In my corporate days some weeks I busted my ass others not so much.
I donāt, even as a small business owner.
When I worked in an office, I did probably 3-5 hours of actual work a week. Several people in the same role were stressed constantly about getting their work done. It was there that I learned a lot of people are simply not efficient workers.
There is no such thing as a 40 hour week where Iām sitting. Iām in analytics and process automation atm and have been in tech my entire career. Most work more than 40 as a standard. Itās worse some places more than others.
How many hours do you work per week? Work meaning at work or sitting in a chair when you would rather be elsewhere.
- < 35
- 35-40
- 41-45
- 46-50
- 51-55
- 56+
- Retired
- Unemployed
0 voters
Answering that as how many hours are you at work? Or how many hours of actual work do you do?
I answered based on the latter.
At work or sitting in a chair when you would rather be elsewhere.
To answer the question of what I would do with my extra dayā¦.disc golfā¦.lots of rounds of disc golf.
I mean, why shouldnāt you? Thatās a great answer. Live your best life man!
I have the utmost respect for anybody working in the ātechā field, as an EE Iām in that field also.
That said Iām a little surprised to hear @ninermac and @Gassman say they are busting their balls at work in this environment. In my experience the last 12 to 18 months there arenāt enough tech professionals to fill the roles and because of that most have moved to different companies to get 15-20 % raises to do less work.
As a personal comparison my company has lost 3 engineers just in the last 3 months, and filling reqs takes 3-6 months then you have to train them on the products we work on. That has lead to those sticking around to āclocking inā only 40 hours and not a minute more. Those that donāt leave for whatever reason, like their boss, have stock not vested yet, ectā¦ arenāt going to bust it when there is too much work and not enough workersā¦ I guess it will even it self out eventually. They donāt call it the great resignation for nothingā¦
Trust me, Iām about to leave. It canāt happen fast enough. I donāt expect to be there 6 weeks from now. The money is great, but itās not worth the mess I stepped into.
I donāt think you know very many people in a private practice. Those hours are a still a real thing. I agree with your assessment for large, public companies. But many small businesses still set their own hours, which often includes Fri afternoons off.
And donāt get me started with people in sales (sorry for those on NNN).
I have friends from college that own their own businesses. Those lazy bastards are usually in a boat or a Jeep on the way to the beach / mountains by Thursday afternoon. Iām damn jealous of them.
(They do work hard, but they donāt keep the # of hours theyād like you to think they do)
The key with your own business is the acceptance of not working. I know some of my friends are jealous of me. I take 3 weeks off in December. The catch though is there is no money coming in in those 3 weeks. There isnāt PTO. Now I am a one man shop so I know it is different for other types of business, but there is a trade off. The biggest difference is being self employed allows YOU the owner to decide, what is more important money or your family or trip or whatever. Ive turned down big money because I wanted to do something with my family. I have also missed things because I needed the paycheck and I couldnāt take PTO. That monthly check cuts both ways.
The autonomy is everything though. I think Iād love to be able to make that decision on a day to day or week to week basis without it jeopardizing my standing with a company.
Iām not slamming any business owners - youāre taking a risk. It comes with the territory. I just like poking fun at my friends and I admit I am jealous of them. Iāve always wanted to take off a whole month in the summer and travel. Never been able to during my adult life. My dad when we were young did that one time. Rented a beach house at Nags Head for like 6 weeks and we basically moved there for the summer, and then traveled for a week too. Was freaking great.
But back to 4 day work weeks. Iād be happy just being able to get off to the beach for a long weekend any weekend I wanted to.