Working 40+ hours a week and multi jobs etc

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Originally Posted By: ZZman
Americans are known to work a lot. O.T is common as is working long hours on salary. It is not uncommon to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

I often worked 40+ hours a week taking O. T when offered and working a full and part time job.

How about you?


Never base money needs on accumulated overtime. Always base your future bills on 40 hours pay.
Try to spend as much time as possible with family. If keeping up with the \Jones / wanting all the toys, is your goal in life, then be prepared for a-lot of regrets when you age.

Your kids will be more thankful / cherish all the memories with you, being next to them more often. When they enter adult life, they won't complain about not having all the toys other kids in their neighborhood had growing up. They will likely thank you for always being present for them, while growing up.

I wasn't home for my kids enough - when they were growing up. Being absent from their hour-to-hour activities in late evenings during their school years, is a big regret of mine. I got too involved in working those jobs and giving them too many toys.

Wish I hadn't done it that way now. For my kids may have cherished family life better, had we remained a foursome in activities more often.
 
40 hour weeks in London would be considering a short working week in London and the South East.

I am semi retired but still clock in 40/50 hours a week

I would consider 60/70 hours to be long hours.
 
I am a mechanical engineer (working in aerospace currently). Thankfully, have yet to have a job that has really required any OT even as salaried employee. Currently I work 40hrs each week from 7-3:30 each day and if I do work any OT, it would be paid at my base rate. Even my previous job, same type of deal. Both jobs had excellent work/life balance which was practically a requirement for me to switch jobs. Current place is super flexible and I don’t think it could get much better. I have lucked out, no doubt. Compensation is also fantastic as well, which helps. Talking with other friends in the same field locally, they are not so lucky with the work/life balance where they work. Work more hours, company is falling apart, etc... I also never check my emails or get any phone calls once at home, either. I completely disconnect once I leave work… I need my time, away from work, to be happy. I won’t take exception to that if I can help it.
 
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I've worked private public and local government "civil service" always made out okay. Never made OT in private but the pay per job was good except when the job took longer than expected to complete.

Worked for Terminix made good money lots of OT 12-15 hour days 6 days week if you worked the reward was more work lol.

Civil service pays good great benefits state retirement the package is one of the best. Never will be rich as a laborer but i eat good drink beer and own a home. Can work your 40 always the same pay plus contractual raises and OT is readily available if wanted.
 
Originally Posted By: Dyusik
I worked 70 hours a week on one of the two jobs I had. Have nothing to show for it. Even if I did, cant remember any of it. Time is the most valuable commodity, too many of us spend it chasing something we dont need, or even want.
 
The REA G&T I worked for did not pay management overtime for anything("adequately compensated in salary schedule") and we put in a lot of overtime on six and eight week scheduled overhaul plus many more when a unit was off line for anything. This occurred over twelve years. The company filed for bankruptcy and was taken over by another REA G&T. One of the first things the new company did when it found out management had been working overtime hours without compensation was to determine what all management personnel were owed and issued checks. It was a nice gesture and the new owner was a very good company to work for until retirement. Another nice thing the new owner did was to fire a few management people who had needed ousting for years. Also put union employees on notice that the stuff that had been going on for twelve years would not be tolerated.That included pot heads and posse comitatus agitators who were paid a visit by the FBI and the IRS one sunny morning. It was great watching the fan go splatt.
 
What is this 40hr thing you speak of? I worked 84hrs last week!

If there is no OT available our normal shift schedule (12hr shifts) are 36 and 48hr weeks. ~14 shifts a month.
 
My GM plant plant has been running 3 shifts 6 days a week for years and we just started working sundays too. We still cannot keep up with demand for our large SUVs. In addition to these long hours I also run an auto repair and restoration shop so I am always very busy.
 
"They" say night shift and various work habits have a direct connection to health issues.

I wonder if we're so unhealthy because we work so hard.

And why are we so proud of how busy we are?
Why is it more socially acceptable to say "I've got 5 full time jobs" than it is to say "I like watching Maury Povich while eating Pringles" (provided you are not a burden on anybody financially, emotionally, physically)

Makes me think of Fight Club

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [censored] we don't need. "
 
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Originally Posted By: Walmill
"They" say night shift and various work habits have a direct connection to health issues.

I wonder if we're so unhealthy because we work so hard.

And why are we so proud of how busy we are?
Why is it more socially acceptable to say "I've got 5 full time jobs" than it is to say "I like watching Maury Povich while eating Pringles" (provided you are not a burden on anybody financially, emotionally, physically)

Makes me think of Fight Club

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [censored] we don't need. "

01.gif



Then again, Fight Club also teaches us that:
"Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction... "
So maybe there's benefit in destroying one's self thru overworking and destroying yourself
21.gif
 
Originally Posted By: GMBoy
My GM plant plant has been running 3 shifts 6 days a week for years and we just started working sundays too. We still cannot keep up with demand for our large SUVs. In addition to these long hours I also run an auto repair and restoration shop so I am always very busy.


How does a person apply for those positions at the plant, if you don't mind me asking ?

I sometimes post job openings here on BITOG.
 
It was my standard work pattern, I'm now retired.

But even my "easy" jobs were more than 35~40 hours/week. I started at age 19 in retail working at a shop that was open six days/51 hours a week, I had a key and would be there an hour or so longer every day. Did that for five years before quitting to return to school and get a degree.

I worked through college doing drywall and housepainting; my parents had no money to help with school. So a full time student and still working 25 hours a week, usually.

For most of my career I would work 80~200 days in a row, and at least 10 hours/day, then take two 30-day vacations May and September.

It never bothered me to work long hours, and I got a lot done recreationally after hours, more than many people I knew with fewer hours to tended to just sit at home watching the tube or surfing the 'net. I suppose it helped that I was good with five~six hours sleep; I actually could never sleep longer than that (I was rarely in bed before midnight, often 1~2 AM, up at 6~8 depending on the job).

In my experience you energy level is way higher when you work long hours, so it's not really a matter of not having time to do other things after work. When I took my vacation time I would be up super early and stay up very late at night just as if I was working, and wasn't tired.

I had to retire due to health reasons, and they would have happened regardless of my work habits, it maybe even would have been more severe if I had worked less as I was otherwise in perfect health and had good eating habits, was 6' 1" and 185 lbs. During the worst part of my illness my weight had dropped to 104 lbs and my Drs were concerned my weight was at possibly fatal levels but I did get better. I'm back up to 160 lbs now. I still sleep only 6 hours a night.
 
I pull an on-call rotation one out of every 4 weeks, so 13 times a year.

Last rotation, I had 19.5 hours on my time card for a single day. I can usually get 20-30 hours of overtime during that on-call week, so that's like working an extra 10-12 weeks/year.

I get the occasional OT during other, non-on-call weeks. I have one schedule for Thursday night that could be 1-8 hours depending on how it goes.

I'd say I get 180-200 hours of work per month, so 20 to 40 hours of OT on average.

Edited to add, the above sounds a lot like my upbringing. I worked jobs while in school. I even worked in the lunch room during elementary school so I'd earn my free or reduced priced lunch since my single mom didn't always have money.

I got an ROTC scholarship to go to college, so tuition was paid for, but I still had to work summers and a job during school for living expenses.
 
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I started out working my first several years as an auto tech at age 19 working 50 hours a week. Then I went to a place where we did 44 hours a week and finally was down to 40 hours a week. As a tech if you couldn't make a living off 40 hours a week, you were doing something wrong.

Now I am in an entirely different industry and typically work only 40 hours a week unless there is an emergency or big project, which is infrequently. I do have weeks I am on call and that can vary greatly, i have had no overtime and I have had 30 hours overtime on call. Typical is about 10.

I work to live, I don't live to work.

I honestly think that a lot of the breakdown of our society is due to people working insane amounts of hours. It has an effect on people, even if they tell themselves it does not. It will either effect your family, your children, your marriage, your mental health or something else. Another big factor in the breakdown of society is the flip side, people who wont work at all.

But are we really having a breakdown of society? Lets go back to the crusades.... Maybe things are a lot better now than some of us will admit.

When I am on my time I like to spend time with my family, read, and do the kind of "work" I love.

It helps the things I truly love to do are cheap or free. I honestly don't lust after material things like I used to. I lust after hikes in the woods, a good book, watching my child play. I have what I need. I am comfortable. But to many Americans I probably live like a second class citizen. I simply value my time too much to give it away at a fraction of its value any more than I have to.
 
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Originally Posted By: 5AcresAndAFool


I honestly think that a lot of the breakdown of our society is due to people working insane amounts of hours. It has an effect on people, even if they tell themselves it does not. It will either effect your family, your children, your marriage, your mental health or something else. Another big factor in the breakdown of society is the flip side, people who wont work at all.



I think people need an occupation; if I'm sitting at home on the weekend and my wife's staring at her phone and the kids are independently playing outside, I could be tinkering in the garage, working a paying job, or surfing the web. Each has its own benefits. We often don't organize all 168 hours in a week all that efficiently-- working, then resting, forces focus.

I can usually get Saturday OT if I ask for it. When I don't, I suddenly have "free time" because I modify my schedule/ routine to get done what's needed in the time allotted.
 
I'm now cruising toward retirement a few years hence.
My three direct reports have gotten really good at what I need them to do, so my workload and stress levels have declined greatly.
I know that I've put more than forty hours in over a week, but it was long enough ago that I can't quite remember when that happened.
I'm in a happy place with my job these days.
 
37.5 hours per week government employee. I have a monthly salary but it converts down to an hourly wage used for OT. Overtime has never and will never happen in my current job title. In a previous title I could work 2 hours a day and 5 hours on Saturday for 15 hours of OT per week. I worked with people that banked enough time to take an entire month off of work. I never could see being at work 6 days a week for 7 weeks straight just to take a month off. Heck, you would need the month to recuperate.

I value time with my family, friends and hobbies more than $$$ so I never worked much. I generally only worked OT to bank some time if I knew I would be needing it soon.
 
One of our rules when we had kids was for my wife to stay home, and for me to work 40 hrs a week. We both had fathers we never saw - gone to work before we got up, home after we went to bed, and then weekend work. They both died young, we were 13. The plan went out the window when I had my own business, but my kids have never seen their father working his life away. I'm not as well set up for retirement as all you hard workers, but I'm happy.
 
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