Hard at Work
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I have a great job. I tend to work a 40-45 hour week, flexible, at all hours of the day and night, and seven days a week, but it's on my schedule and I rarely have any time-sensitive work. So I can delay something for a few hours if need be because something else came up.
However I hear from many of you in IT jobs that work a lot harder: 50, 60, or more hours per week and on-call regularly. However I've been there before and there are many times I felt it wasn't worth it. Working lots of hours often isn't a badge of honor, nor is it good for you. Some employers are starting to appreciate the knowledge and efforts of employees and recognize that they need to get time off to be productive and effective consistently. Of course there are many employers that give this lip service and still expect their employees to work 60 hours a week and be on call for every question or query they want to send from a Blackberry.
I wonder what will happen if the work week changes? I saw this article about the next generation of employees are looking for a shorter work week. Work/life balance is a topic in more and more job interviews and flexibility is something I've heard many people rank as a higher priority than many other job benefits. So with this being Friday, here's the poll:
What's your work week?
On average, what do you expect to work at your current job? Feel free to include what you desire as well
I know we all have projects that might require extra hours. Maybe even for weeks, but I'd certainly argue that anything that runs beyond 6 or 8 weeks turns into a death march with a loss of productivity. I think you'd be better off reducing hours every 3 weeks for a week to let people unwind a bit and get a break and have them come back fresher for the next 3 weeks.
Of course you can't do that for long. If there's not an end in sight over the next 2-3 months I think you've really mis-managed your project and you should adopt a longer time frame for completion. I feel this way in a crisis as well. If you can't solve it in the next 5-10 hours, you should immediately send some of your people home so they can return fresher rather than having someone work 24 hours in a row.
Some of this definitely depends on the demographic of your staff as well. Single, unattached people can push a little harder than those with families. Not that they get more work done, or that the work is better, but they can definitely crank out more hours.
If you respond, I'd also love to know how the rest of your life balances out. What suffers (or benefits) if you have a heavy (or light) schedule?
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A few years ago I worked a 9-5 day shift and 9 to 5 night shift everyday. Being a single (Dad) parent and working when the kids are at school or sleeping had its bennefits.
My son remarked one day that he also wants to do IT when he is older. I ask why and he replied "Then I can also work at night dad!" I had to laugh. He will completed his Masters in Bsc CS this year, age 21, and can finally enjoy his night job.
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A few years ago I worked a 9-5 day shift and 9 to 5 night shift everyday. Being a single (Dad) parent and working when the kids are at school or sleeping had its benefits.
My son remarked one day that he also wants to do IT when he is older. I ask why and he replied "Then I can also work at night dad!" I had to laugh. He will complete his Masters in Bsc CS this year, age 21, and can finally enjoy his night job.
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"unattached people can push a little harder "
I do not agree. With a competant wife at home, that does not work, my support system allows me to push up to a third harder than single people and people with a partner that works. They allways have something to do at home, like groceries, washing, pay accounts, etc. I work in a company with a lean structure and so work is never finished. Out of an IT dept of 10, I am the only one that scores top marks comes evaluation time. All because of my support system.
5ilverFox
Consulting DBA / Developer
South Africa -
Japie,
I'm jealous. my colleagues seem to think that a single man like myself would have it easy, no ties or binds. but by the time i finish my working day, travel home, make dinner, wash up, iron shirts, feed the cats.... the list goes on.. then i have time for one beer and then on to bed.
for the last 5 years i've worked on call one week in 4 (at least) and worked unsavoury hours in addition to 55 hour weeks. I recently got made redundant and it's the best thing that happened to me.
I now work for an amazing company who really look after me - i do 35 hours a week, flexible around me, with no on call (in fact security kick us out of the building if we're there past 5:30 and they don't open the buidling until 8:30am)
Even though i'm paid 10% less in my new role i'm far happier healthier and relaxed. All i need now is the support network!!!!!!
MVDBA
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For your poll, I work a 39 hour week, 8 to 5 on Monday to Thursday, with a half-hour lunch, and 8 to 1 on Friday, giving me Friday afternoon off. In fact, the entire company closes on Friday afternoon.
But this type of work is not always time-related. I have solved problems in minutes that others have failed to solve in hours (and vice versa, of course!). The obsession management have with time-keeping is, I think, mainly because that is the one thing they can measure accurately. There must be a better way!
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For more than a decade, I've work days of 9 hours minumum, excluding the two hour commute to and from the office. Once I got a wife and kids (= a life), I very quickly decided I needed more time to spend with them. A little bit less than a year ago, I changed to an company in my home town. Now it's just 10 minutes by bike AND I get to take my little girls to school. In the evenings, I am at home on time for dinner AND I get some time to fool around with them. On top of all that, I get the job done AND get good ratings. The price to pay for all this was that I had to learn to work with Oracle instead of SQL server. As soon as I manage to convinve management to give me an SQL server, I can start thinking about working part-time 🙂
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37.25 hours per week....and after 20years I'm "pacing myself". The 18/36 hour shifts are long gone and won't be seen again by me. Work now just pays for "life outside work" ....which revolves around a 4yr old boy and a ladies soccer team I manage.
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I was recently "down sized" from a national insurance company's IT dept., and it's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. Their philosophy was to "chew 'em up and spit 'em out". They wanted to guarantee that each position would turn over every 2-3 years, keeping employee payroll on the lower end of the scale. Of course, they had their official company stand that employees need to find a balance between their work life and home life, but did not mention that they expected every employee to work 50-60 hours per week. The go-getters worked even more.
Now I work in my state's IT dept and on a 37.5 hour week, with no take home devices, on-call lists, or blackberries. Very sweet.
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I'm originally from Boston, but have worked in London for my entire career. In my company we come in between 8 and 10 and leave after about 7 and half hours. For me, this is ideal as I leave at 8:15 and I'm home from work by 6:45. Plenty of time for the gym and to socialise. I do my 37 and a half most weeks and have had to work over 40 hours twice in 6 months.
Please set me straight if I'm wrong, but from talking to my pals in America, would this be deemed as a short week over there? I'm thinking about eventually moving back, but couldn't bear leaving for work at 7 and getting home at 8 like a lot of my friends in IT over there.
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Certainly my experience would show that to be a short week. I typically do 40-43 hours per week, depending on 'things'.
And I have been on call, generally 2 weeks out of 4, since 1992. That may sound terrible but I'll say this: after enough 2:30 am calls, you start writing better software. I don't remember the last time I was called when I wasn't physically here.
On the other hand, I have the best boss in the world. With him, everything is AFTER family. I have the flexibility to take care of issues outside of work on MY schedule and the ability to make up missing time when and where I choose. All in all it is a worthwhile trade.
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Buy the ticket, take the ride. -- Hunter S. Thompson -
I used to work in an IT department - wearing the hats of DBA, system administrator, tech support, and programmer. A good week was 40-45 hours of work. A typical week though was 50+ hours, including being on call all the time. It wore on me. Sure, my husband and I worked together and lived near work, so we could go home for lunch all the time. But the stress of being on call and wearing so many hats wore me down and I eventually ended up getting home and feeling totally worn out.
Now I work as a programmer and do 40 hours a week, with no on-call time. It's nice to go home and not worry about work. I don't get to spend lunch with my husband anymore, but I get to spend time with him at night and on the weekend with a lot less stress. And I get paid more than what I did for wearing more hats - which goes to show that I was underpaid and overworked.
My company says "Make a living. Have a life." and they definitely mean it!
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I work 39 hours from 8-16.30 (safe by some incident). So home by 17:15. The flexible hours are really appreciated.
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I try to stay right at 40 hours, some weeks more, rarely a LOT more. I am however on call 24/7 as the only DBA where I currently work (and has been most places I have been).
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I usually don't work more than 40 hours per week anymore. Earlier in my career, I worked 45 - 60 hours per week plus was on call one week out of six. I missed a lot of holidays and vacations with my family and I will never get that time back.
Now I try to get out of work at a decent time and I work at home at least one day per week. In good weather my husband and I usually spend one weekend day taking our Harleys out for a spin. I don't know that the balance between work and home is perfect, but it is good.
Gladys
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