Do 9-5 jobs still exist in the U.S.?
Do 9-5 jobs still exist in the U.S.?
Ever since I graduated, everywhere I've worked has been 8-5. My current company is going to soon start expecting us to be in 7-5.
How many of you here work a 9-5 with a paid lunch?
Productivity keeps going up but so do working hours.
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I worked at one company that was 7am-5pm for corporate office work. The company grew from a small retail parts company decades ago, but never changed the mindset. So even the office work was treated like shift work. Office workers wouldn't even check email before 7am. Many times just hanging out in the cafeteria until 7 on the dot when they had to be at their desks. Further as soon as 5pm hit exactly, all the office workers would drop what they were doing and walk out to the parking lot with all of the other blue collar shift workers.
This resulted in things like Purchase Orders getting delayed by a day because it arrived at the approver at 5:01pm and the approver was gone. There was nearly no weekend office work, which caused its own problems.
It was such a strange place to work.
So... they knew the value of their own time and didn't overwork when they didn't have to?
Most office workers could probably learn from that mindset.
So… they knew the value of their own time and didn’t overwork when they didn’t have to?
This worked the other way NOT in favor of the workers. Sat down at your desk at 7:03am even though you're not customer facing at all? Expect to be called into a conference room with your boss and your bosses boss about your attendance.
Do you work in IT and need to work off-hours to perform work requiring downtime until 2am? You better be at your desk at 7am on the dot or you're going to get written up.
Have a doctors appointment at 3pm for an hour? You have to take vacation time for that.
There was this really odd notion that if you weren't sitting in your chair typing, you weren't working and would get questioned by bosses.
Most office workers could probably learn from that mindset.
Office workers would learn (or be reminded) about how hellish it was to work a minimum wage job with zero flexibility.
That is 100% not how you framed your initial comment. It was very much focused on how the workers weren't going above and beyond to work when they didn't have to.
Sounds to me like they were reacting to a shit situation in the most appropriate way they could.
That is 100% not how you framed your initial comment. It was very much focused on how the workers weren’t going above and beyond to work when they didn’t have to.
That wasn't my intent to communicate that, but on a re-read, I can see how you came away with that.
Sounds to me like they were reacting to a shit situation in the most appropriate way they could.
That was it exactly.
I mean... you didn't say anything else, how else could you have meant it? You even complained that them leaving on time was inconvenient when someone else dumped something in their desk after working hours.
I mean… you didn’t say anything else, how else could you have meant it?
I was pointing out one part of the oddness of an office organization that chose to operate strictly from 7am-5pm. If you're asking why I didn't explain every aspect of every perspective, I'll say it was a 30 second post on the internet, not a comprehensive peer reviewed study of workplace behavior.
I admitted my initial explanation had ambiguity that could lead the audience to arrive at an unintended conclusion. I'm not sure what more you want from me over that mea cupla. There's no deeper motive on my part to mislead besides my admitted initial carelessness.
You even complained that them leaving on time was inconvenient when someone else dumped something in their desk after working hours.
Inconvenient to the organization, not to the worker. I was pointing out that the organization had created the situation working hours (strict 7am-5pm), yet was suffering because of how rigidly it enforced the rule. The org was shooting itself in the foot.
I had a bosses' bosses' boss tell me (via my boss) that I had to work 8-5 and take an hour lunch. Told my boss at that time that I would no longer be available for lunch to do anything work related. Told him I worked over lunch to get into things quickly the first few months but I'll play the game. Started using the on site gym to the fullest.
Do you work in IT and need to work off-hours to perform work requiring downtime until 2am?
Then you're a chump for not doing it during business hours instead, rest of the company be damned.
Which is largely what happened, and it was very disruptive to the company, but again, their rules, their consequences.
They were still having 2 hours/day stolen from them, though.
Strange that people only worked during the hours they're paid to work?
Salary workers aren't generally paid for hours, but instead for the job.
So you're saying they should have worked less?
It wasn't a statement about more or less, but more flexible. The PO that came in at 5:01pm should have been approved, and the management shouldn't have been so hardassed about being seated at your desk at exactly 7am.
I mean... the PO shouldn't have come in at 5:01 if they wanted it approved that day. That's just rude.
I work in document control, so I'm sending documents between companies regularly. Often, at the end of the week someone will dump a 100+ document transmittal on us half an hour before the end of the day. And then they go home.
You bet your ass that shit is waiting til Monday.
Oh certainly! I'm not suggesting that its reasonable for someone to drop hours of work on your desk at the end of the day and expecting you to stay late to finish it.
This was more of a 2 minute task, and not even on a Friday. Office workers worked only the 7am-5pm, but hourly non-office workers had 3 shifts. So it wasn't uncommon that large tasks for the non-officeworkers which might be done overnight went undone because the office worker didn't do a 2 minute tasks. This had downstream impacts to deliveries and client reception.
In any other org I've worked in, the office worker would maybe stay until 5:09pm to kick the task forward for overnight completion and perhaps come in 10 minutes later the next day. In this org if the office worker came in 10 minutes later (even if they worked 10 minutes later) the office worker would be written up!