How does a 60+ hour work week look like?

[Hauldren Collider]

Gribbler isn't putting the laughing face after the things KH has said, which are essentially the same points that I have made throughout the thread. I guess I'm an easier target because I'm not KrazyHorse, gribbler?

[Jon Miller]

If I wasn't doing physics or doing KH job (as I think the compensation there is probably worth greater hours), I wouldn't put in over 40.

As it is, I just work as much as I can mostly. Although I do try and not ignore my relationships and my health (mental/physical/spiritual).

JM

[giblets]

Gribbler isn't putting the laughing face after the things KH has said, which are essentially the same points that I have made throughout the thread. I guess I'm an easier target because I'm not KrazyHorse, gribbler?

You seemed more callous.

[Hauldren Collider]

I agree that it is a personal decision, and I don't think less of people for not wanting to work long hours, but I do find it ridiculous to say that nobody should be allowed to work long hours because you don't want to have to compete with the people who are willing.

xpost

[MOBIUS]

If you don't like the hours you're being set then leave and find another job. That seems to be the route mobius took...

Amen to that! Also leaving London, fullstop.

I'm not lacking for money, I earn a lot more than the average wage, just on a fraction of the hours. Hence why I have the time to be in Ireland a couple of weeks ago and Cyprus next week. Funnily enough, I have the option to take up a couple of weeks worth of private work, but that means over a month's worth of 5 day weeks - so I'm umming and ahhing over it... My plan is to price myself out of the market and not get the job, but last time I did that, the client still wanted me to do the work!

[Al B. Sure!]

Why'd you take the job if you didn't want to work that long?

Hours change, HC. You agreed to employment, worked there for years, then all of a sudden, they need you to do something else. You can't just quit and be unemployed for months while you search for a new job. That's absurd. Now that isn't really relevant to this issue (because being ordered to work more hours usually isn't that big of a deal) but you seem to have no conception of what it is like to work. Nor of the fact that people can hate their jobs but be forced to stay for various reasons, namely that they can't afford to not work.

One problem is HC has no experience being a mere cog in a corporate machine, being promised things like 2 weeks paid vacation and not being allowed to take it (nor even cash it out!) because you're 'too instrumental' to the operation... having hourly workers have WORKED OVERTIME deducted from their hours because they were over budget, etc. There is so much corruption in corporate America it's absurd.

I am all for being able to work crazy hours though as long as you get paid for it! But I also understand that employers dick you around and can change what they need from you at a moment's notice.

Also, as I was trying to show, it's not always in the employer's best interest to burn out their employees. It doesn't make business sense to do so.

[KrazyHorse]

JM:

And I'm quite supportive of your ability to make that choice, allowing you to have your pick of one of the millions of jobs where you wouldn't be expected to do so.

By the way, the number of hours worked by those not in the top few percent of the income distribution has been declining for a number of decades in the US....

[Hauldren Collider]

Well obviously if they break your contract or refuse to pay you should be able to sue. That's essentially theft and I most definitely agree that theft is illegal....

And yes, I admit to not having workplace experience, this is obvious given that I'm still in high school, regardless, I think I can wrap my head around the economics of wage controls and similar things.

xpost, again

[Jon Miller]

Actually, from what I have heard most people who get stuck with long work hours have them due to volunteering to do them when they started with the company (to impress/etc). Then later, despite them not being expected for everyone else, they are expected for the poor person who had initially volunteered them (whether he wants to continue to do them or not).

You don't want to give your employer the expectation that you work extra hours, rather that when you do work extra hours it is a really big deal and something that should get you a lot of reward/etc.

This is probably not true in physics (and Wall Street).

I could be wrong, I am not that experienced.

JM

[Dinner]

I agree that it is a personal decision, and I don't think less of people for not wanting to work long hours, but I do find it ridiculous to say that nobody should be allowed to work long hours because you don't want to have to compete with the people who are willing.

xpost

I have yet to find a single person in this thread say someone should not be allowed to work longer hours. I have seen several people say it is unreasonable for an employer to try to make people work longer hours and that they thus like having some form of legal protection no matter how limited. You're building a strawman here.

[Al B. Sure!]

Actually, from what I have heard most people who get stuck with long work hours have them due to volunteering to do them when they started with the company (to impress/etc). Then later, despite them not being expected for everyone else, they are expected for the poor person who had initially volunteered them (whether he wants to continue to do them or not).

You don't want to give your employer the expectation that you work extra hours, rather that when you do work extra hours it is a really big deal and something that should get you a lot of reward/etc.

This is probably not true in physics (and Wall Street).

I could be wrong, I am not that experienced.

JM

Yeah. It's a bad idea to be the model employee willing to sacrifice everything for your employer. That puts you on the fast-track to a dead-end.

I am crazy competitive though so I probably would do it anyway.

[Dauphin]

Er...what?

The analogy was made to demonstrate the flawed reasoning behind "this is a choice which is up to the individual in making a career decision" -> "employers should have to obtain a waiver from their employees"

Except that wasn't the point of his comment.

[Dauphin]

I have yet to find a single person in this thread say someone should not be allowed to work longer hours. I have seen several people say it is unreasonable for an employer to try to make people work longer hours and that they thus like having some form of legal protection no matter how limited. You're building a strawman here.

My god, I agree with what Oerdin says. Purely coincidence I bet.

[Dinner]

Eat your heart out, *****. :smoke:

[KrazyHorse]

Let me put my hand on my heart and say that I will fight to the death for the right for Americans to kneel naked before their employers, reach back, pull apart their quivering buttocks and say "I am ready to accept you at your whim, Sir" whilst nervously chattering about the inherent nobility of the act.

Funny, my employer has no interest in getting anything from me but my labor, which I provide for a price. If I don't like the conditions of my employment or the price I am paid, I will go elsewhere. At no point in this does my dignity feel hurt in accepting a negotiated agreement between myself and another party. Do you think my employer feels put out when it is faced with the choice of paying me or losing me?

However, I got a very nice job without going in for that, and I'm perfectly happy to let the employment laws help ensure my kids don't end up calling me "Uncle." I'll work long hours if I choose, but that's my call.

Employment laws don't prevent that; your own choices do. The vast majority of Americans choose to work ~40 hours a week, as do the vast majority of Britons, and employment laws have little if anything to do with it.

The idea that without the government looking out for you by making you sign a waiver you would end up toiling in the salt mines for untold weeks on end lets me know precisely how much faith in yourself you have to make good decisions...