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What Happened To The 40-Hour Week?

8:30--5:00 with an hour lunch. Everyone takes there lunch here, but I work for a Swedish Company (in the US).
 
I once worked in a position where my boss would get mad at me because I left work at 4:30. All of my work was done on time and everything in my section was under control. He just thought I should stay late because two of my employees worked a later shift and he thought it was bad business for me to leave before them (they came in late so they could take their kids to school before work). He would have rather had me sitting in my office waiting for them to leave to "set the example." I wouldn't have gotten paid any extra.

Now I work 8-5 with a 1 hour lunch.
 
What really gets my heckles up is that I think most of us would agree that it is normally feasibly possible to get all the work we do in our 50-60 hr weeks done in 40 hours if we put our minds to it (and stopped wasting time browsing MacRumors 😉 ) but if we did do that and got home to see our families at a reasonable hour the boss would consider that we were not pulling our weight, being part of the team etc, etc, and would put us on the top of the redundancy list. So now we have this crazy situation (at least in the various companies that I have worked for) that a lot of people serupticiously waste time that they could be with there wifes, children, partners etc because they do not want to be seen as the person to leave the office. 😡
 
I'm an intern making $10/hr and I come in at 9 and leave at 5. Nobody ever told me when I should leave or tells me to leave. So I assume it is 5, I often leave after people who come in after me. I was also never told how long I get for lunch, so I just take however long it takes to eat my food. Easy job really.
 
It is interesting how so many compaines are saying that "we have to tighten out belts, we have to make cutbacks",,etc. This, while the folks in the executive suite are making millions in salary, plus perks that most working class stiffs can't even imagine.

Something I can't figure out, is how some executives who fail in their jobs get to dance out the door with multi-million dollar severance packages. I was working as a contract employee at Polaroid when that once-great company hit the skids, and it was like a parade of executives departing, with their pockets full of cash. And the production floor folks? The engineering staff? The various support people? Well, you know. Some who spent their careers with the company, expecting a nice pension, wound up with nothing, and in deep financial problems.

I know most of the members here are younger than me, but have any of you seen this yet?

Then again, maybe I can figure it out. 😡
 
I know you all have a right to complain, but do you realize that the 40 hour work week is a luxury? If you're working 40 hours per week, then consider yourselves pretty lucky. I think we all have it quite lucky, but it depends on what your expectations are, and what you're accustomed to hearing. Apparently, you think that a work day is 9-5 (ie: 7 hours of work + 1 hour lunch).

My cousin works around 11 hours per day, 5 days a week. She's a solicitor. Sometimes she works more. So do her friends and colleagues. The only people I know who work less are (some) friends back home in Canada, US, UK, and in Australia. Outside of the top 5 or 10 economies in the world, people tend to work a lot longer than 40 hours.


I think you're experiencing the effects of developing countries "catching up." It's partly greed related, but some countries just don't want to fall behind. Before, you could work 8-9 hours per day because you were well on top. Now, you have countries like South Korea growing like crazy, and cities like Seoul becoming an expensive city. I don't know anyone from Korea that works 8 hours per day.
 
What Happened To The 40-Hour Week?

What Happened To The 40-Hour Week?

Simple. It just ends on Wednesday. Then on Thursday AM you start another 20 hour "week". You see, there are actually two weeks packed into every "old" week!!! You're really get a lot more out of life! You should be happy you are working so much!!!😛😛😛
 
I don't have it too bad, generally a 45-50 hour work week, in around 6:00 a.m. most mornings and try to be home by 5:00 (with accounting for a 30 minute commute). Some days I have obligations to the wife/kids to get out earlier but I usually make up for it on other days. I eat lunch out once a week for an hour, otherwise I eat at my desk.

At my previous company they kept rigorous track of the hours you worked. At one point they were "upgrading" the timekeeping system and you could only enter up to 40 hours/week and thus anything extra was completely undocumented/unprovable. I actually had a lunch with a manager a level or two up from my direct manager and he basically told us to start working 40 hours and leave type weeks...

At the time, and sometimes now when I'm being disgruntled, I do remember that whatever contract I signed for working was to get my salary for a 40 hour work week and that I should not have any false loyalty to the company just because they pay me. If times get rough I know they wouldn't hesitate to let me go. Makes it easy when I'm the first to leave the office for the day knowing that if they wanted me gone they would kick me out the door. Sacrificing time with my family for a company that could drop me on a moment's notice isn't worth it.
 
Yea i have been wondering the same.

My dad works 7:00 to 6:00-7:00. He said that because business is booming he has to work at least a 10 hour day. That does not include his 1.5 hour commute.

My mom is supposed work 8:00 to 4:30 but usually ends up working until 5:00 or 6:00.
 
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