Ever since I graduated, everywhere I’ve worked has been 8-5. My current company is going to soon start expecting us to be in 7-5.
How many of you here work a 9-5 with a paid lunch?
Productivity keeps going up but so do working hours.
7? to goddamn 5? I’m not in at 7, and out way before 5, and if the boss don’t like it, then that’s not a me problem. 10 hours each day as in a 50 hour work week? That would be illegal in the EU, where you can’t work more than 48hours on average per week over a period of 4 months https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/working-hours-holiday-leave/working-hours/indexamp_en.htm
Technically I come in at 7 and leave at 4:30, but it’s a 9 hour day (30 min unpaid lunch) and I get every other Friday off in exchange. Also most days I work from home. No way in heck I’d ever go in for something like that.
OP, start job shopping. Longer hours are a sign the business isn’t doing all that well and they’re trying to squeeze out some more labor. Or a sign they’re doing well but are not interested in taking care of people by hiring enough staff and would rather you burn yourself out.
I worked at one company that was 7am-5pm for corporate office work. The company grew from a small retail parts company decades ago, but never changed the mindset. So even the office work was treated like shift work. Office workers wouldn’t even check email before 7am. Many times just hanging out in the cafeteria until 7 on the dot when they had to be at their desks. Further as soon as 5pm hit exactly, all the office workers would drop what they were doing and walk out to the parking lot with all of the other blue collar shift workers.
This resulted in things like Purchase Orders getting delayed by a day because it arrived at the approver at 5:01pm and the approver was gone. There was nearly no weekend office work, which caused its own problems.
It was such a strange place to work.
So… they knew the value of their own time and didn’t overwork when they didn’t have to?
Most office workers could probably learn from that mindset.
So… they knew the value of their own time and didn’t overwork when they didn’t have to?
This worked the other way NOT in favor of the workers. Sat down at your desk at 7:03am even though you’re not customer facing at all? Expect to be called into a conference room with your boss and your bosses boss about your attendance.
Do you work in IT and need to work off-hours to perform work requiring downtime until 2am? You better be at your desk at 7am on the dot or you’re going to get written up.
Have a doctors appointment at 3pm for an hour? You have to take vacation time for that.
There was this really odd notion that if you weren’t sitting in your chair typing, you weren’t working and would get questioned by bosses.
Most office workers could probably learn from that mindset.
Office workers would learn (or be reminded) about how hellish it was to work a minimum wage job with zero flexibility.
I noticed recently that MS Teams allows you to set a workday that defaults to 9 hours. I found that odd, but if most people in the US have a 9 hour day with a 30 min lunchbreak and two 15 minute other breaks, I guess it makes sense?
Teams defaults are pure scummery.
No, don’t alert me on a Sunday night with notifications that I might have missed over the last two days.
If you aren’t getting a paid lunch and two 15-minute breaks during your 8-hour shift, your employer is stealing from you.
Unless you are salaried. Being salaried normally comes with flexibility but gives no guarantees for breaks and number of hours worked.
There are two types of salary, exempt and non-exempt (from overtime pay). If I am remembering correctly, you basically have to be management to not get overtime pay. Something like being over at least 2 people and having input on major decisions. May have been more to it.
The list of exemptions is a mile long at this point: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-A/part-541?toc=1
Basically if you’re an office worker who makes more than than 34k/year, you’re probably exempt.
You have to be either management or highly-compensated (which means fuck-all, since the dollar amount tied to it never got updated for inflation). That’s why a lot of non-management tech workers (for example) are salaried exempt, and should therefore walk out whenever they’re told to work more than 40 hours/week (including lunch and breaks).
I didn’t even know paid lunch breaks were/are even a thing. Most jobs I’ve been in had 30 min unpaid lunch.
I work 9 to 6 with 1 hour unpaid lunch at my current job. I don’t really do anything during my lunch besides sit in the office wasting time for an hour. Home is 30 min drive away, so I can’t go home. No parks nearby to walk around. Makes it feel like I am working a 9 hour shift getting paid 8 since I am sitting in the office for 9 hours…
I have a 9-5 job as a software engineer. Though really I can stop working whenever I’m done with my assigned work. I usually stop around 3 or 3:30.
Was literally going to ask this same question last week. Past three employers are expecting 8-5 m-f but only pay 40 hours.
I’ve just been coming in at 6 before the boss to look like a hardworking then leave at 2 so I only work what I’m paid.
Seattle electrician here. My schedule is 6-230 with a 30 minute unpaid lunch.
Do you mean you’re available on-call from 6:00 to 2:30? 20 hrs a day is too much even for third-world country standards
2:30 pm or 14:30, that’s just an 8 hr day plus lunch.
Mine is 9-4 some days. I do automated QA for an enterprise application. Management budgets 2 hours a day for lunch and overhead (meetings, emails, chatting, etc.) for each employee. If I don’t hit that then I can get off early.
Most high-skill jobs (e.g. software dev, engineering, research, higher education) are usually flexible with time. No one really cares when you come or go as long as you get the work done. People (read, good-for-nothing management people) are trying to make some of these more time-bound, but it’s usually counter-productive. Turns out when you want creativity from someone, you need to give them some freedom.
I saw a law office once in the early 2000s that was 9-5. And the entire office shut down for an hour, while they all had lunch together in the conference room. The phones all went to voicemail and everything. I was working on replacing a few of their computers that day. They made me stop and join them. Seemed like a great place to work.
That’s what happens when the business is structured as a worker cooperative (as law firm partnerships basically are).
That’s not uncommon for doctors offices and such
8:30-3:00 baby, though honestly 3:45 or 4:00 would be better. I get 40 minutes for lunch and 90 minutes alone without students. I’ve got it nice.
Naw, there’s only about 3 now. Being rich, being poor, and being a cop.
