Working Long Hours Is Good For You: If You're A Man

[Frank Hovis]

The five day week for office workers is entirely arbitrary. If a company was obsessed with production it could run seven days a week. It doesn't however need to do this. It gets along fine working 5/7ths of the available days.

So why not go down to 4/7ths or (my dream!) 3/7ths. Pay goes down sure but quality of life goes through the roof. You have happy, healthy, motivated workers.

If there was a three day company near me I would take a substantial pay cut (over and above going down to 60% for the lower hours) to join them.

I would then have no thoughts of retirement and happily work into my eighties or as long as my health and mental faculties held out.

[MrPin]

Hmm. I work four and a half days a week. I could lie about Friday, and "work from home", but the canteen does smashing fish and chips on Friday.

[stormymonday_2011]

Hmm. I work four and a half days a week. I could lie about Friday, and "work from home", but the canteen does smashing fish and chips on Friday.

Lucky you having an employer to provide a canteen.

They are a rarity now even In the public sector.

I find it quaint that fish is still being dished up on Friday even though Britain ceased to be Catholic in the 16th century.

BTW I quite like working unsocial hours in the evenings, nights and weekends because my management is so rarely there at those times. It is the 9 to 5 bit that I find so difficult to stomach.

[ccc]

People doing anything is good for them. It doesn't have to be 'work' .

[Frank Hovis]

People doing anything is good for them. It doesn't have to be 'work' .

Work has the additional benefit of providing a service to others.

I could happily spend my life writing books that no-one would read, learning how to play my guitar again, and spending every day in the great outdoors.

It would be of benefit to no-one but myself. If we all did that then we'd all be sleeping rough and starving.

[ccc]

Work has the additional benefit of providing a service to others.

I could happily spend my life writing books that no-one would read, learning how to play my guitar again, and spending every day in the great outdoors.

It would be of benefit to no-one but myself. If we all did that then we'd all be sleeping rough and starving.

But also happier ?

****** sake I am sounding like a tree hugging do gooder somebody save me !!

[Frank Hovis]

But also happier ?

****** sake I am sounding like a tree hugging do gooder somebody save me !!

Yes, if you're sound in mind and body.

What I set out above is what I will be doing. I don't feel a need to work. I will be blissfully happy as Justthisbloke is now.

But if we all stopped doing productive work then it would not be a good idea to fall sick or become disabled.

[MrPin]

Lucky you having an employer to provide a canteen.

They are a rarity now even In the public sector.

I find it quaint that fish is still being dished up on Friday even though Britain ceased to be Catholic in the 16th century.

BTW I quite like working unsocial hours in the evenings, nights and weekends because my management is so rarely there at those times. It is the 9 to 5 bit that I find so difficult to stomach.

It's not free, but it is subsidised. Fish is always for Friday. I don't think non Catholics are excluded. I've not worked in a place with a canteen for over twenty years. It's outsourced to external contractors, but the meals are pretty good. And it saves me learning to cook.

After my Friday F&C I turn the computers off and go home.

[ccc]

It's not free, but it is subsidised. Fish is always for Friday. I don't think non Catholics are excluded. I've not worked in a place with a canteen for over twenty years. It's outsourced to external contractors, but the meals are pretty good. And it saves me learning to cook.

After my Friday F&C I turn the computers off and go home.

Do you currently provide services for a large Scottish blue financial institution ? Your tales are ringing a very big bell with me !

[ccc]

Yes, if you're sound in mind and body.

What I set out above is what I will be doing. I don't feel a need to work. I will be blissfully happy as Justthisbloke is now.

But if we all stopped doing productive work then it would not be a good idea to fall sick or become disabled.

Yep I respect folk who do something worthwhile. I don't - and I have no problem admitting it.

I get paid about 4 times what the average person doing a 'worthwhile' job does.

Life's not fair.

[frozen_out]

Lucky you having an employer to provide a canteen.

They are a rarity now even In the public sector.

I find it quaint that fish is still being dished up on Friday even though Britain ceased to be Catholic in the 16th century.

BTW I quite like working unsocial hours in the evenings, nights and weekends because my management is so rarely there at those times. It is the 9 to 5 bit that I find so difficult to stomach.

We've still got two sites with free canteens, and it's always fish on Fridays.

We've got one site in Europe where you can still buy beer and cigarettes in the canteen. Now that's civilised.

[ccc]

We've still got two sites with free canteens, and it's always fish on Fridays.

We've got one site in Europe where you can still buy beer and cigarettes in the canteen. Now that's civilised.

Can I get a job please ?

[MrPin]

Do you currently provide services for a large Scottish blue financial institution ? Your tales are ringing a very big bell with me !

No! Next Question!

[ccc]

No! Next Question!

Ok.

Charlotte Church or Rachel Riley ?

[MrPin]

Ok.

Charlotte Church or Rachel Riley ?

Elkie Brooks or Kate Bush might be more my era!

[ccc]

Kate Bush ooft.

[winkie]

Yep I respect folk who do something worthwhile. I don't - and I have no problem admitting it.

I get paid about 4 times what the average person doing a 'worthwhile' job does.

Life's not fair.

Why?.....what you get paid doesn't come into it, doing a worthwhile and satisfying job is payment in itself.......some people love to work, whatever they do because their life is their work, perhaps they have nothing much to go home to....work is their reason for living, their worth to society, their specialness and uniqueness, who they are........retirement to some people is a huge loss, a gap a chasm......when they have no routine or stability they feel like a lost part.....some people have little imagination, do not know what they want or could plan a new pathway......they love their set time and routine, what they know.

[Riedquat]

So why not go down to 4/7ths or (my dream!) 3/7ths. Pay goes down sure but quality of life goes through the roof. You have happy, healthy, motivated workers.

Exactly! Surely the whole point of "progress" is that we should be able to do that without struggling to survive, since we're now several decades passed the point where it's solving with the real day to day issues. I appreciate that it's a bit harder for some jobs than others. Anyone can replace anyone else screwing widgets together, a bit harder to cut hours in the R&D department and get as much work done when you can't just keep swapping individuals on a project (might be personal bias there though since that's where I work, believe it or not). But probably not an insurmountable issue.

[MarkG]

Well I suppose I don't get that much stress at work but beats me how being there longer (mostly looking forward to going home) could be any good for me.

I get most of my stress at home, so staying at work all day would greatly reduce it.

However, correlation is not causation. I'd guess that healthy men are far more likely to work 60 hour weeks than unhealthy men.

[StainlessSteelCat]

The five day week for office workers is entirely arbitrary. If a company was obsessed with production it could run seven days a week. It doesn't however need to do this. It gets along fine working 5/7ths of the available days.

So why not go down to 4/7ths or (my dream!) 3/7ths. Pay goes down sure but quality of life goes through the roof. You have happy, healthy, motivated workers.

If there was a three day company near me I would take a substantial pay cut (over and above going down to 60% for the lower hours) to join them.

I would then have no thoughts of retirement and happily work into my eighties or as long as my health and mental faculties held out.

From the experience of colleagues I've managed, the magic happens at 3 days per week. 4 or 4.5 days per week - and people assume you are working, keep sending you stuff with the same expectations as previously and you end up doing unpaid over time and/or hugely stressed during your working week.

Once my pension is where I need it to be (maybe a couple of years), I'll be trying to reduce my working days to 3 days a week max.

[uptherebels]

Why?.....what you get paid doesn't come into it, doing a worthwhile and satisfying job is payment in itself.......some people love to work, whatever they do because their life is their work, perhaps they have nothing much to go home to....work is their reason for living, their worth to society, their specialness and uniqueness, who they are........retirement to some people is a huge loss, a gap a chasm......when they have no routine or stability they feel like a lost part.....some people have little imagination, do not know what they want or could plan a new pathway......they love their set time and routine, what they know.

Maybe that's my issue! I work from 5.30AM to 5.30PM, finishing at 2.30pm on Friday. Work away from home, so in a hotel mon to Thurs. Clean and fed by 6.30pm. Out walking for nearly an hour. That's after 12 hours at work, not sitting at a desk. By 7.30pm...... Bored stiff. The only reason I don't go to bed then, is because if I did, I'd be awake at half midnight!

[Frank Hovis]

Maybe that's my issue! I work from 5.30AM to 5.30PM, finishing at 2.30pm on Friday. Work away from home, so in a hotel mon to Thurs. Clean and fed by 6.30pm. Out walking for nearly an hour. That's after 12 hours at work, not sitting at a desk. By 7.30pm...... Bored stiff. The only reason I don't go to bed then, is because if I did, I'd be awake at half midnight!

I find that staying in hotels for work I can easily sleep for ten hours. The lack of distractions (the telly usually stays off, though I did watch some of the Euros last week), the lack of any chores, and the timeless quality of a identikit empty room shunts my mind into idle.

[justthisbloke]

The work itself is fine, sometimes even interesting, it's just being stuck there for several hours a day for five days a week that makes it grim. That's not living IMO, and I'm not even doing long hours (under 40 a week, not counting lunch). I'd probably be less pissed off with the whole pointless technology and automation thing if it actually meant shorter working hours as a result (there would be a point to it then), but that seems to have stopped happening and gone into reverse for a lot of people. Three days a week sounds about right to be honest, but I probably wouldn't be able to pay the bills off that.

Odd thing is, I used to be one of those driven people. Put in loads of hours and got a real buzz from making biz-stuff just happen. But then something broke in me - I just found I no longer wanted to spend my life in offices or indoors, really. As I got older, every time midsummer's day passed and the days started shortening again, a sort of dread came over me - "I could die in here, you know".

At first I thought it was the commute and the travel that was getting to me so I binned those. But it didn't work.

Part time wouldn't have cut it either. The problem with jobs in the modern intellectual economy is that they can never be part time. Even if you could turn off everyone else for half a week and have no meetings or telecoms, you couldn't stop your own mind churning this over and planning this, that, and the other.

Next week will see my first Midsummer's Day as a free man. And despite the recent weather, quite a suntanned free man.

[winkie]

Maybe that's my issue! I work from 5.30AM to 5.30PM, finishing at 2.30pm on Friday. Work away from home, so in a hotel mon to Thurs. Clean and fed by 6.30pm. Out walking for nearly an hour. That's after 12 hours at work, not sitting at a desk. By 7.30pm...... Bored stiff. The only reason I don't go to bed then, is because if I did, I'd be awake at half midnight!

There is a time and a place for everything......

[Frank Hovis]

Funny that you also fixate upon mudsummer's day, that and midwinter's day are the two big ones for me. That from 21 December every day gets longer, brighter, and (on average) warmer never fails to cheer me up however cold, wet and dark it is.

As I've posted I've retired twice and gone back to work (because I found the dark days of winter so boring) so I am determined that the next time will be for good and I have to be absolutely certain that I won't be tempted to return to work.

I'm nowhere near that point now so it won't be within the next two years anyway.