How many hours you work a week?

[Goddard]

60-70 hours a week... Manual labour mostly... Tired as hell, but well paid at least... Electroacoustic music and sound design education translates to unemployment nowadays... Didn't want to make commercials... Some say looser...
Skål!

[trevox]

I work for a US tech corporation in Europe and the difference between how the US and European employees are treated is disgusting. I rarely do over my 40 hours, but the US folk have to do 60+ hours a week to be seen as earning their money for fear of losing their job (they don't get paid overtime either). I have had US work colleagues told they were being fired and their email accounts were deleted within hours of them being told - complete madness. It's funny though, the US folk that feel they need to get involved in "busy work" to seem more important statistically do a lot less work. Seems like they take too much on in an effort to become irreplaceable and end up getting stressed and burned out and complete fuck all.

Having said that, the only reason us Europeans can demand we only do 40 hours per week is because we are protected by an agreement between the company and a European workers council. I have friends working in marketing for local companies that do an average of 60/70 hours a week and it really affects their lives outside of work - one of them has had to take stress leave as someone mentioned before. What's really sick is that the company he works for is very profitable now, yet they seem to be jumping on the recession bandwagon - they still refuse to employ the amount of people required for the amount of work there is to do. Employers really should be taking the mental health of their employees into consideration, but unfortunately they are few and far between.

[FlightPlan]

The Londoner's post about getting a doctor sanctioned stress reprieve made me laugh! Here in America we're trying to be like China and that involves a lot of demonization of the Europe lifestyle (Greece in particular). I'm all for being competitive and working hard - just as long as everybody shares the benefits - and that's the part that's usually left out.

Over time an enormous gulf has opened up between the working man, and the jerky executives that vote themselves huge salaries and stock options. Seems natural that a man who represented the .01% of richest Americans felt entitled to run the country and that he had no problem telling his donor base that literally half the country were parasites.

And our healthcare system is such rubbish that you can be financially ruined if you're seriously ill, even if you are insured.

[earthloop]

I work for myself, which involves getting up at 11am, drinking endless coffees until 2pm at which point I lumber into my "office" and get down to some serious forum posting and checking facebook/ reddit.

After a couple of hours it's time for lunch, which is at least another 2 hours of pissing about until I'm ready to get back to "work".

(6pm-8pm ) I do two solid hours of actual work and then it's time for another meal, another two hours of faffing about. Then at 8pm I go back and attempt to finish off what I started earlier but somehow wind up making music and surfing aimlessly. I figure I'm tired, and stop work for the day.

I take a week day off usually to go shopping or socialise.

So, that's um, about 8 hours a week.
Hard grafting. It's hell I tell ya!

LOL...sounds like me!! Saved me the typing, thanks!

[earthloop]

And our healthcare system is such rubbish that you can be financially ruined if you're seriously ill, even if you are insured.

I just have to single out this comment (because it is important for 'ordinary' citizens) to point out that the countries with the best 'socialist' health care systems are also the countries with the least debt. (Australia, Sweden etc) I would like an American Republicans to address this 'Anomaly' in their ideological fantasies.

I just feel bad for those citizens of countries like the USA who, through no fault of their own, end up having their lives destroyed for ideological reasons. Talk about crimes against humanity!

Sorry folks, but I just can't stand silent in the face of injustice.

[Sage]

The Londoner's post about getting a doctor sanctioned stress reprieve made me laugh! Here in America we're trying to be like China and that involves a lot of demonization of the Europe lifestyle (Greece in particular). I'm all for being competitive and working hard - just as long as everybody shares the benefits - and that's the part that's usually left out.

In the UK, individuals have the option to opt out of EU working hour regulations as we have a similar mentality here. But my previous job(s) involved heavy monitoring of staff productivity and error rate and it was standard across the board that those who did overtime regularly (up to like 60 hour weeks) made more errors on average and on average were less productive, as well as knowing people who've been signed off because of stress due to being totally burned out. This recession idea of staff working harder for more hours is ultimately less productive and more costly! But then, management is always full of clueless fuckwits.

[snakedogman]

I work 40 hours a week (in the Netherlands), sometimes a bit more, though if I do get into serious overtime I can get this compensated as time off later on.
Over here 40 hours is reasonably standard for a full-time job, although it could also mean 36 hours. Lots of people work part-time too. And why shouldn't they? If you can make enough money to get around with 24 hours why work more (unless it's something you really love)?
I already feel that 40 hours a week (and 2 hours commute per day) leaves me very little time to pursue other interests. I would gladly give up some money for more free time (which is why I plan to go freelance next year).

[doc holiday]

45 minimum, and man it wears on me. seems to tax most everything out of me these days..