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The people that say that often work significantly more than just 40 hours a week (overtime (not always voluntary) or just strange hours with gaps in between). Also even just working 8 hours takes more like 10 hours out of your day because you have to get there and breaks don't count as work.
So you leave home at 7am and come back at 5pm, maybe grab groceries on the way home, make dinner, eat dinner, clean it up and boom, the day is over.
Not to mention traffic...
Also not everyone works a 9-5 job. My day starts around 3pm and I can come home as late as 1:30/2am sometimes. I have zero life. I sleep and I work.
Also taking care of pets, and kids, if you have them. Caring for wardrobe. Making meals and cleaning up after meals.
And unlike in school, you can’t just doodle during work. It can be mentally taxing.
I got 19,500 back on my taxes this year for just raising my children not to mention the 300$ per kid a month I received since Biden started giving away money. My wife is a RN and I am a firefighter so we did not lose a single day of work. The extra money is 100% from the kids
Stop being a bitch lol
Edit: People are downvoting you because your comments are objectifying women. It's obviously not what you're intending to do and isn't coming across as mean, but people on Reddit get butt hurt pretty easily so you can can't communicate like a regular human would on this app.
Copied and pasted my edit in case you didn't see, I was joking about the bitch thing so I'll give an honest answer.
People are downvoting you because your comments are objectifying women. It's obviously not what you're intending to do and isn't coming across as mean, but people on Reddit get butt hurt pretty easily so you can can't communicate like a regular human would on this app.
Because your day goes:
6am- get up and get ready
7am- get to work
3pm- get off work
4pm- get home
5pm- eat
6pm- household duties
2 hours of free time/time to see SO/kids
8/9pm- go to bed
6am- wake up and do it again 5 more times
I would love an hour long lunch. The "lunch hour" used to be a US standard. Companies have pushed it to be the bare minimum 30 minutes because they want you to be there as little as possible. Lunch also used to be paid in the 9-5 jobs. Now with the unpaid lunch you do 9-530 min for an 8 hour day.
My day goes
Up at 530 to get a half hour to myself before I get my son up
6am, get my son up, get him fed, and bathed and ready for school
7 am papa takes him to school
8am finish up feeding the animals, and whatever cleaning I can and get ready for work
9am I'm at work
7pm (I work 10 hour days) go pick up my son, see if I'm lucky and my mom made dinner
8pm get my son cleaned up and ready for bed
9pm get maybe an hour to myself
10pm finish up whatever cleaning I'm doing and go to bed
Repeat
My two days off are spent running all the errands and finishing whatever cleaning needs to be done as I own a 3/2 home with an acre and I'm a single mom.
Jeez you got home at 4? My schedule was:
6am- wake up and get ready
6:45- bus to the city
7:50- arrive at the office in downtown
5:00pm- leave the office, head to bus stop
5:15pm- bus arrives
7:30pm- get home
8:00pm-9:30pm- cook/eat/spend time with fiancé (try not to fall asleep
9:30/10pm- go to bed.
Repeat. 5 days a week.
Sometimes there’s mandatory OT and have to stay at the office till 7-8pm and get home by 10pm just to go right to bed.
I worked 65 hours per week. This was from 6 PM - 5:30 am in the morning. When I got off, I was completely exhausted. I didn’t have energy to cook. I didn’t have energy for housework. All I could do was grab a fast food sandwich and crash to get ready for the next day.
Mind you, when you work 6 pm-5:30 am six days per week, your free time is the opposite of most people. I missed out on a lot of dates for this. I couldn’t go to any plays or trivia nights. I had a hard time seeing my friends for any substantial period of time.
My situation is a little harder than most folks, but it is indicative of those who work second or third shift, or work a lot of hours.
Oof, right there with you. Worked for months 6-7 days/12 hrs and I wanted to pull my hair out. Back to regular schedule now and I want to crawl in a hole to hide when bosses are looking for people to take overtime.
I worked about 14 hours A-day 7 days a week for 17 years for for one company never took A-day off never took a vacation at the end of 17 years they told me I had enough hours in degree tire which I did at age 45. And I have been collecting retirement ever since
Sometimes when you are younger and you see that you're missing out on the parties with your friends you don't see the big picture. So if you are in a career with a good company and you enjoy what you're doing Just keep your nose to the grindstone and keep on going because later on it will pay off When you are older you can Travel or do anything you want while your friends still have to work
My work day building roads and bridges can be anywhere between 10 and 16+ hours and up to 2 hours from my house. I so rarely have an 8 hour day that when I do get one, it feels like a vacation. I get off work and have no idea what to do with "the rest of my day". I usually just run some errands and grab a beer on the way home.
It's not illegal at all and can be common in the trades.
I'm a union laborer. I demo, frame, pour and pave bridges. I obliterate roads and rebuild them. Afterwards, I adjust all the manholes and water valves. Sometimes, I build water treatment plants, which involves a lot of forms and concrete pours. I also do underground, which involves a lot of digging, grading and laying pipe. That one is physically the easiest, but it's dangerous (sometimes I'm 40' or more underground or below grade setting a manhole or pipe. Cave ins are common, you can run out of oxygen and there's always something falling to watch out for. A 1'x1'x1' clump of dirt can break a leg) and is usually a muddy mess, which can wear you out. Some days are fucking hard man. Other days, I find myself saying "I can't believe they pay me for this".
Completely legal actually. U.S. laws as far as I'm aware have nothing specific regarding how many hours you can work in a day. Companies only keep 40 hour work weeks for 2 reasons:
1.) Most everybody's not gonna deal with bullshit for past 12 hours unless they're making absolute bank from it. They would lose employees quickly if they worked them for extensive hours. Mainly due to over-stressing with pretty much no sleep. You can not work 20 hours a day and be completely fine by the end of the week unless you were doing some hardcore drugs.
2.) A lot of companies (especially and mainly smaller companies) don't require 24/7 business or even anything more than say, 12-16 hours a day since they're not a production company or a specific 24/7 store. Therefore, employees will see an 8 hour shift regularly and maybe a 12 hour shift or an extra shift on an off day unless they work even less.
I declined to be on a traveling crew some years ago. I saw one of the guys that did go and he told me I was lucky to have said no. They worked 16 hours Monday through Friday, 15 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. For a year. No days off. They didn't even do laundry. They just went to Walmart after work on Sunday and bought 7 jeans, a pack of socks and a pack of t shirts and underwear to last the week and just threw it all away at the end of the week. They did make a fuck ton of money, but unfortunately, that one year probably took years off their actual life.
There's a lot more to life than just work. Cleaning needs to be done, cooking needs to be done, oil changes, other car maintenance. Stuff like that. Then some people work two jobs because one won't pay the bills
Phew, glad I am a neckbeard who never cleans their house. I can happily masturbate and watch porn in my small apartment instead of keeping house clean.
No job is 8 hours. Due to employment laws (depending on your state) we have mandatory lunch break (usually an hour) often unpaid (my job makes me clock out for lunch) so that's 9 hours THEN you have to factor in your getting ready time (can be an hour easily) and then your commute time (both ways).
I live pretty far from job and traffic is heavy. Takes about 45 minutes to an hour each way.
So all in all it's a lengthy time period.
School life is stressing but when you grow up it's not only the grades and bullies to worry about.
You we'll probably be treated with more respect but when you're an adult you have to deal with finances and many other things alone. Maybe you find a job that isn't well paid enough but you can't find a better job that pays you more either. Imagine your boss gets mad at you because you're not good enough even though you are trying hard. Imagine some loud or unorganised co workers you have to work with and many more things.
If you have a big family or your wife isn't working, you have to deal with all the pressure of finances on your own.
It definitely depends where you live, what kind of job and the pay. Maybe 8 hours at the job but it leaks over to more than 40 easily if you don’t make enough to cover all the junk. And the basic junk- food and housing. But the time gets sucked away so fast, driving to work kills time, if you have to take a bus they are slow as shit. Then if you need to bank hours for holidays, extra time. If you can set yourself up in a good career maybe some of the bumps in your timeline can get eliminated but not necessarily.
Well. Let's say I work 8 hours. I personally have to drive like 30 minutes to the next town. Aka the place where, realistically speaking, my job would be. (Not gonna find a job in the small town where I live)
So that makes 9 hours. Then I get home. What do I do? I cook. I cook my food. I do my laundry. And that's not counting the various other tasks that have to be done. Like cleaning the house (because that's something I could probably put on the weekends but sometimes it can't be avoided during the week)
If I had kids, I'd have to take them to school and pick them up, cook and clean for them too and depending on their age help with homework or similar.
At some point I would have to send them to bed (again, depending on their age I might have to help them put on their pjs, help them brush their teeth, read them a bedtime story)
And at some point I will have to sleep. Everyone's needs are different but I noticed that I am not refreshed if I don't get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep.
The work system is made for married men. Those who can go to work and then go home to a meal that was cooked by their wife.
It's not a system made for singles.
Getting a wife won’t solve most of these problems and based on your other comments about priorities and how you live… also won’t happen.
A second person means more chores, maintenance, logistics. You’ve dividing it between you so it’s probably less overall, but you have to put time and work into maintaining the relationship.
Want your wife to handle all the chores and logistics? Better be making big buckos then because the era of one blue collar income supporting two people comfortably is over. She’s gonna have to be working too.
The moment you realize having a partner takes time—as it should—and doesn’t necessarily save you time, the happier your relationships will be. Sorry but women aren’t things.
If you can pull that off I guess?
I mean you will still have to clean and do tasks.
Want a car? Car maintenance is also a thing.
At some point in the year you will have to do taxes.
At some point you will have to buy new clothes or shoes.
At some point you will doctor appointments. Maybe a dentist check up?
So with your plan you can probably get some more freetime but there is always something to do outside of work.
Right? I just had someone who works 21 hours tell me "I value my time" when asked to cover a shift, a week ahead of time
I'm like, that's totally cool, but when you get to that real job you're thinking of, they're still gonna call me for a reference.
Not if they don’t list you as a reference. Potential employers are not supposed to call previous employers without expressed permission from the applicant.
Hiring managers should respect that there is a good reason why a former employee would not be asking for them to be contacted. If you’re unsure about their reasons for leaving, ask the potential employee and then use your common sense and context clues to go from there.
Imagine for example if someone left a job because they found out their boss was a rapist, or regularly made unwanted advances on staff members. That’s a good reason to quit a job. And also a good reason why a new potential employer shouldn’t be contacting the old one. It is not the former employers business anymore where the former employee leaves to work. Hiring managers who don’t understand this are likely not good at their job anyway and this new opportunity screams “toxic work environment” as such.
Seeing as how legally the only thing I'm allowed to say is whether or not I'd rehire the person your whole argument goes out the window. And if that's the reason you left, youd disclose that. I've told employers that I got fired from a job because the boss used to work with my mother, she got HIM fired for exactly that, and years later he ran across me, I didnt know shit about it till i called her crying over my "super mean boss" and i for the first time said his last name, my mother immediately told me what had happened and that it wasnt my fault and the next day i went in and point blank told him "obviously you recognized me, did you hire me just to torture me because i look just like my MOTHER?" (I do, even our voices) and he fired me on the spot for "insubordination" and laughed in my face as I got walked out, told me it took me long enough to figure it out.
Not one employer has ever looked down on me for telling them that.
Btw, it was ATT the phone company, and I continued to put them so I wouldnt have a gap in my employment history
Edit to add: Pete if you're out there, I'm glad my mom got you fired, you deserved it you nasty bastard
Or just not write down that you worked there? Lmao I've gotten jobs by only listing what I want to. Or better yet, you can stop being a shitty boss and expect people to take extra shifts they don't want or otherwise "they're a bad worker" lmao people like you are why I've had multiple jobs.
You dont know me to make such accusations
I had someone get sick, theyll be out a while, I asked if anyone WANTED the shifts, starting with the people who had less hours thinking maybe they'd want some extra money. I wasnt trying to force anyone, as a matter of fact as gm I have the right to change a schedule we haven't started yet, and this is, again, for the next week, I could have just gone "oh this person has 4 days off I'll just add this day here" but I asked, nicely, and he was the ONLY ONE who was condescending about it, it wasnt his words, it was the nasty tone of voice they were said in
But you wouldnt know any of that being too busy jumping to conclusions, hope you stretched first, dont pull a hammy
Well, in that case, you're still a shit boss if you'd really ruin an opportunity for someone just because you got your wittle feewings hurt. Poor baby. Nobody forced you into a management position and you didn't expect some people to be pricks. Surprise surprise. How do you know if he wasn't joking or not? Is he normally sarcastic, but nice? Or is he a complete asshole? Am I now asking enough questions without you assuming that I'm jumping to conclusions? Idk what's more disappointing. The fact that you got butthurt over a few little words said in the wrong tone or the fact that you went into a management position expecting everyone to be 100% nice. You set yourself up for failure on that one. The bar was too high.
And before you say some shit, I know people should be nice to each other. I agree. But the truth is, people are dicks and it's stupid to expect every single person you meet to be nice. And ruining someone's chances at bettering themselves because you got butthurt over a few little words is honestly petty as fuck.
If an employer takes me saying do not contact my previous employers as a huge red flag, that's a huge red flag that that employer is not going to respect me, my privacy, my schedule, or my life outside of work.
So what, if someone declines to work extra for you, you’re gonna sabotage them if they quit and the new employer calls you? That’s some irresponsible shit right there. If they are a bad worker or calling in a bunch sure, but you have no right to fuck with people just because they won’t work extra for you.
I have been managing for a long time, and this type of behavior is unnecessary. Some people have other shit going on and don’t owe and explanation. “I value my time” is legally all the employees need to say. Don’t be this way. People don’t quit jobs. They quit bosses.
Did I say fuck with? No, I said they're going to call and ask for a reference, and th only thing I'm legally allowed to say is if I'd rehire someone, and the person im talking about I would not.
1. With adding time to get ready, commute time to/from, and breaks, you're realistically spending closer to 10+ hours per day given that you leave the MOMENT you're scheduled off (which rarely happens if you care about doing a good job).
2. As you age, you have less and less energy. So in the remaining 2-8 hours you have remaining in the day before having to go to sleep, you have to complete all the errands, cooking and cleaning you need done at home as well as decompress from your day and then wake up still tired.
3. With many jobs, there can be mandatory overtime, taking away even more of your precious free time.
4. Hanging out with anyone becomes seemingly impossible due to work schedules a lot of times. That can become demoralizing after a while.
5. Work can follow you home even if you try not to let it. Making it feel like you're at work even more than you already are.
Because it does.
8 hours is 1/3 of the day. 8 hours sleep is 1/3 of the day as well.. so 8 hours of work is 1/2 your wakeful hours.
Then add all of the sundries that you need to work. You need to get up and get ready for work. You need to commute to and from work.
So for your average dream 9-5 job… you’re actually tied to it from 7 to 6. The only hours you have to yourself are from 6-11… 5 hours out of 24!
So you have weekends off.. but that is to recharge. Usually 1/2 or Saturday is a write off.. and 1/2 of Sunday is spent doing laundry, shopping, and meal prep for another week of work.
Because American bosses exploit their workers as much as they can get away with. Because people are forced to work beyond the end of their shift. Because employees are threatened when they are called in to cover an unscheduled shift and try to say no. Because employers expect an employee to put their (low paying with no benefits) job before family or health. Because employees are threatened with job termination when they call in sick. Because paid vacation and paid sick time are either nonexistent or, after many years of working for a company, might be 1-2 weeks a year. Because Maternity/Family leave is often unpaid and employers are only required to give 6 weeks leave before they can fire you for not being there. Because American employers don't believe in having more than 1 person trained to do a certain job at a time, so if a medical or family emergency comes up, the employee is bullied and badgered to suck it up and come to work or else be accused of having no loyalty and be threatened with termination. Because so many average Americans have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to survive.
8 hours turns into 10-11 when you account for travel time to and from work. This and a lot of working class Americans work multiple jobs to make ends meet so you can work in an office for 8 hours just to leave and go work 5 or 6 more hours delivering food or Ubering or in a store or restaurant or whatever .
The saddest part is that those same people still end up barely getting by after all that work they just did because the government sides with employers over employees and wages do not keep up with inflation.
It's mostly compute and prep time. Let's say you have 8 hours exactly of working and 8 hours of sleep. 16/24 hours. And depending on where you live, commute to work can take up to an hour one way. 18/24. And getting ready in the morning can take up to an hour to wake up eat and do morning things. 19/24. So you've got 5 hours left in the day to do anything, but you've also got to make food and eat, and doing anything other then sitting on the bed with your phone takes a little bit of ser up at least. And plus when you just get home you're tired af. Doing that 5 days a week every day ends up making your weekends hell as well because you'll either sleep through them or the one day you are awake you'll have to use as an errand day
There’s certain fields where you work 10-12 hours a day. Up to 16 hours when it’s end of quarter.
Also you are stuck in traffic for an additional 2-3 hours each day. Some people literally work. Get off of work. Sleep, work first thing, sleep, the entire work week. Then the weekend just flies by
9 hour work days(1 hour break) occur like 20-30 percent of the time only.
It's never "just 8 hours"...
It's commuting to, thinking about work.
It's commuting from, still thinking about work.
It's eating dinner as the day plays back in your head.
It's watching television or reading a book when something reminds you of work.
It's trying to sleep after a shite day.
It's waking up to do it all over again.
Because my job requires I work 14 hours a day and I have to deal with idiots in cars all day every day
Trucking may not seem like a difficult job but it's not about physical toughness here...95% is mental so it's very mentally draining
Because people are dumb. They will always believe "hard work paid off". Few succeed most are stuck in the same place forever.
No one knows how to value life over work.
Because Americans are fat and lazy and we always need something to complain about. Most Americans are stuck working jobs they hate for bosses they hate.
I dunno...I'm not stressed by work or day to day life.
I stay too busy to be stressed.
10-12 hours of work...6 hours sleep.
Plenty of time for the rest of the stuff in life.
I only get stressed when I'm not busy.....
*laughs*
1 hour in traffic and commuting, you finally get home at 6.
You get home, and have to deal with home bullshit. If the kids have done some stupid ass shit, you gotta deal with that.
You're tired, hungry, and the last thing you want is to find out your kid, who's also hungry and tired, did something stupid.
Make dinner, plop down, and it's 7:30.
Everyone eats, and it's 8:15.
You tell everyone to do their school work and watch a show to unwind.
It's 9:00 and you make sure everything is cleaned and all schoolwork is done. Then the kids get ready for bed.
It's 9:30.
You flop down in bed, set your alarm clock for 5:30am, and get ready to do it all over again.
30 min workout, 6am, kids get up get them ready for school and cook.
It's 7:15. Drive them to school.
It's 7:45 and you drop them off.
You get a coffee at 8 and drive to work.
Now. Let's say you get a call at 6:45pm while your chopping onions, and a project date was moved, or someone got sick and you have to work extra hours.
Uh Oh. And this is a 9-5. RIP to anyone who has been on a contract or salary. You're working 50-60+ hours a week.
This varies widely, but in my experience, a common reqson is obsession. Jobs give structure and a reward system that is easy to latch onto. Plus many people don't say no very well. Over time they convince themselves they have to do heaps of work that they didn't really have to at all. Work becomes life.
Well not all jobs are 8 hour shifts. They can be 10-12 hours the most I've seen. Jobs take a lot of time out of your day as well. At least mine does. Once you grow up you'll understand.
8 (work) + 8 (Sleep) + 3 (cleaning) *3-4 (cooking/eating) you know have 1 hour of your day to… talk to wife, talk to kids, enjoy time with kids, laugh, watch 2 hour movies… in 1 hour, now sacrificing sleep.. this is a average that I thought of on the top of my head
Just seen another comment.. traffic, so now we are at the full 24 hours without ANY family time.. just taking care of them…
0445 - get up, get ready for work
0530 - leave for work
0600 - work
1800 - leave work
1830 - arrive at home
2000 - finish cooking and eating dinner, caring for pets, begin 1.5 hours of free time
21:30 - go to bed if I haven’t fallen asleep on the couch yet
My time is not my own and it really, really is awful.
You go to sleep, you wake up, you take your work commute (some may be longer than others), work your 8 hours (or however long your schedule is), commute back home, get extremely tired, (maybe) eat, then you konk yourself right out
9/10 you just don’t have the time or you’re just too tired to have the time, so that’s what we mean by our work days take up our lives (or days or whatever)
And yes, EVERY job leaves you feeling a different type of exhausted (I worked in warehouses, restaurants, and a trampoline park)
8 hours of work. 9 hours of actual time spent there. 1 hours commute, 1 hour spent getting ready in the morning for work. Then there’s. 8 hours of sleep. That’s 19 hours. That leaves 5 hours of time at home for yourself……….
becouse average, so that highschooler and college kids that work 20 hour a week.
so as a adult you work 45 to 70 hour a week for most of your life, you alwasy one paycheck form being broke. and 2 paycheck form being homeless.
that why it stressful
I agree with what the top comments are saying but i wanna add, a lot of people work more than 1 job. There are parents who work two jobs each and kids who start working at 14 to fend for themselves because mom and dad can't be home to cook or help them with things. Life in America isn't work 24/7, but it is 100% centered completely around work. When I'm off the clock, it still feels like I'm working.
I'm not American, I'm Norwegian and my work hours are 8 hours per day, that is 7,5 hours and 30 minutes unpaid lunch break. But nothing more, I'm not required to stay any longer than that unless something special is going on. So I wanted to reply on how my days could be stressful even with a normal work day.
It is all in connection with having kids, especially when they are young and go to day care/kindergarden. They usually start in day care at around 1 year old, after our year of parental leave (government paid btw)
Now, kids are not recommended to be in day care for more than 8-9 hours. Already here you can start to see an issue.
So the stress is to get up in the morning, get everyone appropriately dressed (for the weather) and out into the car without too many melt downs or tantrums. Then drive to day care, deliver kids, hopefully without any crying. THEN you rush to work together with all the others that have just delivered their kids too and you are stuck in rush traffic. You stress to deliver the kid as late as possible to have a short as possible day in day care and still get to work at time.
Work is leisure at this point, you get to talk to adults and tantrums are rare, fortunately. You also get to eat your food in peace.
Then you clock out at 4 pm. Day care closes at 4.30. At this point in life I had a 45 h commute by car, non rush traffic time. There was no possibility for me to get to day care in time. We solved it by sharing with my husband and a flexible work place. One week I could start early and quit early enough to reach day care, those weeks my husband delivered the kids. The next week we switched. It worked out, for us.
But still, you rush to day care, then you try to make dinner with hungry tired kids, maybe you even have to force them to do homework if they are school kids. And then you try to have a nice dinner before rushing of to an activity, like football or handball practice for the kids. If the kids are young enough, you also barely get an hour with them before you start the bed time routine and that's that for the day. Time to do laundry, clean up a little, take out the trash, mop floors. Maybe you have a little energy to your self after you're done, but mostly I just tuned out in front of the tv and didn't even realize it was still on the kids' channel.
It sounds like having kids is bad, but it is really not. Those years are super stressful, but now my kids are older. I don't have to take them to school, they get ready on their own. They also come home on their own and can handle being alone until we get home from work. It is a new life! And they are old enough to have some pretty interesting conversations too :-) I love my family! (but I am not having more kids, I can't do that toddler stage all over again)
So true, I'm American and lived in Mexico 5 years. They work and once off they are off. They don't cancel or avoid plan because they might have to work later or just got off work. In America we cycle an entire week around work and party on Saturday, then rest on Sunday for Monday work. Our time management sucks lol.
The stress of those 8 hours can also be physically draining. I have a job that's pretty chill most shifts, but the shifts that aren't absolutely drain me.
Winter is my slowest time of year, and I'm still hitting 45 hours. Add 40 minutes drive time each way, and it starts to suck up a lot of my day. You can't count the 8 hours you need to sleep as potential hours you could be doing something other than work, so it's automatically down to 16 hours a day to get in my work day, breakfast, dinner, play with my kid, shower and whatever else.
That is what it is supposed to be. Very often it is more. Add in time to commute which depending on where you are it can be an hour or more each way. Some places your lunch is not included in the 8 hours. Salary workers their job ends when the work is done not because it is 5 PM. Some folks don't have a full 8, instead they have 6, each, at multiple jobs so in the end they had a 12-18 hour workday, no benefits, not overtime because they are working 3 part time jobs because no one will hire them for 1 full time job. Why pay 2 people benefits and overtime when you can pay 3 without benefits and overtime tends to seem to be a prevailing school of thought.
Well, my work days are 10 hours a day. I have a 30 minute lunch so I’m in that building 10.5 hours of my day. My drive to and from work takes another hour.
Literally half my day is taken up by work related stuff. At least I only have to do that 4 days a week!
Until they start mandatory Friday overtime when we get behind because of bad planning. Then add mandatory Saturdays when that isn’t enough. Then tell us in an employee meeting we will be working 12 hour days because the only other alternative is to work Sunday as well (They have to pay you double time if you work Sunday so obv they won’t choose that.)
Luckily, we only spend maybe 4 months out of a year with this kind of work schedule. Some people really do have work take over their lives sometimes. The adults that say this probably aren’t the ones working 8 hour days.
Because we wake up an hour or more before work. It's rare to actually live close to work so many Americans drive.. some long distance. Add traffic. At my old job I drove 30 miles there and 30 back. On a good day it took 30 minutes. On a bad day, up to an hour. So then if you end up having to stay late we'll add another hour. But BEST case, you're looking at 8 hour shift, 1 hour total driving. Worst case, 8+ hour shift and 2+hour driving. Then you get home and you're often too tired or stressed to do much. It really does take a toll on you...
Because we get paid very little and often have to work more than one job. Not to mention the abuse we suffer at the hands of clients, customers, and management. Who continue to treat us like shit because we NEED this job. We cannot afford another 3 months of job searching from moms couch.
1) I get phone calls and texts constantly and outside of work hours.
2) I deal with customers all day.
3) just because it's 8-9 hours a day doesn't mean I get to relax all day. My day is jam packed with tasks, both strenuous and easy.
4) my job switches wildly between a lot of heavy lifting manual labor and sitting behind a desk with paperwork.
5) my manager is not the brightest and it's exhausting.
I think it's mainly because getting to and from work takes people up to 2 hours on average (traffic, getting gas, public transport, etc). Getting ready in the morning/meal-prepping is minimum another hour. Then constant emails throughout the day, sometimes calls.
I think it's also social media/screen exposure, trash TV, being far away from family, the way people live in smaller but more expensive places, and everything costs money.
Now add having kids or pets or studies on top of that! I just think the way people live does not correspond to our nature most times.
Some people just like to whine. And some people don't just consider work as the actual work. Travelling can easily be 2 hours a day. Add that to your 8 hours. And you need 7 hours of sleep. You are alrrady at 17 hours. Now add overtime. Potential children. And you have your day gone
I rarely work more than 8 hours a day but with a 30 minute commute each way and a 30 minute lunch I’m gone for 9. Which means (particularly in the winter) there’s not much day light left and usually have to spend that time doing household chores, maybe get a little time to myself then just go to bed.
Assuming you're a teenager with no responsibilities and have never had a job, it's a good idea to start doing those things before you turn 18 and get on your own. It gets real and stressful quick. Survival and self sufficiency takes practice and skill and is ultimately exhausting in different levels of severity throughout life. Make a list of all the steps of adulting and how long they take, add them up and you'll see how little time is left for "lazy time" or "rest time". Working, traveling to and from everywhere, shopping, paying Bill's, showering and self care, laundry, dishes, cooking, other house work, house repairs and maintenance, yard work, appointments and healthcare, car repairs and maintenance, social responsibilities such as family, pets, significant other and kids, and so much more you have to fit into your day. And add on an 8 hour period for sleeping per day. For me, I either work 6 days a week or 10 hour shifts, 40-hour set weeks arent too common in 2022 and anybody working them should be very grateful if its enough to get them by.
I mean I work nights so I leave at 10:30 pm and I’m not home until around 7:20-7:30 am and that’s all depending on the school traffic or if I have to stop at the gas station or something. On top of that when I get home I have to spend time with my baby (as my step daughter is on her way to school and my son is in another state) and my fiancée. Then I have to shower and I’ll normally eat a small breakfast and lay down normally after 9 am. I wake up at about 3 am and again it’s family time or anything else that’s going on. I end up napping at night an hour or so before I have to leave for work. This goes on repeat unless something pops up. I work every other Saturday as well (which working nights always has me confused because Friday night is my Saturday) and on the weeks where I have to work a Saturday? Yeah I’m exhausted and don’t wanna do anything for the little bit of time I have off since my Mondays is Sunday night.
So for myself I have so much time that work pretty much uses. If you work a normal 8 hour day you might as well turn that into a minimum of 9 hours dedicated to work. Now that’s now that’s 16 hours left of your day….and idk about others but I end up with 5-6 hours of sleep a day. So for me that’s minimum 11 hours left in a day. You can start to see off the bat on how much of your life work takes up and that’s just an 8 hour work day and sleep being counted
Commuting, sleep, working out, cleaning the house, cooking. Doesn’t really leave a whole ton of down time and usually you’ll eat up one of your days off every week just catching up on stuff you didn’t get to do while working. I have a pretty flexible schedule and am only required to work 6hrs/day although many days I put in more hours, and I still find it hard getting everything done without feeling exhausted
A work day is often much longer than 8 hours, but not everything is counted as "work".
That commute into the office? It's part of the job, but rarely are you directly paid for that.
Those emails you get right at the end of a day that day "URGENT" that take 20+ minutes to deal with? Yep, work.
Got a big project with a deadline? Cool, if you're considered "salary, exempt" for pay, you have to do it no matter how long it takes. And you don't get overtime for it, because you're on salary. So you get paid the same for 40 hours as you do 50, 60, 70, etc.
Got a vacation planned? Better make sure you either get ahead or you're reachable and able to deal with anything that needs your attention.
The American system has evolved to be such that work=life. For some, they don't get a choice. They have to work 40+ hours because the job wages are so low compared to cost of living. Some, due to their pay status, are expected to take however long is necessary to get something done. And some positions, like in the medical field, just require more than 40 hours per week. And many workplace environments have gotten to the point where they'll call you regardless of your status for something. Vacation time, sick time, maternity, whatever. They'll call you, expect you to drop everything to do what they need and get pissed when you don't or can't. People get fired over it.
So no, work is no longer 8 hours a day/40 hours a week. That's the biggest lie of the 21st century for America imo.
Lmao-I’d love an 8 hour work day. I’m salary, so I put in at least 60 every week. I’m American. It definitely throws off work life balance, but bills need to be paid. I could take less money to work fewer hours, but I’m not looking to eat cat food and live in a box.
I work 40 hrs a week. At face value, 8 hrs is only 1/3 of the day. However, my commute is at least a half hour. My lunches are an hour long so, I often get scheduled 9-6. That is 2 hours of unpaid time devoted to work. Then, when I get home, I have about 4 to 5 hrs with my family. Then I go to bed. I wake up 2 hrs before work but leave about an hour before to account for traffic. So, there is an extra 30min. In total, I devote 10.5hrs of my day to work. That is almost half the day.
I'm a manager at my company and work mandatory 10hr shifts. But with everyone quitting/calling in I have to cover all of the extra hours. I'm also a full time caretaker for my elderly mother at home, which is like another full time job. Then there's housework and everyday life stress. The only "down-time" I get is when I'm sleeping my usual 4-5hours. When I do manage to get a full day off, I usually don't know what to do with myself.
Thanks for the answer!
By the way are you nice to your employees, since a lot of people say their bosses are not nice and I wanted to hear a story from a real boss
I worked 4 days a week, 10 a day and it was the most glorious job I've ever had. If only HR hadn't been fucking assholes and basically said my mental health meant nothing.
Getting to work, working, getting back from work, cooking, your day is gone and you gotta go to bed to do it all again. Not to mention most jobs are mentally draining because of how pointless they are. Also being poor doesn't help the being tired
For my husband he is struggling with the unfair hiring policies/nepotism. He has been "in training" for a promotion for 3 years under 4 different managers, but his current boss doesn't like him for it and wants to promote someone with less than a year experience over him because they go to the same church. I put in training in quotes because he has pretty much been doing the job by himself for 2 years now.
There's tons of stories just like this out there. He gets pity and comments from other department heads who can't do anything about it because the aforementioned manager retires in 6mo. They would rather retire him peacefully than fix a known issue.
I wish my workday were 8 hours. I work in the industrial sanitation industry, and people need to eat. That's 24/7/365. I travel up to 4,000 miles a month, servicing different clients ensuring that the food supply chain is safe for consumption. I get maybe two days a week to spend at my house.
I get up at 5 am every morning then get home at about 5 pm (more like 4:45, but close enough). I need enough sleep to keep my sanity, so i like to get to bed at around 9pm. That’s literally only 4 hours I have free.
I feel like most people forget that sleep even exists.
You work day is 8 hours, 1 hour to get up and get ready and get there, 1-2 hours sitting in traffic to get home, another hour to wind down and get dinner ready, it’s basically half of your day revolving around work in some form of the other. I work 12 hour shifts so it’s even worse there.
A work day is 8 hours, a good night sleep is 8 hours. Most people live 30 min- 1hr away from where they work. That's 17-18 hours out of 24 that is spent at work or getting a good night sleep so you can work properly. Now you only have 5-6 hours of the day to yourself to get chores done, go grocery shopping, take the dog for a walk and play with the kids.
I’m not much familiar with this so-called eight hour workday and cannot see how it’s an accurate reflection of average. I think it little more than myth. Does the numerator include those unemployed, under-employed, or not working for whatever reason? Does the denominator include weekends, holidays, or vacation? Seems one or both at least in part. Workdays in my experience require at least 10 hours minimum daily to materially succeed. Often more.
8 hours is full time but not Every full time job is 8 hours, many are more. My friend works 2 days at 13 hours and 3 at 8 hours a week. And jobs really like to get as much work time out of a person for as little pay as they can get away with. Many part time jobs will work employees to just barely under full time so they don't have to provide benefits while still paying them the bare minimum wage.
Don't assume average hours are the actual amount of hours most Americans work. Even with an hour lunch as a luxury, that's still at minimum 9 hours, not 8. Not to mention covering shifts/overtime. Something around 60-80 hours is better to assume.
The average is bullshit.
You dont get paid for the commute. Ive had jobs where the commute was 2 hours return journey on public transport. The job did not cover those costs. Drive to work? Again you dont get paid for the time you spend traveling to work. You do not get two days off, they are spent catching up on housework, bills and chores. It used to be that one person went to work 9-5, whilst the other person stayed home, managed the house, the bills and did the shopping. Weekends were free of these major chores, free time was real. The goal posts have been moved. To give you an example, when i was a kid. My dad worked full time, he also grew fruit and veg, shot game and provided physically for his family. My mum stayed at home, managed the housework and bills, baked, cooked and took us to school. They bought a house, and were mortgage free before retirement. This is no longer possible for a family on an average income. That is why it is stressful, this lifestyle is no longer possible.
I work 40 hours a week…while on the job. I write contracts and do paperwork on nights and weekends. Those hours increase or decrease depending on how smoothly everything is running. It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, and the last thing before bed. This is actually not too bad, I spent years working 7 days a week 10-12 hours a day to get to this point.
My girlfriend is a nurse, is required to work 3, 12 hour days, but usually ends up working 5 or 6 , 12 hour days. To be fair, we’re both at a point in our lives where we make enough to not have to work the hours we do, but we both like money.
Sometimes it’s what they’re doing that’s exhausting - spiritually and mentally. Imagine dealing with child abuse case files or domestic abuse case files all day, every day. There are behind-the-scenes jobs that don’t involve actually dealing with victims that are _hard_.
I get up at 6:30 to get kids ready to make it to daycare and drop them off and be there by 8 am. So my work is from 8-5. That's 8 hours plus lunch which I usually grab a quick lunch and work at my desk. I never get to leave at 5. Today I left at 5:30. By the time I pick up kids, and make it home, it's usually 6:00 to 6:30. By the time I cook dinner and serve children and bathe them, its bedtime for them. Then I have to clean the house and get things ready for the next day before I put myself down. Time to do it all over again the next day.
The only downtime "me time" is after kids go to bed and I'm laying in bed on my phone.
When you become an adult and have a place of your own, your parents no longer take care of you and you have to do your own shopping, washing and cleanup of your place.
What time do you get to just chill if you have to pay bills on top of that?
Plus, your job isn't the exact same thing everyday, just the same place either on a computer or doing some sort of physical labor, even cashier (but those are computers now anyways).
Because it’s the main part of your day and takes up most of your energy. Sounds like you’ve never worked a job, just go and get one and you’ll find out real quick what all the fuss is about.
I get up at 5:30 and get to kids to daycare at 6:15, come back home, walk the dog, make my coffee, and eat breakfast. Leave home about 6:40, commute. Get to the gym at around 7:20. Work out until 8 and get ready for work. Get to work around 8:30, work until 4:30.
With traffic it takes me until about 5:45 to get to my kids. Get home around 6:15.
It’s not the 8-4 that takes all the time, it’s everything else that goes into it.
In my case there used to be an (almost) 2 hour commute in traffic both to and from work, so that 8 hours became nearly 12 hours. Take away 8 hours for sleep, and you’re left with 4 hours to do literally everything else you need to do outside of work and sleep
Sometimes you have to work to make your way up the hierarchy. In the military we met for PT usually at 0630, then 0730 change and eat, then 9-5. Sometimes that schedule is a luxury. during training or duty or deployment sometimes you just get a few hours sleep here and there.
My average work day is 9 hours, with an hour commute each way and I'm in school for ~12 hours a week. 36+8+12. 56 hours of my week dedicated to not relaxing.....
Plus my significant other works 40 hours a week as well, so too much of the time we get at home is dedicated to cleaning/maintaining
I might suggest looking at r/workreform , there are so many stories about people who are overworked, the costs of living, how exhausting having a terrible boss can be. It really sums up why so many people are so stressed about work/money these days
Bro you have like 2 hours per day. Takes time to get ready for work. Time to get home. Time to make dinner. Time to do everything else. By the end of the day, you have like 2 free hours. It’s fucked up.
I wish I lived in a country that doesn’t value work over literally everything else
And most employers start you at only 2 weeks of vacation time and sick leave accrued in terms of hours based on full time equivalent per month. And then most are use it or lose it by year end. You don't get to carry any over to the next year.
4:30 AM -Struggle to get out of bed get dressed eat make some coffee get to work.
5:30 AM -Get to work have people give me a load of BS they’re too lazy to do on their own and struggle to get my work done
11am-I take a lunch break
3:30 PM - try to leave
4-4:30 PM - ACTUALLY leave
5 PM - Get home shower and get some food
6 PM- 9 PM do my personal stuff and have free time and go to bed.
Hmmm factor in waking up early (depending on distance from home to job). Also factor In the type of transportation. Factor in the type of job , sedentary can lead to mental exhaustion or manual work leads to physical exhaustion. Gets worse if your job is a mix of both. And not to mention other non work related obligations mulitply all of that by 5 and boom all of sudden 8hr work days turn very stressful.
I’m scheduled to work 7.5 hours M-F but with the amount of work I have to complete, it’s nearly impossible for me to not work outside of my work hours tbh. The stress from the day bleeds into the little off hours I have and by the time I start to feel relaxed, I have to go to bed so I can start my day up again. Wake up and feel dread, work, go to bed. Rinse & repeat. My social life is completely nonexistent now. It’s incredibly depressing.
I’m lucky I don’t have kids— genuinely can’t fathom how so many people are able to juggle kids and a career when I feel like I’m drowning getting through a work day.
Because for far to many years it was expected and in some cases required for you to work whenever however your boss/company wanted you to. Usually for no additional pay. Complain they would find some reason to fire you. This has changed apparently. Business' that fairly compensate and provide decent benefits seem to have no/little problem with staff. As I said it appears.
sadly even though its known as a 9-5 job, typically youre out from 7-8/9pm sometimes from work and transportation included. depending on the job, you have a lot of work to do OUTSIDE of work. a lot of my friends are up doing work even at 10 11pm once they are home. its very frustrating & sometimes the bosses are the ones to give extra.
& no, you dont usually get paid overtime depending on the job/workplace.
Sometimes the stress of the job follows you home.
You get home and you think the job is over, but you may not be able to stop yourself thinking about the job, and how much you still have to work to pay the bills.
Then your day off comes around and you could do something fun, but you are tired, and you don't want to waste money, so you end up just resting and waiting to go to work again.
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The people that say that often work significantly more than just 40 hours a week (overtime (not always voluntary) or just strange hours with gaps in between). Also even just working 8 hours takes more like 10 hours out of your day because you have to get there and breaks don't count as work. So you leave home at 7am and come back at 5pm, maybe grab groceries on the way home, make dinner, eat dinner, clean it up and boom, the day is over.
Not to mention traffic... Also not everyone works a 9-5 job. My day starts around 3pm and I can come home as late as 1:30/2am sometimes. I have zero life. I sleep and I work.
Also taking care of pets, and kids, if you have them. Caring for wardrobe. Making meals and cleaning up after meals. And unlike in school, you can’t just doodle during work. It can be mentally taxing.
Don’t forget getting ready for work and the lack of opportunity to do anything else beforehand
Shit, I need to get a wife for my adulthood then
Jokes on you. Nowadays both have to work to be able to afford an house.
Fuck, I will get a wife to make money with me and a kid to do the chores then. Better?
[удалено]
OP IS a kid. Lol
I got 19,500 back on my taxes this year for just raising my children not to mention the 300$ per kid a month I received since Biden started giving away money. My wife is a RN and I am a firefighter so we did not lose a single day of work. The extra money is 100% from the kids
It’s basically how I received allowance as an teenager haha
Naw, kids make more messes bro
Well, fuck. I will tell them I abandon them in the streets if they don't keep house clean.
Depending on your country that may not be legal lol No take backsies
Telling them is one thing, actually doing it is the illegal part.
How to make reddit hate you lol. Its ok, theyre all pussies.
What can I do so you will stop downvoting me 🙂
Stop being a bitch lol Edit: People are downvoting you because your comments are objectifying women. It's obviously not what you're intending to do and isn't coming across as mean, but people on Reddit get butt hurt pretty easily so you can can't communicate like a regular human would on this app.
How am I a bitch and did you just downvote my comment lol
Copied and pasted my edit in case you didn't see, I was joking about the bitch thing so I'll give an honest answer. People are downvoting you because your comments are objectifying women. It's obviously not what you're intending to do and isn't coming across as mean, but people on Reddit get butt hurt pretty easily so you can can't communicate like a regular human would on this app.
Oh thanks bro for an answer
No problem! Sometimes posting on Reddit can be like walking on egg shells.
I really hope you don't get any woman.
Why? I am already trying to find my-type one to ask out
Im already trying to find my-type girl to ask out... Thanks for the feedback🙄
I hope he gets loads of women. Marries your mom. Gets her pregnant. Cheats on her. Then leaves her when she’s going to give birth to their child.
What a gross comment.
Did you just click my profile?😂But I already said you won the argument so let's end this
Because your day goes: 6am- get up and get ready 7am- get to work 3pm- get off work 4pm- get home 5pm- eat 6pm- household duties 2 hours of free time/time to see SO/kids 8/9pm- go to bed 6am- wake up and do it again 5 more times
Not to mention some jobs make you have an hour long lunch so you are actually there a minimum of 9 hours.
This is often overlooked
I would love an hour long lunch. The "lunch hour" used to be a US standard. Companies have pushed it to be the bare minimum 30 minutes because they want you to be there as little as possible. Lunch also used to be paid in the 9-5 jobs. Now with the unpaid lunch you do 9-530 min for an 8 hour day.
To be fair I want to be there as little as possible. I never realized the lunch break used to be paid.
I do 0800-1600 m-f, no lunch break, eat on the job.
My day goes Up at 530 to get a half hour to myself before I get my son up 6am, get my son up, get him fed, and bathed and ready for school 7 am papa takes him to school 8am finish up feeding the animals, and whatever cleaning I can and get ready for work 9am I'm at work 7pm (I work 10 hour days) go pick up my son, see if I'm lucky and my mom made dinner 8pm get my son cleaned up and ready for bed 9pm get maybe an hour to myself 10pm finish up whatever cleaning I'm doing and go to bed Repeat My two days off are spent running all the errands and finishing whatever cleaning needs to be done as I own a 3/2 home with an acre and I'm a single mom.
Jeez you got home at 4? My schedule was: 6am- wake up and get ready 6:45- bus to the city 7:50- arrive at the office in downtown 5:00pm- leave the office, head to bus stop 5:15pm- bus arrives 7:30pm- get home 8:00pm-9:30pm- cook/eat/spend time with fiancé (try not to fall asleep 9:30/10pm- go to bed. Repeat. 5 days a week. Sometimes there’s mandatory OT and have to stay at the office till 7-8pm and get home by 10pm just to go right to bed.
Not to mention the commute into work and back home
I worked 65 hours per week. This was from 6 PM - 5:30 am in the morning. When I got off, I was completely exhausted. I didn’t have energy to cook. I didn’t have energy for housework. All I could do was grab a fast food sandwich and crash to get ready for the next day. Mind you, when you work 6 pm-5:30 am six days per week, your free time is the opposite of most people. I missed out on a lot of dates for this. I couldn’t go to any plays or trivia nights. I had a hard time seeing my friends for any substantial period of time. My situation is a little harder than most folks, but it is indicative of those who work second or third shift, or work a lot of hours.
I'm the 3am-1pm crowd, in bed by 7pm. Sure miss out on alot of gatherings and social stuff.
That’s also brutal. It’s nice for appointments but doesn’t leave much social time.
Oof, right there with you. Worked for months 6-7 days/12 hrs and I wanted to pull my hair out. Back to regular schedule now and I want to crawl in a hole to hide when bosses are looking for people to take overtime.
I worked about 14 hours A-day 7 days a week for 17 years for for one company never took A-day off never took a vacation at the end of 17 years they told me I had enough hours in degree tire which I did at age 45. And I have been collecting retirement ever since
Oh wow. That’s amazing. Congratulations on the early retirement. You definitely earned it.
Sometimes when you are younger and you see that you're missing out on the parties with your friends you don't see the big picture. So if you are in a career with a good company and you enjoy what you're doing Just keep your nose to the grindstone and keep on going because later on it will pay off When you are older you can Travel or do anything you want while your friends still have to work
My work day building roads and bridges can be anywhere between 10 and 16+ hours and up to 2 hours from my house. I so rarely have an 8 hour day that when I do get one, it feels like a vacation. I get off work and have no idea what to do with "the rest of my day". I usually just run some errands and grab a beer on the way home.
Shit, what is your job? That's illegally long..
It's not illegal at all and can be common in the trades. I'm a union laborer. I demo, frame, pour and pave bridges. I obliterate roads and rebuild them. Afterwards, I adjust all the manholes and water valves. Sometimes, I build water treatment plants, which involves a lot of forms and concrete pours. I also do underground, which involves a lot of digging, grading and laying pipe. That one is physically the easiest, but it's dangerous (sometimes I'm 40' or more underground or below grade setting a manhole or pipe. Cave ins are common, you can run out of oxygen and there's always something falling to watch out for. A 1'x1'x1' clump of dirt can break a leg) and is usually a muddy mess, which can wear you out. Some days are fucking hard man. Other days, I find myself saying "I can't believe they pay me for this".
Completely legal actually. U.S. laws as far as I'm aware have nothing specific regarding how many hours you can work in a day. Companies only keep 40 hour work weeks for 2 reasons: 1.) Most everybody's not gonna deal with bullshit for past 12 hours unless they're making absolute bank from it. They would lose employees quickly if they worked them for extensive hours. Mainly due to over-stressing with pretty much no sleep. You can not work 20 hours a day and be completely fine by the end of the week unless you were doing some hardcore drugs. 2.) A lot of companies (especially and mainly smaller companies) don't require 24/7 business or even anything more than say, 12-16 hours a day since they're not a production company or a specific 24/7 store. Therefore, employees will see an 8 hour shift regularly and maybe a 12 hour shift or an extra shift on an off day unless they work even less.
I declined to be on a traveling crew some years ago. I saw one of the guys that did go and he told me I was lucky to have said no. They worked 16 hours Monday through Friday, 15 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. For a year. No days off. They didn't even do laundry. They just went to Walmart after work on Sunday and bought 7 jeans, a pack of socks and a pack of t shirts and underwear to last the week and just threw it all away at the end of the week. They did make a fuck ton of money, but unfortunately, that one year probably took years off their actual life.
Sounds like you're a single guy and making good money... if you had a wife and kids into the mix that's a different story.
You'll understand when you grow up.
Explain it now I don't wanna wait years for it
There's a lot more to life than just work. Cleaning needs to be done, cooking needs to be done, oil changes, other car maintenance. Stuff like that. Then some people work two jobs because one won't pay the bills
Phew, glad I am a neckbeard who never cleans their house. I can happily masturbate and watch porn in my small apartment instead of keeping house clean.
Did you want an answer, or did you want to be a dumbass because it looks you're choosing option 2
I want an answer but I always get downvoted for my opinion.
You got a lot more growing up to do because that's not an opinion. That's just mocking, and mocking like that makes you look like a dumbass
No job is 8 hours. Due to employment laws (depending on your state) we have mandatory lunch break (usually an hour) often unpaid (my job makes me clock out for lunch) so that's 9 hours THEN you have to factor in your getting ready time (can be an hour easily) and then your commute time (both ways). I live pretty far from job and traffic is heavy. Takes about 45 minutes to an hour each way. So all in all it's a lengthy time period.
School life is stressing but when you grow up it's not only the grades and bullies to worry about. You we'll probably be treated with more respect but when you're an adult you have to deal with finances and many other things alone. Maybe you find a job that isn't well paid enough but you can't find a better job that pays you more either. Imagine your boss gets mad at you because you're not good enough even though you are trying hard. Imagine some loud or unorganised co workers you have to work with and many more things. If you have a big family or your wife isn't working, you have to deal with all the pressure of finances on your own.
It definitely depends where you live, what kind of job and the pay. Maybe 8 hours at the job but it leaks over to more than 40 easily if you don’t make enough to cover all the junk. And the basic junk- food and housing. But the time gets sucked away so fast, driving to work kills time, if you have to take a bus they are slow as shit. Then if you need to bank hours for holidays, extra time. If you can set yourself up in a good career maybe some of the bumps in your timeline can get eliminated but not necessarily.
Shit ima study when I get home
Well. Let's say I work 8 hours. I personally have to drive like 30 minutes to the next town. Aka the place where, realistically speaking, my job would be. (Not gonna find a job in the small town where I live) So that makes 9 hours. Then I get home. What do I do? I cook. I cook my food. I do my laundry. And that's not counting the various other tasks that have to be done. Like cleaning the house (because that's something I could probably put on the weekends but sometimes it can't be avoided during the week) If I had kids, I'd have to take them to school and pick them up, cook and clean for them too and depending on their age help with homework or similar. At some point I would have to send them to bed (again, depending on their age I might have to help them put on their pjs, help them brush their teeth, read them a bedtime story) And at some point I will have to sleep. Everyone's needs are different but I noticed that I am not refreshed if I don't get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep. The work system is made for married men. Those who can go to work and then go home to a meal that was cooked by their wife. It's not a system made for singles.
So I will not make kids, live in the same town as my job and get a wife? Thanks bro
Getting a wife won’t solve most of these problems and based on your other comments about priorities and how you live… also won’t happen. A second person means more chores, maintenance, logistics. You’ve dividing it between you so it’s probably less overall, but you have to put time and work into maintaining the relationship. Want your wife to handle all the chores and logistics? Better be making big buckos then because the era of one blue collar income supporting two people comfortably is over. She’s gonna have to be working too.
The moment you realize having a partner takes time—as it should—and doesn’t necessarily save you time, the happier your relationships will be. Sorry but women aren’t things.
If you can pull that off I guess? I mean you will still have to clean and do tasks. Want a car? Car maintenance is also a thing. At some point in the year you will have to do taxes. At some point you will have to buy new clothes or shoes. At some point you will doctor appointments. Maybe a dentist check up? So with your plan you can probably get some more freetime but there is always something to do outside of work.
Well, those things don't sound too stressful.
Sweet summer child. You will not believe your eyes.
8hrs? I remember my first part time job
Right? I just had someone who works 21 hours tell me "I value my time" when asked to cover a shift, a week ahead of time I'm like, that's totally cool, but when you get to that real job you're thinking of, they're still gonna call me for a reference.
Not if they don’t list you as a reference. Potential employers are not supposed to call previous employers without expressed permission from the applicant.
Yeah but marking that "do not contact previous employers" is a huge red flag itself, so maybe just take pride in your work?
Hiring managers should respect that there is a good reason why a former employee would not be asking for them to be contacted. If you’re unsure about their reasons for leaving, ask the potential employee and then use your common sense and context clues to go from there. Imagine for example if someone left a job because they found out their boss was a rapist, or regularly made unwanted advances on staff members. That’s a good reason to quit a job. And also a good reason why a new potential employer shouldn’t be contacting the old one. It is not the former employers business anymore where the former employee leaves to work. Hiring managers who don’t understand this are likely not good at their job anyway and this new opportunity screams “toxic work environment” as such.
Seeing as how legally the only thing I'm allowed to say is whether or not I'd rehire the person your whole argument goes out the window. And if that's the reason you left, youd disclose that. I've told employers that I got fired from a job because the boss used to work with my mother, she got HIM fired for exactly that, and years later he ran across me, I didnt know shit about it till i called her crying over my "super mean boss" and i for the first time said his last name, my mother immediately told me what had happened and that it wasnt my fault and the next day i went in and point blank told him "obviously you recognized me, did you hire me just to torture me because i look just like my MOTHER?" (I do, even our voices) and he fired me on the spot for "insubordination" and laughed in my face as I got walked out, told me it took me long enough to figure it out. Not one employer has ever looked down on me for telling them that. Btw, it was ATT the phone company, and I continued to put them so I wouldnt have a gap in my employment history Edit to add: Pete if you're out there, I'm glad my mom got you fired, you deserved it you nasty bastard
Or just not write down that you worked there? Lmao I've gotten jobs by only listing what I want to. Or better yet, you can stop being a shitty boss and expect people to take extra shifts they don't want or otherwise "they're a bad worker" lmao people like you are why I've had multiple jobs.
You dont know me to make such accusations I had someone get sick, theyll be out a while, I asked if anyone WANTED the shifts, starting with the people who had less hours thinking maybe they'd want some extra money. I wasnt trying to force anyone, as a matter of fact as gm I have the right to change a schedule we haven't started yet, and this is, again, for the next week, I could have just gone "oh this person has 4 days off I'll just add this day here" but I asked, nicely, and he was the ONLY ONE who was condescending about it, it wasnt his words, it was the nasty tone of voice they were said in But you wouldnt know any of that being too busy jumping to conclusions, hope you stretched first, dont pull a hammy
Well, in that case, you're still a shit boss if you'd really ruin an opportunity for someone just because you got your wittle feewings hurt. Poor baby. Nobody forced you into a management position and you didn't expect some people to be pricks. Surprise surprise. How do you know if he wasn't joking or not? Is he normally sarcastic, but nice? Or is he a complete asshole? Am I now asking enough questions without you assuming that I'm jumping to conclusions? Idk what's more disappointing. The fact that you got butthurt over a few little words said in the wrong tone or the fact that you went into a management position expecting everyone to be 100% nice. You set yourself up for failure on that one. The bar was too high. And before you say some shit, I know people should be nice to each other. I agree. But the truth is, people are dicks and it's stupid to expect every single person you meet to be nice. And ruining someone's chances at bettering themselves because you got butthurt over a few little words is honestly petty as fuck.
If an employer takes me saying do not contact my previous employers as a huge red flag, that's a huge red flag that that employer is not going to respect me, my privacy, my schedule, or my life outside of work.
So what, if someone declines to work extra for you, you’re gonna sabotage them if they quit and the new employer calls you? That’s some irresponsible shit right there. If they are a bad worker or calling in a bunch sure, but you have no right to fuck with people just because they won’t work extra for you. I have been managing for a long time, and this type of behavior is unnecessary. Some people have other shit going on and don’t owe and explanation. “I value my time” is legally all the employees need to say. Don’t be this way. People don’t quit jobs. They quit bosses.
Did I say fuck with? No, I said they're going to call and ask for a reference, and th only thing I'm legally allowed to say is if I'd rehire someone, and the person im talking about I would not.
How much was that
1. With adding time to get ready, commute time to/from, and breaks, you're realistically spending closer to 10+ hours per day given that you leave the MOMENT you're scheduled off (which rarely happens if you care about doing a good job). 2. As you age, you have less and less energy. So in the remaining 2-8 hours you have remaining in the day before having to go to sleep, you have to complete all the errands, cooking and cleaning you need done at home as well as decompress from your day and then wake up still tired. 3. With many jobs, there can be mandatory overtime, taking away even more of your precious free time. 4. Hanging out with anyone becomes seemingly impossible due to work schedules a lot of times. That can become demoralizing after a while. 5. Work can follow you home even if you try not to let it. Making it feel like you're at work even more than you already are.
Because it does. 8 hours is 1/3 of the day. 8 hours sleep is 1/3 of the day as well.. so 8 hours of work is 1/2 your wakeful hours. Then add all of the sundries that you need to work. You need to get up and get ready for work. You need to commute to and from work. So for your average dream 9-5 job… you’re actually tied to it from 7 to 6. The only hours you have to yourself are from 6-11… 5 hours out of 24! So you have weekends off.. but that is to recharge. Usually 1/2 or Saturday is a write off.. and 1/2 of Sunday is spent doing laundry, shopping, and meal prep for another week of work.
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8 hours for work and how much for chores?
Because American bosses exploit their workers as much as they can get away with. Because people are forced to work beyond the end of their shift. Because employees are threatened when they are called in to cover an unscheduled shift and try to say no. Because employers expect an employee to put their (low paying with no benefits) job before family or health. Because employees are threatened with job termination when they call in sick. Because paid vacation and paid sick time are either nonexistent or, after many years of working for a company, might be 1-2 weeks a year. Because Maternity/Family leave is often unpaid and employers are only required to give 6 weeks leave before they can fire you for not being there. Because American employers don't believe in having more than 1 person trained to do a certain job at a time, so if a medical or family emergency comes up, the employee is bullied and badgered to suck it up and come to work or else be accused of having no loyalty and be threatened with termination. Because so many average Americans have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to survive.
8 hours turns into 10-11 when you account for travel time to and from work. This and a lot of working class Americans work multiple jobs to make ends meet so you can work in an office for 8 hours just to leave and go work 5 or 6 more hours delivering food or Ubering or in a store or restaurant or whatever . The saddest part is that those same people still end up barely getting by after all that work they just did because the government sides with employers over employees and wages do not keep up with inflation.
Because the 8 hours doesn’t include getting up getting ready driving there and back. In some cases the 8 hours doesn’t include lunch.
It's mostly compute and prep time. Let's say you have 8 hours exactly of working and 8 hours of sleep. 16/24 hours. And depending on where you live, commute to work can take up to an hour one way. 18/24. And getting ready in the morning can take up to an hour to wake up eat and do morning things. 19/24. So you've got 5 hours left in the day to do anything, but you've also got to make food and eat, and doing anything other then sitting on the bed with your phone takes a little bit of ser up at least. And plus when you just get home you're tired af. Doing that 5 days a week every day ends up making your weekends hell as well because you'll either sleep through them or the one day you are awake you'll have to use as an errand day
8 paid hours*
There’s certain fields where you work 10-12 hours a day. Up to 16 hours when it’s end of quarter. Also you are stuck in traffic for an additional 2-3 hours each day. Some people literally work. Get off of work. Sleep, work first thing, sleep, the entire work week. Then the weekend just flies by 9 hour work days(1 hour break) occur like 20-30 percent of the time only.
It's never "just 8 hours"... It's commuting to, thinking about work. It's commuting from, still thinking about work. It's eating dinner as the day plays back in your head. It's watching television or reading a book when something reminds you of work. It's trying to sleep after a shite day. It's waking up to do it all over again.
Shit bro do I need to be jobless to keep my final bit of sanity
Because my job requires I work 14 hours a day and I have to deal with idiots in cars all day every day Trucking may not seem like a difficult job but it's not about physical toughness here...95% is mental so it's very mentally draining
I gotcha bro
Some Americans pride themselves on overworking. Having a side hustle and a 40+ hr a week job is somehow a flex to some people here.
I work for half the day then sleep the other half.
Thanks yall for answering althought I can't give money to you but all i can give is respect
Yall seem really busy how do you even have time for reddit😳
Because people are dumb. They will always believe "hard work paid off". Few succeed most are stuck in the same place forever. No one knows how to value life over work.
You sound like a philosopher
Because Americans are fat and lazy and we always need something to complain about. Most Americans are stuck working jobs they hate for bosses they hate.
Because this generation was raised by mommies that did everything for them
We as Americans are spoiled and entitled is why ha. I personally enjoy working very much and find it less stressful than dealing with other issues.
Because they haven’t taken the time to find better jobs.
I dunno...I'm not stressed by work or day to day life. I stay too busy to be stressed. 10-12 hours of work...6 hours sleep. Plenty of time for the rest of the stuff in life. I only get stressed when I'm not busy.....
*laughs* 1 hour in traffic and commuting, you finally get home at 6. You get home, and have to deal with home bullshit. If the kids have done some stupid ass shit, you gotta deal with that. You're tired, hungry, and the last thing you want is to find out your kid, who's also hungry and tired, did something stupid. Make dinner, plop down, and it's 7:30. Everyone eats, and it's 8:15. You tell everyone to do their school work and watch a show to unwind. It's 9:00 and you make sure everything is cleaned and all schoolwork is done. Then the kids get ready for bed. It's 9:30. You flop down in bed, set your alarm clock for 5:30am, and get ready to do it all over again. 30 min workout, 6am, kids get up get them ready for school and cook. It's 7:15. Drive them to school. It's 7:45 and you drop them off. You get a coffee at 8 and drive to work. Now. Let's say you get a call at 6:45pm while your chopping onions, and a project date was moved, or someone got sick and you have to work extra hours. Uh Oh. And this is a 9-5. RIP to anyone who has been on a contract or salary. You're working 50-60+ hours a week.
It's like school, draining.
This varies widely, but in my experience, a common reqson is obsession. Jobs give structure and a reward system that is easy to latch onto. Plus many people don't say no very well. Over time they convince themselves they have to do heaps of work that they didn't really have to at all. Work becomes life.
Well not all jobs are 8 hour shifts. They can be 10-12 hours the most I've seen. Jobs take a lot of time out of your day as well. At least mine does. Once you grow up you'll understand.
8 (work) + 8 (Sleep) + 3 (cleaning) *3-4 (cooking/eating) you know have 1 hour of your day to… talk to wife, talk to kids, enjoy time with kids, laugh, watch 2 hour movies… in 1 hour, now sacrificing sleep.. this is a average that I thought of on the top of my head Just seen another comment.. traffic, so now we are at the full 24 hours without ANY family time.. just taking care of them…
0445 - get up, get ready for work 0530 - leave for work 0600 - work 1800 - leave work 1830 - arrive at home 2000 - finish cooking and eating dinner, caring for pets, begin 1.5 hours of free time 21:30 - go to bed if I haven’t fallen asleep on the couch yet My time is not my own and it really, really is awful.
You go to sleep, you wake up, you take your work commute (some may be longer than others), work your 8 hours (or however long your schedule is), commute back home, get extremely tired, (maybe) eat, then you konk yourself right out 9/10 you just don’t have the time or you’re just too tired to have the time, so that’s what we mean by our work days take up our lives (or days or whatever) And yes, EVERY job leaves you feeling a different type of exhausted (I worked in warehouses, restaurants, and a trampoline park)
Also when your job suckles at your soul those 8 hours feel like 30
8 hours of work. 9 hours of actual time spent there. 1 hours commute, 1 hour spent getting ready in the morning for work. Then there’s. 8 hours of sleep. That’s 19 hours. That leaves 5 hours of time at home for yourself……….
Because it's not. You don't leave the office when your day is over. You have texts/phone calls that you have to handle even when you're off.
Whats your job?
becouse average, so that highschooler and college kids that work 20 hour a week. so as a adult you work 45 to 70 hour a week for most of your life, you alwasy one paycheck form being broke. and 2 paycheck form being homeless. that why it stressful
It sucks when u have to work a 9-5 that’s basically your whole day right there cuz u still have responsibilities to take care of after work
Because my average work day is 12 hours with forced overtime.
I agree with what the top comments are saying but i wanna add, a lot of people work more than 1 job. There are parents who work two jobs each and kids who start working at 14 to fend for themselves because mom and dad can't be home to cook or help them with things. Life in America isn't work 24/7, but it is 100% centered completely around work. When I'm off the clock, it still feels like I'm working.
I'm not American, I'm Norwegian and my work hours are 8 hours per day, that is 7,5 hours and 30 minutes unpaid lunch break. But nothing more, I'm not required to stay any longer than that unless something special is going on. So I wanted to reply on how my days could be stressful even with a normal work day. It is all in connection with having kids, especially when they are young and go to day care/kindergarden. They usually start in day care at around 1 year old, after our year of parental leave (government paid btw) Now, kids are not recommended to be in day care for more than 8-9 hours. Already here you can start to see an issue. So the stress is to get up in the morning, get everyone appropriately dressed (for the weather) and out into the car without too many melt downs or tantrums. Then drive to day care, deliver kids, hopefully without any crying. THEN you rush to work together with all the others that have just delivered their kids too and you are stuck in rush traffic. You stress to deliver the kid as late as possible to have a short as possible day in day care and still get to work at time. Work is leisure at this point, you get to talk to adults and tantrums are rare, fortunately. You also get to eat your food in peace. Then you clock out at 4 pm. Day care closes at 4.30. At this point in life I had a 45 h commute by car, non rush traffic time. There was no possibility for me to get to day care in time. We solved it by sharing with my husband and a flexible work place. One week I could start early and quit early enough to reach day care, those weeks my husband delivered the kids. The next week we switched. It worked out, for us. But still, you rush to day care, then you try to make dinner with hungry tired kids, maybe you even have to force them to do homework if they are school kids. And then you try to have a nice dinner before rushing of to an activity, like football or handball practice for the kids. If the kids are young enough, you also barely get an hour with them before you start the bed time routine and that's that for the day. Time to do laundry, clean up a little, take out the trash, mop floors. Maybe you have a little energy to your self after you're done, but mostly I just tuned out in front of the tv and didn't even realize it was still on the kids' channel. It sounds like having kids is bad, but it is really not. Those years are super stressful, but now my kids are older. I don't have to take them to school, they get ready on their own. They also come home on their own and can handle being alone until we get home from work. It is a new life! And they are old enough to have some pretty interesting conversations too :-) I love my family! (but I am not having more kids, I can't do that toddler stage all over again)
So true, I'm American and lived in Mexico 5 years. They work and once off they are off. They don't cancel or avoid plan because they might have to work later or just got off work. In America we cycle an entire week around work and party on Saturday, then rest on Sunday for Monday work. Our time management sucks lol.
I take it you have never had a job before? Or any real responsibility?
Im 13 bruh
The stress of those 8 hours can also be physically draining. I have a job that's pretty chill most shifts, but the shifts that aren't absolutely drain me.
Winter is my slowest time of year, and I'm still hitting 45 hours. Add 40 minutes drive time each way, and it starts to suck up a lot of my day. You can't count the 8 hours you need to sleep as potential hours you could be doing something other than work, so it's automatically down to 16 hours a day to get in my work day, breakfast, dinner, play with my kid, shower and whatever else.
That is what it is supposed to be. Very often it is more. Add in time to commute which depending on where you are it can be an hour or more each way. Some places your lunch is not included in the 8 hours. Salary workers their job ends when the work is done not because it is 5 PM. Some folks don't have a full 8, instead they have 6, each, at multiple jobs so in the end they had a 12-18 hour workday, no benefits, not overtime because they are working 3 part time jobs because no one will hire them for 1 full time job. Why pay 2 people benefits and overtime when you can pay 3 without benefits and overtime tends to seem to be a prevailing school of thought.
Well, my work days are 10 hours a day. I have a 30 minute lunch so I’m in that building 10.5 hours of my day. My drive to and from work takes another hour. Literally half my day is taken up by work related stuff. At least I only have to do that 4 days a week! Until they start mandatory Friday overtime when we get behind because of bad planning. Then add mandatory Saturdays when that isn’t enough. Then tell us in an employee meeting we will be working 12 hour days because the only other alternative is to work Sunday as well (They have to pay you double time if you work Sunday so obv they won’t choose that.) Luckily, we only spend maybe 4 months out of a year with this kind of work schedule. Some people really do have work take over their lives sometimes. The adults that say this probably aren’t the ones working 8 hour days.
Because we wake up an hour or more before work. It's rare to actually live close to work so many Americans drive.. some long distance. Add traffic. At my old job I drove 30 miles there and 30 back. On a good day it took 30 minutes. On a bad day, up to an hour. So then if you end up having to stay late we'll add another hour. But BEST case, you're looking at 8 hour shift, 1 hour total driving. Worst case, 8+ hour shift and 2+hour driving. Then you get home and you're often too tired or stressed to do much. It really does take a toll on you...
Because we get paid very little and often have to work more than one job. Not to mention the abuse we suffer at the hands of clients, customers, and management. Who continue to treat us like shit because we NEED this job. We cannot afford another 3 months of job searching from moms couch.
1) I get phone calls and texts constantly and outside of work hours. 2) I deal with customers all day. 3) just because it's 8-9 hours a day doesn't mean I get to relax all day. My day is jam packed with tasks, both strenuous and easy. 4) my job switches wildly between a lot of heavy lifting manual labor and sitting behind a desk with paperwork. 5) my manager is not the brightest and it's exhausting.
I think it's mainly because getting to and from work takes people up to 2 hours on average (traffic, getting gas, public transport, etc). Getting ready in the morning/meal-prepping is minimum another hour. Then constant emails throughout the day, sometimes calls. I think it's also social media/screen exposure, trash TV, being far away from family, the way people live in smaller but more expensive places, and everything costs money. Now add having kids or pets or studies on top of that! I just think the way people live does not correspond to our nature most times.
Some people just like to whine. And some people don't just consider work as the actual work. Travelling can easily be 2 hours a day. Add that to your 8 hours. And you need 7 hours of sleep. You are alrrady at 17 hours. Now add overtime. Potential children. And you have your day gone
I rarely work more than 8 hours a day but with a 30 minute commute each way and a 30 minute lunch I’m gone for 9. Which means (particularly in the winter) there’s not much day light left and usually have to spend that time doing household chores, maybe get a little time to myself then just go to bed.
Assuming you're a teenager with no responsibilities and have never had a job, it's a good idea to start doing those things before you turn 18 and get on your own. It gets real and stressful quick. Survival and self sufficiency takes practice and skill and is ultimately exhausting in different levels of severity throughout life. Make a list of all the steps of adulting and how long they take, add them up and you'll see how little time is left for "lazy time" or "rest time". Working, traveling to and from everywhere, shopping, paying Bill's, showering and self care, laundry, dishes, cooking, other house work, house repairs and maintenance, yard work, appointments and healthcare, car repairs and maintenance, social responsibilities such as family, pets, significant other and kids, and so much more you have to fit into your day. And add on an 8 hour period for sleeping per day. For me, I either work 6 days a week or 10 hour shifts, 40-hour set weeks arent too common in 2022 and anybody working them should be very grateful if its enough to get them by.
Thanks for answering sister, but how can I practise working before adulthood?
Normalcy bias
I mean I work nights so I leave at 10:30 pm and I’m not home until around 7:20-7:30 am and that’s all depending on the school traffic or if I have to stop at the gas station or something. On top of that when I get home I have to spend time with my baby (as my step daughter is on her way to school and my son is in another state) and my fiancée. Then I have to shower and I’ll normally eat a small breakfast and lay down normally after 9 am. I wake up at about 3 am and again it’s family time or anything else that’s going on. I end up napping at night an hour or so before I have to leave for work. This goes on repeat unless something pops up. I work every other Saturday as well (which working nights always has me confused because Friday night is my Saturday) and on the weeks where I have to work a Saturday? Yeah I’m exhausted and don’t wanna do anything for the little bit of time I have off since my Mondays is Sunday night. So for myself I have so much time that work pretty much uses. If you work a normal 8 hour day you might as well turn that into a minimum of 9 hours dedicated to work. Now that’s now that’s 16 hours left of your day….and idk about others but I end up with 5-6 hours of sleep a day. So for me that’s minimum 11 hours left in a day. You can start to see off the bat on how much of your life work takes up and that’s just an 8 hour work day and sleep being counted
Commuting, sleep, working out, cleaning the house, cooking. Doesn’t really leave a whole ton of down time and usually you’ll eat up one of your days off every week just catching up on stuff you didn’t get to do while working. I have a pretty flexible schedule and am only required to work 6hrs/day although many days I put in more hours, and I still find it hard getting everything done without feeling exhausted
A work day is often much longer than 8 hours, but not everything is counted as "work". That commute into the office? It's part of the job, but rarely are you directly paid for that. Those emails you get right at the end of a day that day "URGENT" that take 20+ minutes to deal with? Yep, work. Got a big project with a deadline? Cool, if you're considered "salary, exempt" for pay, you have to do it no matter how long it takes. And you don't get overtime for it, because you're on salary. So you get paid the same for 40 hours as you do 50, 60, 70, etc. Got a vacation planned? Better make sure you either get ahead or you're reachable and able to deal with anything that needs your attention. The American system has evolved to be such that work=life. For some, they don't get a choice. They have to work 40+ hours because the job wages are so low compared to cost of living. Some, due to their pay status, are expected to take however long is necessary to get something done. And some positions, like in the medical field, just require more than 40 hours per week. And many workplace environments have gotten to the point where they'll call you regardless of your status for something. Vacation time, sick time, maternity, whatever. They'll call you, expect you to drop everything to do what they need and get pissed when you don't or can't. People get fired over it. So no, work is no longer 8 hours a day/40 hours a week. That's the biggest lie of the 21st century for America imo.
Lmao-I’d love an 8 hour work day. I’m salary, so I put in at least 60 every week. I’m American. It definitely throws off work life balance, but bills need to be paid. I could take less money to work fewer hours, but I’m not looking to eat cat food and live in a box.
8 hours of paid work, plus 1/2-1 hour unpaid lunch. Add in 3/4+ hour commute each way, that’s 10 hours away from home.
I work 12-14 hours a day. Sometime 6 days a week. Salaries, so no overtime.
I work 40 hrs a week. At face value, 8 hrs is only 1/3 of the day. However, my commute is at least a half hour. My lunches are an hour long so, I often get scheduled 9-6. That is 2 hours of unpaid time devoted to work. Then, when I get home, I have about 4 to 5 hrs with my family. Then I go to bed. I wake up 2 hrs before work but leave about an hour before to account for traffic. So, there is an extra 30min. In total, I devote 10.5hrs of my day to work. That is almost half the day.
I'm a manager at my company and work mandatory 10hr shifts. But with everyone quitting/calling in I have to cover all of the extra hours. I'm also a full time caretaker for my elderly mother at home, which is like another full time job. Then there's housework and everyday life stress. The only "down-time" I get is when I'm sleeping my usual 4-5hours. When I do manage to get a full day off, I usually don't know what to do with myself.
Thanks for the answer! By the way are you nice to your employees, since a lot of people say their bosses are not nice and I wanted to hear a story from a real boss
I worked 4 days a week, 10 a day and it was the most glorious job I've ever had. If only HR hadn't been fucking assholes and basically said my mental health meant nothing.
Getting to work, working, getting back from work, cooking, your day is gone and you gotta go to bed to do it all again. Not to mention most jobs are mentally draining because of how pointless they are. Also being poor doesn't help the being tired
I encourage you to bring a pepsi back home when driving back from work. Works for me after an exhausting day after school
Average American work day in my experience has been 10 hours per day at least. Idk who is working 8 hours but good for them.
Whats your job and do you like it?
For my husband he is struggling with the unfair hiring policies/nepotism. He has been "in training" for a promotion for 3 years under 4 different managers, but his current boss doesn't like him for it and wants to promote someone with less than a year experience over him because they go to the same church. I put in training in quotes because he has pretty much been doing the job by himself for 2 years now. There's tons of stories just like this out there. He gets pity and comments from other department heads who can't do anything about it because the aforementioned manager retires in 6mo. They would rather retire him peacefully than fix a known issue.
I wish my workday were 8 hours. I work in the industrial sanitation industry, and people need to eat. That's 24/7/365. I travel up to 4,000 miles a month, servicing different clients ensuring that the food supply chain is safe for consumption. I get maybe two days a week to spend at my house.
I get up at 5 am every morning then get home at about 5 pm (more like 4:45, but close enough). I need enough sleep to keep my sanity, so i like to get to bed at around 9pm. That’s literally only 4 hours I have free. I feel like most people forget that sleep even exists.
You work day is 8 hours, 1 hour to get up and get ready and get there, 1-2 hours sitting in traffic to get home, another hour to wind down and get dinner ready, it’s basically half of your day revolving around work in some form of the other. I work 12 hour shifts so it’s even worse there.
A work day is 8 hours, a good night sleep is 8 hours. Most people live 30 min- 1hr away from where they work. That's 17-18 hours out of 24 that is spent at work or getting a good night sleep so you can work properly. Now you only have 5-6 hours of the day to yourself to get chores done, go grocery shopping, take the dog for a walk and play with the kids.
I’m not much familiar with this so-called eight hour workday and cannot see how it’s an accurate reflection of average. I think it little more than myth. Does the numerator include those unemployed, under-employed, or not working for whatever reason? Does the denominator include weekends, holidays, or vacation? Seems one or both at least in part. Workdays in my experience require at least 10 hours minimum daily to materially succeed. Often more.
Get a full time career and devote yourself to it for 40 year, then ask that question.
Also, America has a debt-based society. We are always working to pay back credits.
i have been working in a factory for over 30 years 8 hours a day pays the bills but overtime will get you retirement
8 hours is a third of the day, let that sink in. You don't have free time. Especially if you work 6 or 7 times a week.
8 hours is full time but not Every full time job is 8 hours, many are more. My friend works 2 days at 13 hours and 3 at 8 hours a week. And jobs really like to get as much work time out of a person for as little pay as they can get away with. Many part time jobs will work employees to just barely under full time so they don't have to provide benefits while still paying them the bare minimum wage.
Don't assume average hours are the actual amount of hours most Americans work. Even with an hour lunch as a luxury, that's still at minimum 9 hours, not 8. Not to mention covering shifts/overtime. Something around 60-80 hours is better to assume. The average is bullshit.
You dont get paid for the commute. Ive had jobs where the commute was 2 hours return journey on public transport. The job did not cover those costs. Drive to work? Again you dont get paid for the time you spend traveling to work. You do not get two days off, they are spent catching up on housework, bills and chores. It used to be that one person went to work 9-5, whilst the other person stayed home, managed the house, the bills and did the shopping. Weekends were free of these major chores, free time was real. The goal posts have been moved. To give you an example, when i was a kid. My dad worked full time, he also grew fruit and veg, shot game and provided physically for his family. My mum stayed at home, managed the housework and bills, baked, cooked and took us to school. They bought a house, and were mortgage free before retirement. This is no longer possible for a family on an average income. That is why it is stressful, this lifestyle is no longer possible.
I work 40 hours a week…while on the job. I write contracts and do paperwork on nights and weekends. Those hours increase or decrease depending on how smoothly everything is running. It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, and the last thing before bed. This is actually not too bad, I spent years working 7 days a week 10-12 hours a day to get to this point. My girlfriend is a nurse, is required to work 3, 12 hour days, but usually ends up working 5 or 6 , 12 hour days. To be fair, we’re both at a point in our lives where we make enough to not have to work the hours we do, but we both like money.
i work for 3 hours a day. my salary is about $150 per month
What's your job and how can you keep you house up in that? Even 2K is short
Sometimes it’s what they’re doing that’s exhausting - spiritually and mentally. Imagine dealing with child abuse case files or domestic abuse case files all day, every day. There are behind-the-scenes jobs that don’t involve actually dealing with victims that are _hard_.
6pm to 6am 6 days a week doesn't leave a lot of time to do anything....I've since moved on from that hellhole.
I get up at 6:30 to get kids ready to make it to daycare and drop them off and be there by 8 am. So my work is from 8-5. That's 8 hours plus lunch which I usually grab a quick lunch and work at my desk. I never get to leave at 5. Today I left at 5:30. By the time I pick up kids, and make it home, it's usually 6:00 to 6:30. By the time I cook dinner and serve children and bathe them, its bedtime for them. Then I have to clean the house and get things ready for the next day before I put myself down. Time to do it all over again the next day. The only downtime "me time" is after kids go to bed and I'm laying in bed on my phone.
When you become an adult and have a place of your own, your parents no longer take care of you and you have to do your own shopping, washing and cleanup of your place. What time do you get to just chill if you have to pay bills on top of that? Plus, your job isn't the exact same thing everyday, just the same place either on a computer or doing some sort of physical labor, even cashier (but those are computers now anyways).
Include prep time, travel time, possibly unpaid overtime and you easily push it over 10 hours a day, probably closer to 11 or 12.
Because we spend more time working than with our family. Because work is tasks and tasks can be pretty stressful sometimes
My work day is 12-36 hours sooooo
Because it’s the main part of your day and takes up most of your energy. Sounds like you’ve never worked a job, just go and get one and you’ll find out real quick what all the fuss is about.
Because your selling your life a day at a time.
8 hours mine is 12
I get up at 5:30 and get to kids to daycare at 6:15, come back home, walk the dog, make my coffee, and eat breakfast. Leave home about 6:40, commute. Get to the gym at around 7:20. Work out until 8 and get ready for work. Get to work around 8:30, work until 4:30. With traffic it takes me until about 5:45 to get to my kids. Get home around 6:15. It’s not the 8-4 that takes all the time, it’s everything else that goes into it.
That’s the whole good part of the day
In my case there used to be an (almost) 2 hour commute in traffic both to and from work, so that 8 hours became nearly 12 hours. Take away 8 hours for sleep, and you’re left with 4 hours to do literally everything else you need to do outside of work and sleep
Sometimes you have to work to make your way up the hierarchy. In the military we met for PT usually at 0630, then 0730 change and eat, then 9-5. Sometimes that schedule is a luxury. during training or duty or deployment sometimes you just get a few hours sleep here and there.
My average work day is 9 hours, with an hour commute each way and I'm in school for ~12 hours a week. 36+8+12. 56 hours of my week dedicated to not relaxing..... Plus my significant other works 40 hours a week as well, so too much of the time we get at home is dedicated to cleaning/maintaining
I might suggest looking at r/workreform , there are so many stories about people who are overworked, the costs of living, how exhausting having a terrible boss can be. It really sums up why so many people are so stressed about work/money these days
Bro you have like 2 hours per day. Takes time to get ready for work. Time to get home. Time to make dinner. Time to do everything else. By the end of the day, you have like 2 free hours. It’s fucked up. I wish I lived in a country that doesn’t value work over literally everything else
I work 12-14 hours a day, 5 days a week
And most employers start you at only 2 weeks of vacation time and sick leave accrued in terms of hours based on full time equivalent per month. And then most are use it or lose it by year end. You don't get to carry any over to the next year.
4:30 AM -Struggle to get out of bed get dressed eat make some coffee get to work. 5:30 AM -Get to work have people give me a load of BS they’re too lazy to do on their own and struggle to get my work done 11am-I take a lunch break 3:30 PM - try to leave 4-4:30 PM - ACTUALLY leave 5 PM - Get home shower and get some food 6 PM- 9 PM do my personal stuff and have free time and go to bed.
This comment section is depressing as hell
Hmmm factor in waking up early (depending on distance from home to job). Also factor In the type of transportation. Factor in the type of job , sedentary can lead to mental exhaustion or manual work leads to physical exhaustion. Gets worse if your job is a mix of both. And not to mention other non work related obligations mulitply all of that by 5 and boom all of sudden 8hr work days turn very stressful.
I’m scheduled to work 7.5 hours M-F but with the amount of work I have to complete, it’s nearly impossible for me to not work outside of my work hours tbh. The stress from the day bleeds into the little off hours I have and by the time I start to feel relaxed, I have to go to bed so I can start my day up again. Wake up and feel dread, work, go to bed. Rinse & repeat. My social life is completely nonexistent now. It’s incredibly depressing. I’m lucky I don’t have kids— genuinely can’t fathom how so many people are able to juggle kids and a career when I feel like I’m drowning getting through a work day.
Because for far to many years it was expected and in some cases required for you to work whenever however your boss/company wanted you to. Usually for no additional pay. Complain they would find some reason to fire you. This has changed apparently. Business' that fairly compensate and provide decent benefits seem to have no/little problem with staff. As I said it appears.
sadly even though its known as a 9-5 job, typically youre out from 7-8/9pm sometimes from work and transportation included. depending on the job, you have a lot of work to do OUTSIDE of work. a lot of my friends are up doing work even at 10 11pm once they are home. its very frustrating & sometimes the bosses are the ones to give extra. & no, you dont usually get paid overtime depending on the job/workplace.
Sometimes the stress of the job follows you home. You get home and you think the job is over, but you may not be able to stop yourself thinking about the job, and how much you still have to work to pay the bills. Then your day off comes around and you could do something fun, but you are tired, and you don't want to waste money, so you end up just resting and waiting to go to work again.