Aug

1

The 80 Hour Work Week Myth

August 1, 2008 |

I have heard so many people say they are hard-workers that do 60, 70, and even 80 hour weeks. Given the fact that weeks have 168 hours, and humans normally need around 50 to sleep, 20 to eat, and probably 20 more to do necessities like bathe, clothe, and go to the bathroom, an 80 hour work week should leave someone with around negative two (-2) hours to spare assuming a zero (0) time commute. Quite an accomplishment!

Maybe the phrase should be changed from “Working 80 Hours” to “Being at Work 80 Hours”.

Efficiencies Gained:
We all know that with the arrival of computers and cell phones we can do many tasks that would have required us to walk or drive to an establishment before. We can bill pay, shop, have fun, run errands and even talk to friends and family on the company dime without even leaving our desks: something that was a bit more difficult in the past. To top it off companies are providing smoking areas, food, gymnasiums, play rooms, child care and other amenities that allow people to spend more of their “spare time” in the office and get back to work faster. We have certainly gained some efficiencies. It has also allowed to intermix personal life with business life – at least to realize tasks for both on the same environment. Soon people will be able to say: “I Worked 80 Hours” and ALSO “Had Personal/Fun Time for 80 Hours”.

The Blackberry / Laptop Myth:
I have had many friends who count time answering e-mails while drinking at the bar or sunbathing at the pool as working hours. First off, I sometimes question the value/worthiness of emails that do not contribute to advance closure on a task – which could eliminate some percentage of those off-hour e-mails. Secondly, unless you have a constant stream of e-mail you probably take breaks to sip some more of that drink, talk to your friends, or just relax in some other way. You are probably not paying constant and undivided attention to that blackberry, or you would have stayed at the office where you can work more efficiently. Then there is the laptop VPN method I have seen so often: someone logs into the company Virtual Private Network from home and start counting the hours. I have seen these people cook dinner, watch TV and feed the kids while the VPN timer keeps ticking and their time cards keep accounting for that time (fraud, by most standards).

The Travel Taxi-Meter:
I have also heard people say they work 80 hour work-weeks because they are traveling. I do not know if they count the time while sleeping. But they certainly keep score of the amount of time they spend dining and drinking with workmates and colleagues: which could be a great deal amount of effort sometimes. Yet, for some reason I can’t say that you “Work” while dozing on a plane or reading on a plane. And while I have prepared presentations for the next day during red-eye flights to other countries, I do not think all of the time spent on the road is actually performing work: although it may be time you are giving up to your company.

Real Work Hours:
I think that if we counted only the hours that we really perform a task (discounting the personal tasks we do), we may come up with a lower estimate. I would guess most people perform real, good quality work for about 4 hours of their day. I know I did for a while: I have been an employee like everybody else at some point in their lives. Whoever tells me they perform good quality work for more than 10 hours a day in a consistent way, I have further advice for them – keep reading.

Fake Motivations:

I have been at a company that promote people staying late at work. I have been in situations where the company provides food at 7pm and doesn’t promote people who do not frequent nightly dinner meetings. I also saw how fun it was when some employees decided to create a “Bagel Club” to also make a roll call at 7am. Needless to say, since almost nobody could prove they had been in office hours for more than 12 hours straight, both the dinners and the breakfasts ended soon thereafter.

If You Really Enjoy It, Do It For Yourself!
Said that, there is a chance you can and do enjoy working 10 or 12 hours work shifts performing a particular task. You should remember that for as much as your workmates are pretending to be working the same amount of hours, they are not: they are probably working something like 4 hours. Even when you work two, three, or four times the amount of time they work, you will not be paid twice the salary. However, if you turned your skills into a marketable trade or service you could be making more money than you do right now. Consider going independent!

If you really, truly work 80 hours a week, I want to hire you!!! But be careful, I will be expecting 4 times the work of the average employee.


Comments

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

 

Recomended Links:

* Your Link Here