Hard at Work
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I work a minimum 40 at the office and on a casual week a few more from home, These days its 50+ in the office and a bunch more from home. The joys of a salaried employee and a hard deadline.
Cheers
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I used to work between 60 and 80 hours each week, but then I moved, got married and found a new job where I worked between 40 and 50 and was much happier, although I was on call 24/7 as the only DBA.
Now I work for my local State Government and work my 37.5 hours each week and leave work at the office. No blackberry nothing. It find it works much better for me.
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37.5 hours per week for me at a state university job. My boss is really flexible with time too so I come in late and take longer lunches and just work later than most everyone else to make up for it. I know I'm getting paid less than what I could get in the corporate environment, but it's still more money than I need and there's a lot to be said for job satisfaction. (And having time to enjoy whatever money you're earning.
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My previous employer is a large package delivery company, where my worth was measured very much by time in the building rather than quality of performance. A minimum of 45 hours per week was expected, with little attention on how that time was spent. I could get some of my life back with longer lunches, but that's not the same! Eyes still followed me if I left before about 5:30, even on Fridays.
I recently made a change to a much smaller company whose focus is almost solely on results. I find myself putting in 39-41 hours per week, mainly because that's my expectation of myself. Those hours are almost always ~8:30-~5:00 with half an hour for lunch.
Four or five times per year we have product releases, large data migrations or maintenance schedules which require Saturday evening work which usually stretches into the wee hours of Sunday morning. The boss always makes sure to get us a day off the next week to compensate.
And when I need to be at home to watch my daughter while my wife has an appointment, I use the VPN for full credit.
Oh, and I'm at least 30% more productive. Best career move I've ever made!
Carter
But boss, why must the urgent always take precedence over the important? -
I work an average of 9 hours a day (that's 45 hours a week) and I'm on call 24/7 every third week. When I'm on call, it's basically babysitting the servers; still, there have been times when I've gone into work the next day with a whole two hours of sleep, after spending a good bit of time getting a server back up. It's taking a toll on self and home life (single parenting is not for the faint of heart), and I'm trying to get a better life but so far, I just feel like one of those mice on the old wheel o' IT.
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I work 7:45 to 5:15 with a 30 minute lunch. The concept being that I take every other wednesday off. However that only occasionally happens as I have meetings, system issues ... Oncall for our POS VMS system is rotated every 7 weeks. During your week oncall its 24X7 supporting a hospital registration system that feeds all other (60ish) apps. So we typically get 1-3 pages in the middle of the night (depending on how busy the ER is). Of course I'm one of only 2 SQL DBA's so I'm oncall for SQL Server pretty much 24X7X365 for our SQL apps (but they rarely have issues as opposed to the VMS system). So counting oncall I suspect I average 45-50 hours per week.
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Like most in our field, I have had times in my career where I have had extended periods of working 60-70 work weeks (Y2k was the most painful), but those days are long gone. Currently, I work 45 hour weeks and have the opportunity for work to be an enjoyable part of life, not all of my life; for which I am very thankful. I have been working at the same company 24 years and have been through a number of manager turnovers. One of the first things I do is tell my new bosses that my life outside my job is important to me and if the amount of time I am willing to spend working is not sufficient, then we should look at parting ways, setting expectations upfront. So far there has been nothing but positive responses to my willingness to be honest about this and everything has worked out. Obviously, they can see that I will be there in the case of emergencies and have a legacy of being a consciencious employee, so that helps.
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I'd love to read all the posts and even respond but I'm going to have to do a solid 12 to 14 today so that I can turn the phone off tomarrow.
Cheers.
ATBCharles Kincaid
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I generally work 40 per week with occasional after hours or weekend work for which I get hour for hour exchange time - no overtime pay. I work 7:00 AM - 4:30 PM Monday thru Thursday and 7:00 AM - 11:00 AM on Friday, so I get a bit longer weekend, too.
We don't officially have on-call DBA coverage, though we've told our management that we're willing to help in an emergency if we can be reached. The bottom line is, since they don't pay for on-call, we don't provide it.
Greg
Greg
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Good to hear most of you are working around 40. It's definitely worth the balance to not work 50-60 hours a week. Even for less money.
I still think most people that aren't attached can go harder. Even if you have a support system, I think you're missing out on the time with those who support you. Single people juggle more things, but they can also let most of those go.
And it sounds like someone needs to invent an automatic cat feeder
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I work on average 40 a week. As of late I have been working about 45 to do some important R&D. I need to be here during core hours and can leave on Friday after I have 40 in if there is no pressing issue.
I've worked in IT for over 35 years. 15 years back during projects it was straight pay for 40 and time & a half for any over 40. In those days it was possible to work 65 or more a week, and we often did.
When I first started in the field in the early 70's I we converted old card punched processes to computer systems. Those were very high priority projects. My team worked around the clock, and some of us had our 40 in in the first three days of the week. When it was hot I would sleep on the computer room floor near the AC vent, on cool night I would sleep over near the mass storage unit. And if I was feeling sore it was the couch in the break room if it was not already taken.
It has all been good.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
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I've never given it a lot of thought. I started out in the military where 12 hours days 7 days a week is the norm. After 15 years I retired and went into civilian life (still working for Uncle Sam) and 50+ hours a week was the norm for me (not for everyone on the team) and I was paid for every hour, not expected to donate my time. I always felt my contribution mattered and was never wasted, it always help the organization meet important goals.
Now I work 40 hours per week and think it a luxury (sometimes I feel like I'm really getting over) but now I'm in a job this is straight DBA stuff for a couple of medium use servers and there is just not that much to do. I use a lot of the time to play with developing some apps the new organization can really use but there is no timeline or pressure. For me it's just a matter of perspective, if the job needs it then I'll do what it takes (after all the tax payers are paying my salary and deserve to get their moneys worth).
I can understand the desire to have more family time, but I'm not sure that I have the right to "Expect" special consideration, reduced hours, special perks, etc. If they are available great, but the only thing I expect is appropriate compensation for an honest days work. I think I've been blessed with this life, I've always had work, Always had decent pay, a supportive family and my health. If I had to work 80 hours a week to feed my family I would do it, so again I think it is all perspective. I always try to think of how "bad" it could be.
Just my perspective!
James.
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OK, I'm taking a quick break to jump in. It's at least 40 on normal weeks. I typically stay late a few days each week.
Then there are the times when we go into crunch mode. I remember early this year being on a project where we were on-site, in the customers office. Breakfast was the complimentary quick stuff at the hotel. We showed up on-site at 8 in the morning and left at 8 at night only because the last person with a key left the building at 8. They would bring in lunch, usually fast food and I ate right at the desk. After we left the building we would go eat and then rearrange the furniture in the hotel lobby and work till midnight or better. One morning the hotel threw us out because they were getting ready to set up the breakfast bar. Those were some long hours, and all at salary.
Now with a few of those under your belt, and there have been a bunch over the years, if I have to go take a day at the doctors, or run down to file my latest protest with the city about the road construction in my front yard, etc. my employer doesn't say much.
It's actually not bad for a 50 plus year old partially disabled dude, right?
ATBCharles Kincaid
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My best hours were my first decent IT job. I worked 10am-7pm, so I missed rush hour in both directions and had two hours every day when no one else was in the office. Oh, the heady days of dBase III+ and TCB-11!
I've been fortunate. Trying to work exclusively as a DBA, very limited after hours work, it's been pretty good. I'm doing the 8-5 M-F and only did extra hours once when I was upgrading one of my SQL Servers from RTM to SP4 (they never had a DBA here before they hired me). I've got some after-hours work coming up: upgrading a server from SQL Standard to Enterprise, then some migrations from my P3 server to that Enterprise server, but as a rule we don't do a lot of OT here.
The article that Steve linked to made some points that I've been wanting to see for ages. I don't think I would care for a 20 hour work week, but 30 hours would work nicely. I think I could afford a 25% pay cut, and it would give me an extra day with my wife: we live 100 miles apart and normally only see each other on weekends. That would be good. Dunno if I'll ever see it, but it would be good.
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James, I don’t know what military you were in, but I was USAF and we NEVER worked 12/7 unless there was some special exercise on. I worked plenty of 12 hour shifts, but never averaged more than 42 hours a week, and what with “cut backs” (being sent home if work was slow) usually averaged considerably less. Yes, we were “On Duty” 24/7, but get real, that’s not work.
In fact I was shocked when I joined the civilian workforce and all of a sudden 45 hours a week was considered slacking off. I’ve been in (civilian) IT for over 25 years and until my most recent job have always found 45 hours a week to be the minimum, and some jobs expecting considerably more. Then there is On-Call. I don’t mind being on call for emergencies, if I do my job correctly, they don’t happen. I hate getting called at 2AM because some moron forgot his password. Or the blithering idiot who wants to know why his ad hock report that joins 10 views is running over an hour.
I work to live, not live to work. In the US the standard work week is supposed to be 40 hours and when I’m salaried, which is the usual case, that’s what I consider I get paid for. Anything over that is unpaid labor as far as I’m concerned. My family ALWAYS comes before my job. There are plenty of jobs out there, there is only one family.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon my current employer who truly believes happy employees make better workers. I work a 40 hour week, and if I’m here much after 5 I’m in serious danger of being locked in. My boss doesn’t even want to know what my cell phone number is, so being on call is a non issue. If we have a true disaster, he knows he can get in touch with me, and WE will deal with it. Our profits are up and our expenses are down, and this despite our owner taking every opportunity he can find to spend more on his employees. Too bad this is such a rarity.
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