Tuesday 2 October 2007

Working Hours


Thanks to all the voters who entered into the poll on hour many hours we all work a day. There were 50 votes so I make that quite a decent effort for one of these polls. The results are still in the sidebar until tomorrow when Nick Drew has new one to go in.

Here are the results for analysis:

<7
16 (32%)
8
16 (32%)
10
12 (24%)
12+
6 (12%)

I am pleased to see that so many people manage to work less than 7 hours a day. You only live once and I don't think at the pearly gates or wherever we end up you will look back and wish you had spent more time in the office. Some of you probably have better things to do than work anyway- Gordon steals most of it anyway!

8 hours too is a commendable achievement in clocking on and off to an exact time. If you voted in this category is it because you work just to get the money or are indeed your employers (yourself included possibly) fair and honest?

Part of me thinks thought that some explanation for the 64% in these two categories is a dissatisfaction with your work ?

Then we get to the 1/3rd of us who seem to put the hours in. This poll was inspired by my current 70 hour weeks in a new job. Hopefully once I am up to speed this can be reduced to something more akin to the EU maximum (48 hrs). On the other hand, I don't hate what I do and am paid well there is little to moan about beyond not seeing the family quite enough. My guess is that this applies to most of the voters here, some of whom are no doubt self-employed too as building a business requires endless work; and for little reward in the beginning too.

That is my take, what is yours?

13 comments:

Steven_L said...

"That is my take, what is yours?" (CU)

You really wanna know my take on it? Well I'm a less than 7 but I accounted for my scivving at the coffee machine. I'll start from the beginning:

1 In the beginning Alexander Graham Bell created the telephone. 2 Now there was peace and quiet, people enjoyed privacy and knew roughly how much their bills would be each month, but the World Trade Organisation was hovering over the over-indebted and incompetent governments of Europe.

3 And the French Government said ‘Let there be Orange’ and there was Orange. 4 The investment bankers saw that the Orange was good and seperated the Orange from all the other colours. 5 The management consultants called the Orange ‘bright’ and the rest of the colours ‘more expensive’, there were handsets there were phone calls – the first day.

6 And the boffins said there shall be text messages so that the consumers need not actually hold a real-time conversation. 7 So the marketing consultants made the text messages ‘free’ for contract customers, and seperated the contract customers from the pay as you go customers. 8 And there were handsets and there were phonecalls and there were text messages – the second day.

9 And the boffins said there shall be multi-media services and digital cameras. And the consumers purchased the new handsets. 10 Orange called the multi-media messaging service ‘picture messages’ and gathered the picture messages into things called ‘photobundles’ The investment bankers saw that ‘photobundles’ were good. 11 Then the marketing consultants said ‘Let the third party dealerships apply the photobundles to the accounts so that the accounts may bear seeds for the investment bankers, according to their various holdings.’ And it was so. 12 The third party dealerships applied the photobundles to the consumers accounts but told the consumers to phone Orange and remove the photobundles after the initial free period. 13 The accountants saw that this was not good – the third day.

14 And the boffins said ‘Let there be bluetooth so that the handsets can send picture messages to each other without using the Orange network equipment, 15 and let there be wireless connectivity so that the handsets and computers can talk to each other throughout the world without using the Orange network.’ And it was so. 16 The manufacturers made handsets with bluetooth and wireless connectivity. 17 Orange sent them out into the expanse of the market, 18 to keep up with Vodafone and T-mobile and separate the consumers from their older and more reliable handsets, and the investment bankers saw that it was good. 19 And there was competition and marketing and mass consumer confusion – the fourth day.

20 And the consumers said ‘Sod paying Orange to send the picture messages when we can use the bluetooth and wireless connectivity to send our pictures across the expanse of the Earth’ 21 So the manufacturers created more handsets with bluetooth and wireless connectivity, the boffins and the entrepreneurs created more opportunities for the consumers to use their bluetooth and wireless connectivity. And the consumers saw that this was good. 22 The investment bankers blessed the manufacturers and network providers with new capital and said ‘Be fruitful and increase your consumer base in number and saturate the mobile telecommunications market and let the number of handsets and consumers increase on the Earth. 23 And there was wireless integration of the entire developed world – the fifth day.

24 And Orange said ‘Let there be a department of people to welcome the consumers to the Orange network and according to their talkplan and offer them our products and services’ And it was so. 25 Orange made the talkplans for the consumers according to their kinds, the inclusive minutes according to their kinds and the inclusive text messages according to their kinds. And Orange saw that the animal tariffs were good. 26 Then Orange said ‘If we can’t persude the consumers to use our network for their picture messages let us make the consumers have photobundles applied to their animal tariffs. 27 So Orange created the welcome department, using the brightness of Orange the investment bankers created the Welcome department, photo15 and photo30 Orange created them.

28 The Welcome department used assumptive selling and said to the consumers “Be fruitful and have a photo15 or photo30 applied to your account, raise our shareprice and fill our pockets with larger bonuses.” 29 Then the consumers put down their handset and carried on consuming all of the things the boffins had created with their new photobundles increasing their spending. 30 And to all of the dolphin 35’s, the canary 40’s and the other animal tariffs Orange gave a photo15 or a photo30. And it was so. 31 The investment bankers, marketing consultants, accountants and sales managers saw that the assuptive selling of photobundles was very good – the sixth day.

2 Thus the consumers accounts were set up correctly with photobundles in their vast array. 2 By the seventh day the people in the welcome department had finished the assuptive selling of photobundles to the consumers and rested. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy so that Orange can’t phone you and slam you with photobundles, or make you phone people and slam them with photobundles, and there was peace and quiet once more.

Sackerson said...

How much time is wasted, directly and indirectly, by regulation and lawyers'/managers' scaredy-pants responses in the form of operating procedures?

How much in travel?

How much in pointless, or unproductive, or over-long meetings?

How much by time thieves, as steven_l shows?

I believe than seventeenth and eighteenth century gentlemen who lived in London or the provincial cities, were able to achieve far more, because they were allowed to think, discuss and take independent action.

Whispering Walls said...

Quantity is meaningless. Quality is what counts.

CityUnslicker said...

Steven - wow, that is a good potted history of the development of multi medi messagin. Thanks for that. Not sure how the competition commission will view this in the long term though...

CityUnslicker said...

Sackerson - you hit the point well here. I will do a follow-up ost next week opn tyring to find some reaons on why the UK is so lacking the others in productivity despite the the long hours we work.

Which rather plays to Winchester's well made point.

Steven_L said...

"Steven - wow"

I know - I'm wasted on a planet with no sense of humour - either that or I took too many drugs in the 1990's!

lilith said...

Self employed for 17 years. No sick or holiday or maternity pay but if I don't want to work I just let myself know. Sometimes I even give myself a pay rise. Hours vary these days from 16 to 40, although it used to be 7 days a week when I was young and keen. I love my job.

Steven_L said...

"How much by time thieves, as steven_l shows?" (Sackerton)

Who are you calling a thief? What do you do that's so high and mighty that gives you the right to call me a thief?

I don't 'dishonestly appropriate' anyones property.

Please keep your slanderous libelous remarks to yourself in future.

Steven_L said...

In fact Sackerson, you sound like the sort of efficiency-freak that would be happier living in Germany.

I've often wondered, that if nothing is ever late in Germany, what happens to you when you are 5 minutes late for work?

You really do contradict yourselves, the lot of you in fact.

Travel keeps people who work in travel in jobs, earning, spending, consuming etc.

Pointless meetings keep junior and middle-managers in jobs, earning, spending, consumer slightly more expensive things etc.

'theiving' or selling as it is knwon in the trade makes people part with their hard-earned money so we can all keep our pointless jobs.

We could take the very negative viewpoint that everything is pointless and we all might as well just stop couldn't we?

It's not all about money, it's about civilisation.

I'm off tomorrow and I'm going to do some 'thieving' by 'wasting' the time of some used car salesmen by test driving cars I have no intention to buy.

If they are too busy to come with you they just hand you the keys and let you get on with it.

It's called life, some of you sound like you need to start enjoying it more.

CityUnslicker said...

Steven _ I am pretty sure Sacklerson was referring to your bosses!

Steven_L said...

Who are my bosses? People who buy our shares? The people they appoint as directors? My manager? His manager? Her manager? The people who have the pointless meetings in the room behind my desk I have naughty thoughts about bugging?

I've spent a good part of the day negotiating our internal HR call centre type thing finding out why the people that want to give me haven't got my reference from my employer. After a few calls I finally found someone who was prepared to sod the bureaucracy and fax it off.

Chances are my boss never sent the request off to head office as I don't take sickies, sell lots and keep him earning his £1k a month top bonus. He'll be left with the immature wingers and sicky-takers.

It's a tough old world out there, you can't expect the next bloke to stop looking after his economic interests and you've got to look after your own.

Sometimes you have to be a bit of a knob. Why? To compete with the other knobs!

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