You always hear the phase “9 to 5” and also the song with the same name. Assuming you include 1 hour worth of breaks (30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks), you’re only working for 7 hours a day which comes up to 35 hours a week.
Now it feels like you have to work 8 hours a day (for a total of 40 hours of actual work), plus your other time off meaning you’re really there for 9 hours each day (for a total of 45 hours). Am i looking at that wrong, or did expected times change, and if so, when?
Having worked in a couple of European countries, I thought 7.5 hours of work plus a half an hour lunch break is the norm everywhere in the western world. So the 9 to 5 did totally make sense to me. I was honestly surprised reading all these comments.
Here in America I work 7.5 with two 15 minute paid breaks and a half hour unpaid lunch. So it’s really more like 8:30-5
Nevermind the world. Even here in Europe in Switzerland the standard is somehow 42 hours a week.
In Spain it’s 40h a week maximum but to explain it simply there are 2 ways to go higher: 1. some professions can go higher as long as they compensate later the same year (the total maximum hours are anually, not weekly). 2.up to 80h a year on extra hours that need to be paid.
That said, that’s what the law says but many people do extra hours without getting paid and people do not sue for a few hours a year.There are various exceptions in Switzerland too, I think the weekly maximum if going over your contract is 50h and that can either be paid with 25% extra, or compensated by free time in another week. And then even this maximum can be surpassed by another 2h/d, for a real max of 60h, if there is exceptional work that needs to be done, also paid with 25% extra, or compensated by free time in another week.
It seems a little complicated to me, lukily I haven’t really had to deal with those protections in the law yet, since my workplace is pretty sensible overall.
if someone tried to dictate the amount of work hours that I put in during the day I would just start puking and shitting
I’m pretty sure it’s in your contract of employment
Not to mention commute time, time spent getting ready for work/bed, and time spent sleeping. I don’t consider any of that to be free time.
I work 10 hour shifts, so once you factor in all that stuff, I get about two full hours for myself each day to do whatever I want, before I have to start the process all over again for tomorrow.
I think it differs a bit from province to province in Canada, but where I’m at, you can either work 8.5 hours with a half hour lunch, or 9 hours with a 1 hour lunch. It’s up to the employer. 15 minute breaks are paid, but not guaranteed (if it’s busy). Lunch breaks are unpaid and mandatory.
USA. Been working 20 years. Every job has been 8 to 5, unpaid 1h lunch, 2x15min paid breaks. :(
The last time I worked hourly was the late 90s. We got a paid 15 break per 4 hours worked. If we worked more than 6 hours, we also got an unpaid 30 minute lunch. I got no benefits because I was part-time at 37.5 hours per week.
Imagine being that guy scheduling people for 39.9 hours thinking you’re a goddamn genius.
The “genius” was the IN state Congress that made it law that 37.5 and under must be considered part time, even for minors. I was working exactly that every week while also going to high school when I was 16.
That’s wild that it wasn’t full time. IRS now defines 30 as full-time thankfully
37.5 hours
part-time
crazy, in my world that’s pretty much full time
I believe it is where I am too, 36+ is full-time for benefits requirements. Apparently the insurance company asked my employer to please make sure I was working at least 36hrs a week, because for a month or so I was only getting to 32.
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Yeah, I think the 9-5 mentality comes from a time when men would spend most of the day socializing, drinking, and sexually harassing the secretary. Back then the boys would go to lunch whenever and leave the work to the nerds and the women.
I get as many coffee breaks in the office as I want but it’s not like I get up, grab a cup and then play on my phone while I drink my coffee for 15 minutes. I get up, grab a cup, maybe say hi to someone as it brews an instant cup, then go back to my desk and drink while I am working. But no one is shadowing down my neck saying I can’t leave my desk until 10:15 and I need to be back by 10:30 or my pay is docked. Freedom and responsibility rather than strict time management and punishment.
We need to strike for slow coffee machines. These instant pots are a tool of oppression!
You’re making coffee in an instant pot? Tell me more!
I guess it depends on the company. Mine clearly expects us to work on 37.5 hours per week whether you work non stop from 9 to 4.30 or from 7 to 7 with many long breaks. And any overtime I do during the week makes my day at work on Friday that much shorter.
Hour long mandatory lunch, no pay. Switzerland.
Switzerland is more like 8-11 12-18. Atleast for me. So more 8-6 than 9-5.
Half an hour mandatory lunch, paid. Austria.
(pretty much depends on your job a bit, just wanted to continue with the same comment style)
Oh shit I need to go pester my family to let me be a citizen (or recheck and go talk to an EU focused immigration lawyer to discuss where exactly in Europe my family was when to see if I qualify)
did […] included
Nope. It’s ‘did include’ .
My job is 9 to 5 including one hour lunch time when I started, it at least that’s what the HR person and my boss told me when I started. Early this year I saw my position “obligations” or whatever is called and it says that I work 9 to 6 so 🤷 I hope they never enforce it
Different jobs are different
Sorry for rambling
You’re thinking small-time, like an hourly worker. Good office jobs are generally salaried positions and the idea of clocking in and out is… not a thing. Some days you work more, some less, whatever needs to be done. The idea of 9-5 is just a general time frame. And no one gives a shit when you lunch or break. In a real profession the yardstick is, are you getting it done or not?
I’ll catch grief for saying that, so I’ll preempt by saying, if your job isn’t like that, you likely have a shit job.
Lolol what kind of fantasy world do you live in? Salaried worker here and although my job isn’t 9-5 strictly if I don’t work at least 40 hours a week my pay will be docked. So I get to choose between 8-5 or 9-6 or I can work while I eat and get that cushy 9-5 life. Or if I miss work I can make up those hours by working at night. It’s a real luxury to be able to do that compared to shift work, but the hours are still being counted.
Also stop being so entitled. Most of your life necessities come from industries (groceries, power plants, gas stations, hospitals, etc) where people work on a timecard/shift basis so don’t you come out here and pretend timecard or shift work isn’t a “real” profession.
the hours are still being counted
Refer to my last sentence. And you will note that I didn’t denigrate anyone’s work, only that if they’re on the clock, the job probably sucks.
Tell me more about this “some days you work less” concept. It’s completely foreign to me
Those would be Fridays at my last job. Swear to god no one did anything unless absolutely necessary and most were gone by mid-afternoon. LOL, which sucked because that’s when I was often jamming along and no one was around to help, question, etc.
If your job has you grinding non-stop, that’s no way to live and a good employer recognizes that.
Tell me.more about this “good employer” concept. That’s completely foreign to me
Gentle reminder that without “small time”, hourly workers doing real labor your easy, sweatless, office job would disappear overnight. Perhaps some gratitude? Maybe even some solidarity?
As a former IT professional turned baker, I dislike the condescending attitude too many white collar workers have toward the actual wheel turners of the world.
I’ve done it all, from shoveling asphalt to dishpits to customer service, all that and a dozen more. Guess what? Those were shit jobs. Doesn’t make the person doing those jobs shit.
Some of y’all are so eager to be offended it’s ridiculous.
If you want solidarity you need to stop shitting on office workers first. You’re lambasting your own behaviour with this comment. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black…
“doing real labor” “easy, sweatless, office job” “the actual wheel turners”
“I dislike the condescending attitude”
It never ceases to amaze me how often people see and hate shit in other people that they epitomize themselves.
And honestly, my experience has been the opposite and I see the condescending attitude, at least more openly, coming from blue collar workers more often.
I’m a capitalist and this thread is giving me a hard-on
I was waiting for the /s the whole time, that comment read like a joke but I think it was actually sincere…
At the end, we just all want to get paid. And UBI doesn’t exist yet.
Me laughing in salaried 9-5 with clock in and clock out. Pay deduction if i forget to do clock in or out even if everyone know i work that day. Got paid 50% less than people who did the same job same position who didn’t need to clock in/out.
I have a shit job and the only thing that keep me going is the job close to where i and my family live so i can check on my sister (found out that she do self harm once and I’m scared to go faraway from her ever since).
Desperate people make a good cheap employee.
I’m desperate ATM. Looking at a crappy onsite tech support role, no benefits, just to get by while I keep looking.
I’m “salaried,” and union, but they 100% track our hours and if you use up your benefit time and take additional time off, you will not get paid.
So I’m not even completely sure how they can even call it salary. Like… Maybe I’ve misunderstood the meaning of that word my entire life?
I have a salaried position. I don’t clock in. But it’s typically only used to deny us overtime pay. If I work 35 hours a week, I’m paid 12.5% less than my colleagues who do 40. And if my lunch break is too long, I’m expected to stay late sometime within the month to compensate.
And while I do have a shit job (save me) I’ve never seen someone whose employer didn’t mind their hours as long as they got shit done.
As others have said, I’m in the “put time in, get shit done” camp.
Provided I deliver a job well done, my bosses don’t give a fuck what or how many hours I clock per week.
I used to work at an engineering firm and one day I saw one of the engineers leave at like 2pm on a Wednesday and he was like, “Bye, see you next week!” He had been busting his ass to finish a project and already hit his 40hrs for the week.
I was a temp at the time but needless to say, I jumped at the chance when they offered me a real job.
You cannot be salaried and deducted hours you don’t work.
Either you are hourly, and paid for the hours you actually work, or you’re salaried, and paid regardless of how many hours you work.
What your employer is doing is illegal, and wage theft.
You cannot be salaried and deducted hours you don’t work.
You would think that. And yet, the US… Finds a way. I’d rather not doxx myself by getting into it further, but it’s definitely not illegal where I am.
Not illegal, as in you’ve actually gone through this with a lawyer, or not illegal, as in your company does it anyway?
Because Federally, being salaried does not work like you describe: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17g-overtime-salary
Working less hours in a day is not valid reason to deduct pay. Working less full days is. (From the source above)
State law does not trump federal law, unless explicitly called out. It’s just that federal law is actually pretty lax regarding most things and states are more restrictive.
This is so common in Quebec that I have trouble believing it’s illegal. I think it might be a loophole.
How do they know when you’re not working your full 40 if you aren’t clocking in or out? I’m not familiar with Canadian labor law so you may very well be right, but it is kind of hard to imagine a legal pay structure where they can dock you for working fewer hours but don’t compensate you for working more.
Friendly reminder that wage theft is very common and just because lots of people are breaking the law doesn’t mean it’s actually legal. For example in the States, there is a fairly narrow definition of which jobs qualify as overtime exempt but go to a jobs board and you’ll find pretty much anything under the sun. Many employees are incorrectly classified as exempt and are completely unaware they are even entitled to overtime pay.
Well they don’t know know, but there are signs. For one, we fill in timesheets, and lying on them is a no-no. I could probably get away with stretching the truth a little, but if they notice I only commit between X and Y time, or that I’m seldom available for developer questions at a particular time, they might get suspicious and investigate my hours.
As for overtime… Well I think how companies handle it is they don’t actually ask us to stay late; they just give us unrealistic targets that kinda require overtime unless you’re a god if we ever complained they’d say they never asked for us to stay late.
We used to be able to accumulate time indefinitely and take time off according to the bank of extra time we’d worked, but once, someone accumulated hundreds of hours and just left on an unplanned vacation for nearly a full month and they really didn’t like that. So now, you need to work your quota (which you can have them adjust to your capabilities; 30, 35, 40…) on average every month. So, sure, I can work only 20 hours one week, but that’s 15 hours of extra time I need to do within that month.
And if you have extra at the end of the month, well, that’s lost.
Which sucks, because I used to use those as sick days over the legally required two paid ones we get per year; my health isn’t exactly resplendent.
You’re not an exempt (salaried) employee if they deduct your pay for working less in a given week. I’ve never had an employer who cared about hours as long as work got done.
Mine doesn’t give a fuck how long we work.
Your math ain’t mathing.
The stereotypical “9 to 5” is an 8 hour shift with a paid hour “lunch break”. This includes two 10-15 minute breaks, which are also paid. You come to work at 9, do work, take breaks, take lunch, and then leave at 5. That’s 8 hours.
My job is 8 to 430. I come in at 8, work till 12, then I have a half hour unpaid lunch. The unpaid lunch means I cannot be required to stay on site, which can happen with a paid lunch. Then from 1230 to 430 I work until I go home. There are two 10 minute paid breaks in there. I work 8 hours total in an 8.5 hour work day.
All my jobs have either been 9-5 or 9:30-5:30 with an hour lunch included. TBH I’ve never tracked my pay by the hour, just the day.
It has definitely changed, I don’t know when, but it’s been like this for at least the last decade.
Though, in my experience (NB: I’m a software engineer, which is a notoriously lax field.) only what the piece of paper says has changed. Hell, most of my employee handbooks have claimed that “full time” is 50 hours a week. They get away with it because I’m classified as a “computer employee” (lol) and make more than $35k/year (super lol) which means my employment is exempted from minimum wage and overtime pay laws.
Nobody that I know actually works that consistently. Most people I know don’t even do 40. I do 9-5 (or 8:30-4:30 usually), I take breaks when I need them and nobody has ever complained to me about the amount I’m working.
My only guess for why it’s this way is that having that be the official working time means it’s easier to fire anyone for no reason because they’re not working their “contractually obligated” amount of time.
I actually had an argument with a former employer quite a few years ago about that ‘computer operator’ / ~36k limit thing.
My scummy boss at that time was telling me that because of those stipulations I wasn’t eligible for any overtime and they could demand I work as many hours as they want - even though I was hourly. When I said that didn’t sound right he dared me to look up our state’s employment laws.
So I did (side note: I’m in one of the most employee-friendly states), and it very clearly said that my boss was profoundly wrong. So I sent him the URL to that page. And he and the piece of shit HR person shut right up about it. Me and all of my colleague never heard that ridiculous argument again.
My last couple of jobs, including my current one, have been much more reasonable and accommodating. Even though I’m now salary, they aren’t exploitative of me or my colleagues.
So my advice to other IT folk is: take the time to check up on your state’s employment laws. If you are being exploited by your employer they may be totally in the wrong.
So my advice to other IT folk is: take the time to check up on your state’s employment laws. If you are being exploited by your employer they may be totally in the wrong.
100%
I’m unfortunately in a state with even more vague and useless definition of who gets to be exempt than the federal definition.
