This question brought to you by the fact that I carpooled with my 8-5 colleague today so that Jammies could take the car into the shop and man, is this day long or what.
I used to carpool with her every day, before I had kids, so I regularly stayed all day, and I'm not exactly more productive, but I sure do get a lot more read on the internet when I'm here all day.
8 to 5 does not sound normal at all. But what do I know.
I did in fact google, and most of the answers aren't solid except that there seems to be widespread agreement that 9-5 doesn't exist in practice.
Both offices I've worked in long-term, the theoretical hours were 8:30-5. Time for lunch is not really relevant to the exempt.
Staff at Heebie U is 8-5, or variations there-in.
Lately I've heard 8-5 (I read too much Ask A Manager) but I'm still surprised people work those hours.
It took me a couple years working in the US to realize that you don't necessarily get a paid lunch hour if you're scheduled for 8 hours (8 hours on the schedule and paid = 1 hour lunch + 6.5 hours working + 2*15 minute breaks). When I worked at Wal-Mart in university, they were very strict about scheduling us for 7 hours (= 1/2 hour lunch + 15 min break + 6.25 hours working) so we couldn't take more break time. The paid breaks and lunch were mandated federally, I think. We HAD to take our (paid) breaks.
Anyway, I still work Canadian hours and never get in before 9. My mother is actually super impressed that I now make it in before 10 (only because of the bus schedules).
Our staff works 8-5 or 9-6 with an hour lunch break. Standard 8 hr day everywhere, I thought. NYC may have some 10-7 or different lunch break rules. This is going to end up like the bros arguing about how many times you go to the gym per week if you go every other day.
I'm exempt, but I fill out an imaginary timesheet -- that is, I clock in a 'full day' regardless of how long I actually end up working. Our timesheet calls a full day 7.5 hours: a workweek is 35 hours on the clock, which I assume represents 9-5 with a half-hour lunch.
If it ends up that beautiful, my work will be complete.
Our timesheet calls a full day 7.5 hours: a workweek is 35 hours on the clock, which I assume represents 9-5 with a half-hour lunch.
Wait. Call in the bros, stat.
I could ask someone hourly, where they're actually getting paid for their hours worked, what they're scheduled for, but I assume it's the same as my timesheets show: 7.5 hours for a full day, presumably getting in eight hours before you leave with a half hour lunch break.
10: Did I actually get incoherent somehow, or are you just hoping it goes that way?
I think I get what you're saying, but I was operating from the assumption that it would add up to 40 hours when I added back in the half hour lunches, and it didn't.
Or put another way, I was thinking the 7.5 were work hours plus .5 lunch, which exceeds 35 hours.
Oh, duh. I did screw up. A full week is 37.5 hours on the clock.
So you get into work at nine, leave at five, take a half hour lunch each day, and get paid for 37.5 hours of work.
(And I was distinctly assured that you were not an arithmetician. How come you caught that?)
The paid breaks and lunch were mandated federally, I think. We HAD to take our (paid) breaks.
Paid breaks are mandated; paid lunch isn't. In our big telecom contracts, workers get 1/2 hour paid lunch, but I think that's pretty rare among non-union hourly workers.
Which explains why notional breaks don't show up on my timesheets -- the hourly workers are supposed to be taking them, but not clocking in and out for them.
Oh yeah sorry, this was in Canada and lunch was paid. So I'm sticking to my federally mandated (Wal-Mart would not have done anything they didn't have to wrt workers' rights).
I "sign" something every week saying that I worked 7.5 hours a day (or used leave to get to 7.5 hours a day).
True story, which I think I've mentioned before. My grandfather was a blue-collar union worker in the central time zone. He would watch the local news and the first half hour of Carson (maybe longer if the guest didn't suck) and go to bed by 11:00 or so. He was up at about 7 and to work by 8. When my uncle moved to the eastern time zone, my grandfather apparently had trouble with the concept of Carson not starting until 11:30 because it meant that if people still had to be to work at 8 (which they did in Ohio), they got an hour less sleep.
8 is exactly my situation except that 7.5 * 5 is 37.5 in this state.
My wife recently realized that her workplace is officially 7.5 hour workdays, with half-hour lunch breaks, BUT when she's been taking time off it's 8 accounted as 8 hours for a day and 4 hours for a half-day. This seems.... not correct. I suppose I'm not sure if her accumulated "vacation hours" are accruing as if days are 7.5 or 8 hours. Possibly nobody knows.
We are supposed to take 30 min unpaid, so 9-5:30 or 8:00-4:30.
If you work more than 4 hours at my place you are required to take a 30 minute lunch. So don't ever work between 4 and 4.5 hours.
I'm supposed to work for 7.5 hours each day and take an hour lunch. Not that long ago I wasn't exempt, so every once in a blue moon I would get overtime. But a few years ago the librarians convinced the lawyers that we were professionals, so we should get to work extra hours without extra pay.
Mr. Robot works 9-6, with a mandatory, unpaid, one-hour lunch break. His previous job, at a different firm, had a seven-hour work day, and he could get in as late as 10. He misses that place.
Old place was unusual because we were on the West Coast and had traders. I'd get in around 7:30, take 90 minutes for lunch so I could swim, and leave before 5, though I can't remember if it was 4 or 4:30. New place is very much 9-5, which is to say, mostly deserted before 9 and after 5.
No one closely tracks hourly time for anyone at our place, but it's considered poor form to schedule meetings before 9 or after 5. Technically our vacation accounting says half day = 4 and full day = 8, and you can only take half or full days off.
What the heck do you do with kids if you have to be in the office at 8, school starts some time between 8 and 9, and you don't work right near home or kid's school? There are many options for after-school care since it's common that school is out before work, but are people also needing to get before-school care?
Here it's 7:30 to 3:30 with a half an hour for lunch.
Summer hours are like 7:30 till 2 and Ramadan is 9 to 1, you get in do a thing and leave.
Our assistants (formerly secretaries) and paralegals schedule an 8 hour day starting anywhere from 730 to 10- some lawyers insist on a particular start time, most don't, but it has to be the same every day. This includes a full hour paid lunch. Over 40 hours including lunch, you get overtime.
Why? We frequently represent employees in overtime-related class actions, and the people who type those briefs may also be reading them.
My two most recent software jobs (before that was a freelancer) have been pretty relaxed about hours. In general, no one schedules a meeting before 10 or after 4. Or during the official lunch hour (12 to 1).
Full 8 hours or more of working is probably the exception for me rather than the rule.
I'm surprised by how specific our regulations are: breaks are paid, lunch is not. Unless they make you stay at your machine.
http://www.mtrules.org/gateway/RuleNo.asp?RN=24.16.1006
I feel like we're not getting to the bottom of possible regional differences here. My CA employer has very flexible work hours, but I've always held myself to roughly 8 hours (9-5 or 10-6), minus meals and breaks. It's been more-or-less the same at every Coastal Elite job I've had.
I feel like we're not getting to the bottom of possible regional differences here.
My understanding has long been that 9-5 is coastal and 8-5 is non-coastal. It's never been totally clear to me how this intersects with lunchtime standards.
My California jobs (hourly and salary, in the Bay Area) have been officially 40 hour work weeks, with at least 30 minutes for lunch, but not required to be just 30 minutes for lunch. So, essentially 8:30-5 but if you take a longer lunch you arrive earlier or stay later.
My east coast job hours are harder to track because one of the jobs it seemed like everyone worked over 8 hours/day, and I don't remember the schedule for the hourly one but I think it was a 40 hour work week. But my salaried east coast job in the same field I'm in now was officially 7.5 hours/day 37.5 hours/week and I think when I factored in the work week difference my first year on my job in CA was barely a raise over the east coast job if you considered it in terms of hourly pay.
My understanding is that if you don't work out four times a week, you're not really working out every other day.
My one East Coast job started stupid early because we had a daily product that had to be on currency traders' desks when they came in to start their day. Then there was a general breakfast break, although calls to Yurp sometimes got in the way of that. On the other hand, lunch was early and the day finished pretty much right afterward. None of us had kids then.
In Munich, we kept journalists' hours, which meant people were happy if you got to your desk by 10. After the company moved out to the site of the old airport, that was good because by then I was taking two kids to separate preschools by bicycle and then riding nearly the full length of a subway line. 9:58am was my friend.
In Moscow, I was 8:30-ish to 5:30-ish, because Moscow commutes are long and very crowded. Plus I was slightly eccentric about lunch.
In Russia, lunch is eccentric about you.
Call to people on other continents complicate my scheduling. It doesn't happen very often, but if there's a call, I'm expected to be open to any time from 7:00 a.m. through 9:00 p.m., but I can also do these from home. Which, I've taken as general permission to work from home if I really need to.
What the heck do you do with kids if you have to be in the office at 8, school starts some time between 8 and 9, and you don't work right near home or kid's school? There are many options for after-school care since it's common that school is out before work, but are people also needing to get before-school care?
Our public elementary school offers before-care.
Isn't it pretty rare for an elementary school to start after 8:00? I guess I've never paid attention to when other people are getting their kids to school, but if I'm commuting after 8:00, I don't seem to see any school buses.
Where I grew up, middle and high school started at 7:50 but elementary school started at about 9 (maybe 8:40?). A lot of kids got to elementary school an hour early and they would just have us all sit on the floor in the gym and talk to each other until time for class to start.
Ours is 8:55-2:55- probably another regional difference. I put my kids on the bus at 8:10, bike to work and arrive at 8:30.
Our district has a range of start times and lengths, including some with 8 hour days which can tend to concentrate lower-income people into those schools because it saves them child care costs.
The way they do it in Panama is that you put your kids on the school bus at 7, then you head to work for 8. Kids reach school at 9, are in school till, say, 4, get on the bus home, and get home at 6 by which time you're home again. (This is if you live on one side of Panama City and work in the middle and the school is on the other side, which is apparently sometimes the case.)
And if not it'll do the brats good to walk instead.
We don't even have a canal, just rivers.
Seems like they should include some instruction time on the bus if the kids are going to be on it for 4 hours a day.
I think that's where they learn the good swear words.
54: agreed. But, still, god, imagine it. At the age of eight you have a two-hour commute. You spend twenty hours a week in a school bus.
My kids try swearing in German. Unfortunately for them I learned the swear words first, even before the pronouns.
58: True. It's right there in the mouseover and everything.
I don't even know how adults manage the commutes around here. Most of the permanent staff live in far-flung suburbs that would be an unbearable commute except that they get to work at like 7:00 and leave by 3:00. The younger people (graduate students and that ilk) and most of the senior people live in the city.
50: 8:55? Weird. Right next door to you elementary school hours are 8:10-2:30, and everybody can show up for free breakfast starting at 7:30. So getting to work *at* 8am would be marginal, but possible.
That wouldn't leave any time to catch Pokemon on the way in.
Pokemons must be extinct in Panama by now.
What the heck do you do with kids if you have to be in the office at 8, school starts some time between 8 and 9, and you don't work right near home or kid's school? There are many options for after-school care since it's common that school is out before work, but are people also needing to get before-school care?
Here, there's free early care for anyone in elementary. I think it opens at 7 and their school starts at 7:45. Everyone gets free breakfast, too. (After-school care is not free.)
I have a phone meeting, but this one somebody will be in my office with me so I can't take off my shoes. If the rule about shoes has changed, let me know in the next ten minutes please.
California timesheets and billing here. I've always filled out timesheets, since as a design engineer we billed clients for the time dedicated to their project. Now as a plan reviewer, we mark our time against projects, though the billing depends on the specific contract--some are percentage of fee, while a few are T&M.
Even when I was working in a city at the building department, the schedule was 8 hours paid plus an hour unpaid for lunch; the same was true as a design engineer.
Specifics setups of my various engineering jobs:
1st job: Worked 7:30 - 4 with a 1/2 hour lunch. The 1/2 hour lunch had a big, though subtle, effect, grinding me down over the months.
2nd job: 8 am to 5 pm with an hour unpaid (usually noon-1).
2nd job, Summer schedule: 7:30 - 5:30 with an hour lunch M-Th, Fridays 8 - noon.
3rd job: 8 am to 5 pm with an hour unpaid (usually noon-1).
City hours job, the 9/80 schedule: Work 7:30-5:30 with an hour unpaid lunch, get alternate Fridays off. Lunches were staggered--you either had an 11:30-12:30 or a 12:30 to 1:30 lunch, so we maintained at least half-staff at the counter. The alternating Fridays off were similarly staggered among staff to ensure that half of the staff would be in every Friday. It was considered a dick move to take your scheduled Fridays off.
Current: 7:30 to 4:30 with an hour's unpaid lunch. (8-5 is also fine, but with no commute, starting at 7:30 works for me.) The general idea is that we work for the jurisdictions, so we should be available when they call us. But they're relaxed about errands and appointments, and you can just make up the time else-when in the 2 week billing cycle.
36: The Ramadan hours are interesting. Does commerce in general slow way down, or is it just jobs like yours that let the pace slacken so?
68 We're kind of a quango, I guess, so we're on government hours. Most regular businesses are on 9-5 hours. I don't know how much they get off early. I wonder how the summer + Ramadan effect has on our hours since these past few years Ramadan has been in July and June. I'm not sure they'd do 9-1 in January but maybe they do. It's great only you really don't want to be in the country for June-July-August.
Also now that we are operational and open for the public from 8-8 and have shift work now I wonder what they will do for the summer and Ramadan, we should have reduced hours but I'm not sure if that also means they will open late and close early.
My most recent salaried job, the expectation was in between 8:30 and 9, leave between 5 and 5:30, hour long lunch acceptable but I usually ate at my desk. Plus 30 minutes of emails scattered through the evening, and 5-10 minutes right after getting up. Throw in an hour someplace on the weekend and a for sure 30 minutes on Sunday evenings. God I hated that job.
39: that's what I had here, but sometimes breaks got forgotten.
In the UK, 'standard' would be more like 9 - 5:30. Standard work week obviously varies from job to job, but 37.5 is pretty normal.
In my current job, it's 37.5, but I don't think I've ever worked that. Typically, I work a fair bit more, although I have flexibility for child care, and sometimes work from home.
I never get overtime. Although sometimes people working for me do.
Yeah, my hours are basically 9.30 to 6pm, but it's regularly half an hour extra either end. Some other people on my team come in much earlier and leave earlier too. I've never worked anywhere that formally logged time for salaried employees (unless they were in a disciplinary process). They've always been "as long as you get thew work done" kind of environments.
I should say, my contract says 9-5.30, but I've almost never been on that schedule since I started at my current place.
73. London tends to run half to an hour later than the rest of the country because so many people have to commute from Bedford or somewhere because they can't afford to live at the standard they demand within reach of the tube.
This used to cause ill feeling in Mrs y's job because the people in Sheffield thought the people in London never got up in the morning and the people in London thought the people in Sheffield just skived off every afternoon.
So you get into work at nine, leave at five, take a half hour lunch each day, and get paid for 37.5 hours of work.
This is my job, and I love it. (Lunch is rarely only 30 minutes, but that's the official story.) My husband's shop is 9-5, with an hour for lunch. Lucky gits.
Really weird work/life shit these past few days, but I'm too fucking bombed right now to relate anything right now. Right now.
I'm fine right now but there may be some fallout (which could either shake out in me being fine or me packing my bags). In other news there's another potential opportunity in the region which may open up soon.
If you mean president of Syria, I don't think that's going to get open.
80: Good luck. Wishing you well from afar.
78/80: Hope that things swing the right direction for once!
Thinking good thoughts for you, Barry!
Thanks all, and to you too J, Robot.