like I’m being forced to stay here, but I am someone who likes to FINISH things and leave work feeling accomplished.
It’s hard to do that, and still save yourself enough time to eat dinner and talk to your husband and cat when you get home. And maybe exercise, or write a blog post. Or even relax!
But I am going to see if I can rebel a bit… because on those days I do get home around 7:30, I feel like I have ALL THE TIME in the world before I go to bed at 10:00.
Themocracy
Sadly, I do understand that peer pressure to stay late. At my last job, my co-worker (the other HR Rep) worked 13 hours a day every day. I just wouldn’t do that. Finally I told my boss that if she expected that from me, she wasn’t going to get it. She said she didn’t expect it but I think she was the only one. I still worked a lot more overtime than I would have liked.
Because all of my jobs are on the west coast now, I am working weird hours. Like, I have an interview at 6:30 tonight. I could easily work overtime (and wouldn’t mind the cash–which I am lucky to actually get for OT unlike most salaried folks) but I am trying to break myself of the habit of being on demand 24/7. Until we as a culture agree to stop getting taking advantage of by our employers things will not change. 🙁
That’s one of the things that I love about my job… I never, ever feel pressured to put in more time than I want to, or can, put in. September gets busy, with the end of the fiscal year and all the accounting stuff going on, but otherwise I never, ever feel pressured to put in more than 40 hours. And half the time my boss is telling us to take time off, go on a vacation, relax, etc. I love not feeling guilty about doing things like that, and I love being able to completely, 100%, leave work behind me when I go home.
The more you reveal about your job, the less it sounds like you should be working there. 🙁
careful you don’t get too wrapped up in that mindset. that’s how they make us into drones! aack!
the nonprofit world is much more lax BUT they pay us crap and expect us to give, give, give when they decide it’s time to give.
I feel like that sometimes even if my (main) boss could care less. His dad looks at the clock if I leave when our secretary does at 4:50 p.m.
Old school. 🙂
I get the same guilty feeling when I leave at 5 or 5:15 but there are just some days where I have to do other things and can’t stay all night. i get the same guilty feeling when I take a day off or call in sick, but alas, we are entitled to them. Our jobs are not our lives. Be a rebel once in awhile. At the very least on Fridays!
He says you should put in 48 hour work weeks? To me, that’s a load of crap. You don’t tell someone they should do it and make it some sense of obligation. You ask them if they can. You appeal to their good nature and can-do spirit. Then you damned well better lead by example because if your ass leaves any earlier than your employees, God help you.
I put in only 8 hours at the office… but then go home and work an additional 5, so I don’t ever feel guilty. 🙂
diane – my coworkers talk about how I work so “hard” because I am so “young” and this is my “first job” and blah blah blah… maybe I work so hard because I HAVE WORK TO DO?!!? Oops, that doesn’t really relate to what you were saying… anyway, I agree that employers need to quit overworking people, especially if they are on salary, and especially if they commute 50 miles a day! 😉
Jenniy – so. jealous.
Kyra – I am hoping it will let up once all the new workers get accustomed! Hope for me too!!! 🙂 And this is actually better than it was before the holidays!
sizzle – that is what I am afraid of – starting to believe it is okay and not having a life anymore! AHHH!!!
ajooja – I think even if we aren’t being pressured, we feel, as overachievers, to put in the hours!
Gina (Mannyed) – You feel my pain 😉 Luckily, I have been leaving closer to on time a lot more since Christmas!
kapgar – ha ha. The bosses put in the time too 😉
Dave2 – I wish I could work from home! I just can’t concentrate there!
I agree with Diane completely – big surprise. 😛
I can also certainly sympathize with your plight, as I’m writing most of this comment on the train after spending over 12 hours at work today, working through lunch and going to the bathroom once…
I’ve heard stories of people being told similar things — that they’re expected to put in 40, 50, 60 hours/week — and responding to their employer “well, what does my letter of employment state? Oh, right, my salary is for 40 hours/week…”. And having the temerity to enforce that statement!
I couldn’t do that yet – not explicitly anyway. But at my new job, I’ve been somewhat stronger-willed about enforcing the 8-5 work day expected of me than I was at my previous job — but much less-forceful at enforcing my 1 hour lunch I’m allotted, because of the cultural difference. At least my work hours, lunch aside, are more regular; in practice, mine is a pretty strict 45 hour/week culture… And, as Diane would point out: I don’t have to babysit servers late at night on-demand 24/7 as I did at my previous job – which is a *huge* plus. 🙂
It could be much worse. I could be paid 1/3 less than I am and work about 1/3 more hours/week than I do like 2 of my lawyer friends…
As a rule, young white-collar employees are taken advantage-of because employers know we/they:
* often need the job to pay off student loans
* are inexperienced to both the ways of business and the practice of their learned discipline/craft
* increasingly face foreign competition for the same work (if the worker’s output – code, drawings, documents, phone calls/conference calls, etc. – can be transmitted over the Internet, then it can be done anywhere, and work is cheaper almost everywhere than in developed nations like the U.S.. Quality might suffer, but business current fashion is a strong preference for time-to-delivery and low price over quality, IMO), and
* (usually) want to climb the corporate ladder into a cushy life in middle management playing golf — as those managers likely themselves did.
[Further, ostensibly-deeper meandering thoughts from this armchair economist exorcised for brevity’s sake…]
Well I am salary and at my present job it has mostly been in my favor. However, I am one of those “put in the time to get things done” kind of people and my biggest fear is that at my next job I will put in longer hours than I should. It is fine line but I would like to be one of those people that work to live not live to work. I enjoy what I do though so it is going to be something that I watch. If you find a cure all let me know 🙂
Here’s my experience: I can vouch that I was more willing to work endless hours when I was younger and fresh out of college. For approximately four months in my early 20s, I worked two retail jobs concurrently seven days a week, between 5 and 12 hours each day. I couldn’t work a schedule like that again unless under SUPREME duress.
Part of my motivation to work longer/harder was feeling like I had to prove my work ethic to colleagues, part of it (the two jobs period) was not wanting to fail and have to move back home w/Mom after snagging my first apartment, and part of it was because I thought this was simply what people were supposed to do.
Now that I am disillusioned 😉 I still put in extra hours when needed but not as a matter of course. On the other hand, I now have a job that provides me with a company laptop, so in theory I can work anytime, anywhere and sometimes I do. I place more importance on my work/sanity balance now that I’m older, but I know that I must rise to meet the demands of the work at hand.
The most important thing is to do a job of which you can be proud. Hang in there!