TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Oh Frankie.
sad day for johnsons bakery
- Thread starter graystoke4
- Start date
linnfomaniac83
I bet you can’t wheelie a unicycle!
Respect to him!
Even at the age of 20/21 years, I found 90 hours a week rough. What made it worse is that I was working at two different places which meant that I had the added time for traveling between them... but it got me into my first home and I was able to buy all the things we needed without getting into debt. With a new born baby at home and a tired misses, I had to cut back (to about 50 hours), I wanted to spend time with my family. I kept that up until I got a very well paid 40 hour a week job.
I still do some mad hours sometimes, if I’m running sound for a festival, I can be on site for five days straight and whilst you’re not technically on duty for the whole time, you’re not at home and certainly not able to relax. You always get knob heads who shout at the top of their voices all night long at festivals.
I’m not work shy, but I’ll always make sure I have time for my daughter, I split from her mother when she was three years old and she’s been with me full time since (long story).
Monitor Gold 10
pfm Member
Some in the Transport Industry do; albeit spread over two weeks, I know of a Rota worked by London Bus Drivers that is about 70 hours over a Seven Day Run. This is achieved by a Working Week running from Saturday to Friday. The seven day runs are spread between two Working Weeks...
To be honest you can work long hours for short periods. I did a Bernard Matthews Christmas season. 2 million birds were killed and processed in 6 weeks. I had a weekend off on the 20th Nov and then in the month to Christmas I had 1 day off. I was generally working 10-12 hours a day, sometimes coming in at night. It was hard but not desperate, and after a month I stopped. The time it's impossible is if you work like that for months on end. That's why the Working Time regs are over 3 months. Something the EU got more or less right, at least.
Incidentally one thing I would change about the WTR is the days off arrangement. The hours are averaged across 13 weeks; the maximum is 48 hours on average. This allows you to get through the busy periods, seasonal stuff like harvests, etc. You can work 84 hours in a week, or for 2 or 3 weeks, but you have to back off within the 13 week period. This is fair enough. However for days off the regs say 1 full day off a week, OR 2 consecutive days off after 12 days working. This is rather inflexible. I've broken the WTR by employing myself for 30 days out of 31 (or whatever it was), so do farmers and other self employed people as a matter of routine. However I knew that come the last Friday before Christmas I was done, I was going home for a week off at least. This you can cope with. I don't know what would be most reasonable, but I'd settle for (say) 4 days off in 4 weeks, taken when you can and with nobody working for more than so many days without at least 1 day off. I suppose that in practice it would be difficult to implement and police.
I suspect no many want to, though lots do. I spent a few years doing around that as a junior M&A lawyer for a huge international law firm. It's hard work, but I was in my 20s so had the capacity. Worst weeks were over 100 hours.... A standard week was 60.
Many years on, I've had my share of working hard but never for that sort of sustained period.
I suspect my wife - an academic at a leading university - probably does close to that every week. But hers is an extraordinary internal drive that leaves no stone unturned (or continent unvisited, judging by her recent travel commitments).
Brown Bottle
UTB
As someone who gets up most days at 03.50 I can sympathise. I’m not stuck in one building either so I’m quite lucky I guess.
Cheers BB
Cheers BB
richardg
Admonishtrator
You must have got really tired. You showed great hendurance. Did you need an alarm cluck?
Still
he said his naim was ralph
I spent a couple of decades working 12 hour shifts (7 days on out of 14).
The standard pattern was two weeks of early shifts (8am-8pm), the two of middle (10am-10pm) then two weeks of late (12 noon to 12 midnight).
Due to operational requirements there were regular really 'orrid shifts e.g. 4am - 4pm, 10pm - 10am, etc.
My basic was 42hr week, but I regularly worked 80-90hrs a week.
Not complaining as a lot of the tasks were good fun and overtime was well paid.
edit: I did a lot of grumbling at the time!
The standard pattern was two weeks of early shifts (8am-8pm), the two of middle (10am-10pm) then two weeks of late (12 noon to 12 midnight).
Due to operational requirements there were regular really 'orrid shifts e.g. 4am - 4pm, 10pm - 10am, etc.
My basic was 42hr week, but I regularly worked 80-90hrs a week.
Not complaining as a lot of the tasks were good fun and overtime was well paid.
edit: I did a lot of grumbling at the time!
Last edited:
JensenHealey
pfm Member
Part of the factory here runs continentals - 4 days of 12 hours, 4 off, 4 nights of 12 hours, 4 off. Some chaps been at that for 20 years. Plenty of overtime opportunities seems to be an attraction.
Back in my computer service engineer time we did some incredibly complicated shift patterns with a 6 week loop time. But there was a block of 6 days off in the middle which was great. the shift premiums more than paid the tax due on basic salary, so it was not altogether bad. I did once volunteer 14 days of 16 hour shifts to help out. That was hard.
Later when starting my own business the hours got truly epic for a few years. Not only hours in attendance but permanently on-call too. Went through a period of 6 months - 7 days a week at about 14 hours a day - a special team would come in overnight to set up for work the next day. I took a holiday after that! When it calmed down I had to deliberately disconnect from work and I did make time to go and find a wife. Somehow managed that - and we are still here 24 years and 3 kids later. Same business and I do about 35 hours a week! Retirement perhaps 4 or 5 years away now.
Back in my computer service engineer time we did some incredibly complicated shift patterns with a 6 week loop time. But there was a block of 6 days off in the middle which was great. the shift premiums more than paid the tax due on basic salary, so it was not altogether bad. I did once volunteer 14 days of 16 hour shifts to help out. That was hard.
Later when starting my own business the hours got truly epic for a few years. Not only hours in attendance but permanently on-call too. Went through a period of 6 months - 7 days a week at about 14 hours a day - a special team would come in overnight to set up for work the next day. I took a holiday after that! When it calmed down I had to deliberately disconnect from work and I did make time to go and find a wife. Somehow managed that - and we are still here 24 years and 3 kids later. Same business and I do about 35 hours a week! Retirement perhaps 4 or 5 years away now.
Toyota shifts were various depending on which part of the plant you worked at, the main assembly lines were two weeks of days and two weeks of nights alternating. I worked in the press shop and we did 6-2, 2-10, 10-6 rotating as we had an extra shift where as assembly only had two. Then they shifted us all on to the same pattern. Also worked regular day shifts with compulsory overtime when a new model launched, quite a few months of 6-7 days straight through, after a few months they had to start sending some of us home on time because we were way over the working time directive.
6 years of my life wasted at that bloody god awful place, wish I'd never clapped eyes on it.
6 years of my life wasted at that bloody god awful place, wish I'd never clapped eyes on it.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
I did many years on shifts. I'd argue that shift working is more acceptable for 'routine' work. To keep the level of intellectual functioning required for more 'cerebral' tasks, over very long hours, is IMHO, less likely, although safe working, even on routine stuff, is likely to be severely compromised by long hours.
12 hour shifts are idiotic, by definition. There are only 24 hours in a day. 12 hours at work, maybe an hour either side for 'to and fro' ing', leaves 10. 8 hours sleep., leaves 2. It's not sustainable.
The worst pattern I ever worked was 2 days, 2 nights, 2 off. With this, your '2 off' only coincide with a weekend every 13 weeks. Also, your first 'off'.. follows a night shift, so you're in bed for much of it, and your 2nd 'off', precedes a day shift/early start. Lunacy. I worked more complex but far better 12 hour systems.
The most intense period I did was around 1995. I was 46 years old. I was working a minimum 40 hours as a careers adviser.. ( I know.. but more demanding than you'd think...) Add in 4 evenings per week youth work. Add being a member and chair of Parish council, meaning at least two meetings and often many more, per week. Add in being a Nalgo/Unison rep at local and regional level, with numerous meetings, plus travel commitments. And finally, Mrs Mull being away studying..meaning I was also running a house and two school age daughters of 7 and 12.
I thought I as doing very well.. until I was flattened by an MI, which changed my life.
It's not worth it.
12 hour shifts are idiotic, by definition. There are only 24 hours in a day. 12 hours at work, maybe an hour either side for 'to and fro' ing', leaves 10. 8 hours sleep., leaves 2. It's not sustainable.
The worst pattern I ever worked was 2 days, 2 nights, 2 off. With this, your '2 off' only coincide with a weekend every 13 weeks. Also, your first 'off'.. follows a night shift, so you're in bed for much of it, and your 2nd 'off', precedes a day shift/early start. Lunacy. I worked more complex but far better 12 hour systems.
The most intense period I did was around 1995. I was 46 years old. I was working a minimum 40 hours as a careers adviser.. ( I know.. but more demanding than you'd think...) Add in 4 evenings per week youth work. Add being a member and chair of Parish council, meaning at least two meetings and often many more, per week. Add in being a Nalgo/Unison rep at local and regional level, with numerous meetings, plus travel commitments. And finally, Mrs Mull being away studying..meaning I was also running a house and two school age daughters of 7 and 12.
I thought I as doing very well.. until I was flattened by an MI, which changed my life.
It's not worth it.
I think us Brits are just shit full stop when it comes to working hours and work/life balance. Doesn't seem to matter what career or line of work your in, they all have shit hours. At the minute I'm lucky enough to be doing regular days, except my hours aren't fixed day to day so I could be required to be out of the house at any time between 4:30-6:30am so regular sleep pattern is a pipe dream, plus I don't get paid for 2 hours of my day so a basic "40 hour" week for me is actually 50 hours, plus the over time as I'm barely lucky enough to land a flat week...
It's madness but folks just put up with it as "that's the way it is".
I'd love to come into some money, not because it would mean I could buy a load of tat but so I could sack off work altogether, working is for mugs.
Still
he said his naim was ralph
It ain't necessarily so. istm totally dependant on the task(s) required of the employee, wether they get appropriate breaks (length, placement within shift, frequency), etc.
mandryka
pfm Member
Agreed. It's a shame, but I think you're right. Not surprising given the toothlessness of the unions and the sheepishness of the people.
It's like, there's a new proletariat. Not made up this time of manual workers in cotton mills but made up of service providers in offices. And just as the factory owners knew that maximising returns and minimising pay meant that their profits increase, so the modern day businesses know that the secret of shareholders getting more is getting the employees to work more.
What astonishes me is that history repeats itself like this, the people don't learn the lesson. But the bosses learn quick enough!
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
Indeed. The people have largely 'bought' the whole 'pricing yourself out of a job' bollox and have let the unions be crippled. Now they are voting for national economic suicide, to leave a friendly local group of similar states and becoming a vassal state of an America run by a mentally unstable child.
I despair.
JensenHealey
pfm Member
Hmm you should working in the USA where they measure annual holiday in just a few days. And half of folks don’t take all of those anyway.
I used to think this, I'm now self employed. I could probably stop tomorrow, buy a small house, but I like my work. I work when I want, where I want, within reason. It's not about the money, which I would have laughed at 10 years ago.
Count your blessings, sadly I reckon you're in the less than 1%.
lordsummit
Moderator
It is possible, I left a job and career that I’d come to loath, and through a couple of sideways steps have ended up enjoying working, I’ve gone from feeling sick as I walked through the doors of one employee to being to a large degree the master of my own destiny. There are financial worries, but the benefits to my mental health are beyond belief.