How many hours do you work a day? (1 Viewer)

[Phil_L]

Very true. Most attorneys have a minimum number of billable hours they must meet each year. If you want to bill 8 hours a day, you generally have to work 10 hours (though many lawyers at busy firms work far more per day). You also have to account for your time in very small increments.

Most firms bill in tenths of an hour, meaning I keep track of what I do in 6 minute increments, keeping track of everything I do each day. Having to keep track of what you do every six minutes can be tiring, but it drives you to make the most of your time in the office.

As long as you love what you do, the amount of time you spend doing it isn't that important. I love my work, so my long hours don't seem so bad.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I'll never forget the look a lawyer friend of mine gave another friend of mine (a school teacher) who grandly announced that there were some days she was so busy, she didn't get home until 5 o'clock.

 

[KevinGress]

7am - 4pm, with an hour for lunch. Work comes in spurts. Right now it's slow so I can show up a little later and sometime take longer than an hour for lunch. There was a time 2 years ago when I worked every day for a 6 month stretch. I used to eat at my desk and surf, but decided that I learn more about the ins and outs of my company by going to the break room for lunch.

What I don't like is that I have an 50 miles commute, so that adds 2 hours to my work day. What's annoying is that I could easily telecommute most days and get just as much work done, but due to a department policy, that's not allowed, except for emergencies. I'd save so much time and money if I could work from home even 2 days a week.

I like what I do, but being that's it's slow and I'm not doing anything that I wasn't doing 14 years ago, I'm seriously on the verge of burn-out.

 

[DaveF]

Ok, a 2-yr old thread is resurrected. And I'm not going after Scott D specifically (if he's even at HTF anymore?)

This comment is the most interesting to me, because I see it, I'm related to it, and I live it in ways. I'm intrigued by the attitude that anyone working a paltry 40-hrs per week is a slacker and at risk of job loss in a downturn. Or that those working 60+ hrs are the upwardly mobile.

It's also interesting since, where I'm at, working 50hrs/wk is often the treadmill rate to not be a slacker (and one year it was 60 hrs). Upwardly mobile takes luck and 70+ hrs consistently.

I have no qualm against those that work 60, 80, 100 hrs per week for career advancement. It's simply a matter of one's priorities. (And I work 40 - 80 hrs/wk depending on a project's needs) But what bothers me is how it becomes normative, and they assume everyone should share the same priorities: I see a direct connection between this and management that implicitly expects everyone to sacrifice their personal life and family for the company.

And it can be insidious: I'm working with a friend who prioritizes her children over her job. She works hard and puts in her 50 hrs when necessary. But there are times when I think, "screw the kids, let your husband take care of them, 'cause we're behind schedule and you're needed in the lab." It can be a detrimental attitude.

 

[nolesrule]

I'm a real slacker then. I probably work about 20 hours a month.

I'd love to have more billable hours since I'm self-employed, but it's hard to solicit for them when I'm also a stay at home dad... a job that pays nothing but is more rewarding than any 9-to-5 (or whatever hours you guys work).

I've only been a dad for a year and half (in fact, she's 18 months old today), but I've been self-employed for 6 years now and there's no way I can go back to the grind of long commutes and office hours.

 

[mylan]

12 hours a day, 3 or 4 days a week. I have put in 60 hours, and even 72 hours in a week, add to that a 54 mile round trip commute and I'm gone from 6a.m. to 7:45p.m. I work in printing and we run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I swear, our motto is "when it absolutely positively has to be there two days ago..."

 

[Bob McLaughlin]

7.5 hours a day normally. However, I had a pretty nasty string of months last fall and early this year where working from 7:30 AM to 10:00 PM could sometimes happen, depending on business needs. I have two very young daughters at home who I would not always get to see awake. However, things are back to normal now. I couldn't do that on any kind of long-term basis, my home life and personal time is far too important to me. I'm salaried so it's not like I'm making any more money the longer I work!

 

[Clinton McClure]

I work Monday-Friday 7:30PM-4:30AM with frequent overtime and a lot of days I only get 5 minutes or so for lunch. (I should get an hour, but unless I leave the facility completely, I am constantly bothered.) I leave home at 6:00PM and usually don't get back home until close to 6:00 the following morning.

 

[drobbins]

I am at work 8 hours per day, I am working about 4-6 hours a day. ( see "Do you love what you do?" thread.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

That's why I've always preferred an hourly wage (like state workers get, for instance) to an annual salary. When workers are on the clock, there's a financial incentive to keep people working a reasonable number of hours. When workers are salaried, it's actually cheaper to have less workers working more hours because 4 people working 50 hours a week is one less set of expensive benefits than 5 people working 40 hours a week. That cost for the extra person is more than made up for by having to pay each of the other four time-and-a-half 10 hours each week.

 

[DaveF]

You'll find in many engineering shops, even exempt employees are paid overtime. I've seen this in manufacturing, automotive, and aerospace. In my experience, it's not a significant counter-balancing force. If there are urgent schedules and significant work to be done, then there's money to spend on OT to get it done.

And when people do think that 5 people working 40 is the same as 4 working 50, it can also lead to worse results, costing more money in the long run. Skilled workers aren't cogs to be thrown on and off projects (despite efforts to the contrary). Four good workers, already knowledgeable on the task working OT, can be more effective than bringing in that fifth person who is new to the team and/or less skilled.

It's tough business balancing work demands

 

[drobbins]

They changed the overtime rules in the past few years to stop salaried abuse. I forget all the changes, but if you do not supervise anyone, you could be able to get paid overtime.

 

[RyanAn]

I usually work from about 10:15 to 5:30 5 days a week, for the summer I was coming in two days a week at 8:00 am.

 

[Don Giro]

I definitely "work to live." When people ask me what I would do if I hit the lottery, I tell them that I definitely would never work again, and that, yes, I could find PLENTY to do all day without working or EVER getting bored. Besides, I tell them, with that kind of money, I'd fill up most of my day telling people to "kiss my fat a**."

I work from 6 AM to 4:30 PM most days, with no lunch break (unless you call the ten minutes it takes for me to go buy a sandwich to eat at my desk while answering company e-mail a "lunch break." When I go back to brown-bagging, it will be strictly so I can eat healthier, but I'll never get out of the office at ALL).

My immediate boss and I are the only ones who keep these ridiculous hours (by boss works from 7:30 AM to 9PM most days, doing work that shouldn't be his to do). Most others work 8AM to 5PM with an hour for lunch, a few work 9 to 5 with an hour lunch, and one woman in my office waddles in at 8:30 and bolts at the stroke of 4PM, with several smoking and bathroom breaks in between.

I also love when people at my company justify the length of their commute as their response to the longer hours I (sometimes) complain about. I commute 45 minutes each way, and I don't count it as part of the work day...

I used to have plenty of time to goof off and use the web, going so far as training myself to be an "anti-malware help volunteer" at an online forum to help pass the downtime, but for the last two years we've been under the thumb of a new partner that has no idea how bad he overworks the "smart" people (like myself), and we end up taking up the slack for those that f**k off all day.

The only things keeping me here is the fact that my immediate boss would end up being here 24-7 if I left, and that I know it's a hard job market out there for a 44-year-old guy who STILL has no idea what he wants to do with his life...

 

[drobbins]

Sounds like your immediate boss or those further up are not good at managing the workload across the workforce. Besides you, how many other workers does he manage? Why doesn't he motivate them into becoming more productive workers?

 

[DaveF]

I associate "work to live" with people who put in the bare minimum 7.5 hrs a day, and don't consider themselves star performers. But you're working 10.5 hours a daily, no breaks, and consider yourself a top performer. Those are usually hallmarks of people who are along the spectrum towards "live to work", and want to move up in the ranks.

 

[Lucia Duran]

Two days a week I work out of the warehouse (5 hour days). The rest of the week I work in the warehouse and lately they have been sheduling most part timers 4.75 hour shifts. When holidays come around, I will be back to 8 hour shifts I am sure.

4.75 hour shifts get one fifteen minute break and anything over 5 hours gets a lunch and two fifteen minute breaks.

I work anywhere from 25-36 hours a week. It varies depending on who is scheduling and what is going on.

I hate eating in our break room, because 1. the tables are filthy and hard to clean (think mesh top picnic tables) and 2. the tv in the break room is so loud and they always have sports on. I prefer to sit outside and get some fresh air and once in a while I will take a walk around the lot.

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

I work from 10 am to 6 pm on Mon, Tues & Thur. Wednesdays I work from home and Fridays I cut out about 4 pm. Most days I eat at my desk.

 

[Yee-Ming]

My first job was in a large law firm, where billing pressure was higher and the sheer amount of work to do was forbidding. 12+hr days were regular (9-to-9 or later), late nights till 3 common, and I did a few overnighters as well, the most bizarre being where certain Court papers were due on a Monday, so I actually came in on Sunday morning around 10, expecting it to be all-night so I'd brought the next day's work clothes along as well; I worked right around the clock, sort-of finished by 9 the next morning as my secretary came in, instructed her on the finishing touches and headed to the gym to get a shower. Back to office, checked that all the papers were in order, then scurried to Court to get them filed and IIRC also made an urgent application related to the case. By the time everything was done it was 6pm and I was completely wasted. At which point I left the office just after 6pm, which would have been a very early day otherwise -- save for the fact that it was after a 32-hr shift, not a 9-hr one...

 

[Radioman970]

Just a few hours in the morning, of course.