Working hours and conditions

I'm contacted for 37 hours- I would say I do at least 45 a week (I never take a lunch break and hardly ever go on time)no still think I am well paid for what I do though.

i enjoy my job so don't mind putting the hours in. I see more results the lore hours I work but I know I need to get better at delegating.

As a teacher it looks like I will probably work a minimum of 50 hours a week, if I'm lucky. But then I get extra leave in the summer, albeit unpaid, so it probably balances out. Plus, it's so rewarding.

This^^

I used to work shifts when I worked in catering and hated it. It really messed with my body clock and made me feel tired and run down all the time. It may not be so bad think if you do a week (or more) of the same shift but when you have different shifts in a week which can happen routinely or as a need to cover colleagues sickness/holidays etc .

I'm contracted to work 45 hours a week and reckon I probably do 50 hours on average a week. I think I'm quite lucky that I can't take work home with me so when I walk out the door that's it if you see what I mean.

I earn good money though so I don't mind too much.

I'm on maternity at the moment but I'm contracted 37.5 hours a week, 5 over 7 days and its shift work which includes 4 sleep in shifts a month to which you got no sleep an pretty much ended up being awake and on duty for 38 hours if you was unfortunate enough to get a 14 hour day with a sleepless in (10 hours) followed by another 14 hour shift... I'm handing my notice in as soon as my maternity leave is over I don't get paid nearly enough to get physically and verbally abused.

I am contracted to work 38 and that's what I work. I occasionally take on overtime, but not recently as we have more casual staff than ever before so the shifts are all covered. I don't earn much, and with that comes the privilege of walking out the door at 5.30 and leaving the job behind. That said, my H2B works in the same industry and in a higher up and better paid position, so he often brings work home. So there is still a lot of ticketing talk in our house.

I am contracted to do 37.5 hours and I do 37.5 hours, including taking a proper lunch break. It's not really feasible for me to take work home with me and I don't do overtime unless it is really unavoidable. I don't believe that unpaid overtime should ever be expected, and the more you do, the more it's expected of you. For my own mental health and work life balance I make sure I have a proper break and don't get burnt out.

I agree with you Peanut but it's unavoidable in teaching, I think. We are contracted for 35hrs per week, but if we didn't take work home then no work would get marked and no lessons would get planned. Curriculum isn't prescribed anymore the way it used to be, so teachers are given a goal and left to work out how to get there. For example, pupils must be able to tell time in 12 and 24 hr clock, to 15 minute intervals...and then I need to devise 2-3 weeks worth of active lessons as we don't (or rarely) use textbooks anymore. If I didn't plan I would go in to school and be completely unable to teach, as I would have no materials.

I am contracted for an average of 48 hours per week over 16 weeks. So some weeks I do quite a bit more, but I get compensatory days off in other weeks to make up for it.

I do a partial shift pattern, so my normal day is 8-5.30, but 1 in 8 days are a long day (8-8) and I do a total of a week of nights every 8 weeks (split into 3 and 4). It's hard, but in this current job I do at least usually get to leave roughly on time and my night shifts are not too crazy most of the time. I have worked jobs where I was easily doing an extra day's worth of hours per week just to get the basics done, and I'm glad to have escaped that! We get no overtime pay, apart from if you do locum shifts (doing an extra shift on your day off to cover a gap in the rota).

I don't really like nights but it was always going to be part of the deal so I just get on with it.

My job is a big part of my life but in general I feel my work-life balance is ok-ish at the moment. I can't take clinical work home, obviously, but I do have to do audit, teaching presentations and exam revision in my own time.

I'm 38 hours a week, which is mostly what I do. Crunch (overtime) in the games industry can be notoriously bad, however I've done my time in the trenches as it were, and at my current place I'm contracted, they've asked us for overtime recently and I've said I'm happy to do some, but that I will be charging my day rate for it (self employed), I worked for 'free' far too much as a junior and have since decided that's a no go, if one company can afford to either pay me for my overtime, or sort the project so there isn't overtime, then every company can.

My H is meant to work 8:30 until 5, 5 days a week.

Never works out like that, and he often does 80 hour weeks. He works in recruitment, so always brings his work home.

He often works over the weekend too. He gets paid well though, plus gets commission, so the hours pay off.

I work on rotating hours a week of 8 to 4 then 9 to 530 then 1030 to 7 and then 11 30 to 8 as it stands at the moment approx one weekend in four with two days off either immediately before or after. I am contracted for 40 hours a week and give or take the unavoidable couple of minutes here and there that's what I do impossible to take my work home and in my opinion paid pretty well for what I do too

I am contracted to 25 but I do 39. I have just worked 11 days straight and most of them are 11 hours straight... No balance atm

I'm contacted to work 37.5 hours a week. I do tend to start early most days though so I am probably closer to the 39 though. I'm not expected to start earlier I do it because I'm in, and I get in early to escape the traffic.

I very rarely take work home with me and overtime isn't expected.

I do 32.25 one week and 43 hours the next week, l work every other weekend. l permanently flick between these 2 shift patterns and all are 12.5 hour shifts. This is all assuming l get my full break when we are short staffed then there are no guarantees, we then get the time back but it can be hard to find the time to take it. I don’t do nights at the moment but they may change as there is talk of our shift system changing. Plus the majority of our night staff are crap. I do overtime for the extra money –it is the way to make nursing financially worthwhile. I can’t work at home mainly due to the work l do and confidentiality. Plus l know how much money the company l work for make so l refuse to work for free.

Mr Erin is in the middle of working 25 days in a row and some of them are very long. He is getting days off in lieu for the weekend days he does and he had better get a good bonus!!!!

My normal rota is for 50 hours each week, I normally do about 53 and then an extra 11 if I have to cover on a Saturday. I am paid hourly though so I have to do tons of hours to make any money. It is rare that I take work home although rotas and other paperwork are done in my own time.

I am lucky as I love my job though. I very rarely get to take a proper break and it is perfectly normal for me to go an 11 hour shift without sitting down at all. Something that is really difficult when I am having a bad narcolepsy day. On the flip side though I get freeel tea, coffee and cake all day long! I don't think I could ever work a job where I am desk based or I would just fall asleep.

I'm contracted to do 37 hours and that's what I do. I make sure I take my full lunch break too. There have been the odd occasion where I've stayed late to get things done but that's usually the last day before a holiday and I want to make sure there'll be no problems when I'm gone.

There's no scope for paid overtime and I'm pretty well paid for the work I do (plus I spend most of my days on here!).

At the moment I only work one day a week, still looking and applying for work since finishing my degree but got nothing yet

My OH I feel sorry for. He is on management training for Lidl and works at least 60-70 hours a week. At the moment he is doing 8 days straight of 6-4 plus on Sunday he did 7.30-7.30 despite being in at 6 the next day. He gets about 15 minute break a day. I call it slave labour, it must be illegal I swear. He just tells me he is used to it now.

I work for a supermarket too and they really look after us. For my 6.5 hour Sunday I get 20 minute break. When I work 14 hour shifts I get 1 hour 45 minutes worth of break. I just can't understand why Lidl don't do the same.

The only good thing about our sort of work is that once you leave that building the work stays there. Its not like we have to come home and do homework. Although with his training he is having to go to various stores on his days off which is REALLY annoying. I rarely see him.

I work for myself and I've never really counted what kind of hours I do, but I imagine it's around 35-40 a week usually. I tend to work one evening a week, as OH works late one evening a week too, so if I get the work done that evening, we can both have Friday afternoon off (in theory).

Sometimes if I have too much work on, I end up working several evenings a week, or very occasionally at the weekend. I took on a very big project in May that would last 7 weeks, and would give me opportunity to take on smaller projects in that time. I took on too many smaller projects (can't say no to certain clients...) and ended up having to finish the big project in the final week by working every evening and all weekend... OH was very understanding, it doesn't happen very often and the money was good, so it'll be worth it at the end of the month!

I definitely agree that in some jobs (esp teaching) unpaid overtime is unavoidable. I think I was trying to say that sometimes it's unavoidable and sometimes it's something we impose on ourselves because we feel that we should. My service has a waiting list so I always have more work to do, there's always more I could be doing. I could run around like a mad woman trying to get everything done, but I would probably end up having to go off sick eventually. So there's no magic secret Flora, it's just a simple choice every day, do I choose to have lunch at my desk while typing or do I choose to have a proper break? I make sure I get a break and leave on time, but I know not everyone has that choice.

At my trust induction they showed a clip of an old I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and her friend are working at a factory conveyor belt packaging chocolates. The conveyor belt goes by really fast and they're manically doing everything they can to make sure no unpackaged chocolates go past, eating them, grabbing handfuls, putting them in their laps, hiding them in their hats. After a while the manager comes out and says "wow you're doing so well, we can increase the speed then!" I think there's a lot of truth in that and I know the same would happen with my management if I ran around trying to do everything.

I'm contracted to work 42 hours per week for 33 weeks of the year. On weeks where we're really busy, for example the last week of term we have lots of functions, I'm expected to work overtime which I'm paid for, I did somewhere around 60 hours for the final week this time. Very lucky in my job though as I get paid half pay for the 14 weeks that I don't work during the holidays, and 5 weeks full pay for my holiday allowance. Any hours that I work during the holidays are paid at time and a quarter so I don't mind going in, extra pay is always useful! My shifts when I work are 6.30-3.30 or 10.30-7.30, with 30mins break, which I don't always take.

I am contracted for 39 hours a week but do a minimum of 40 and I do not get paid for overtime. I always try and get my half an hour break but sometimes due to a lack of staffing it is impossible for any of us to have a break in an 8 hour shift. It causes a lot of unhappiness with the staff but we either skip breaks and get everything set up or we go on a break and have people walking in to an empty unset restaurant...

Generally though things are not too horrendous, there are some days which are a complete nightmare but the majority are just average. The managers are very understanding about anybody that has personal issues or will try and make sure everybody gets their requested days off.

Some of my colleagues are a bit ungrateful, they moan about doing any more than 8 hours a day (paid!) and if they don't get their request they moan about how terrible it is. I understand how disappointing it is to not get your request off but at the end of the day the business has to come first and the managers always try and give requests wherever possible.

My hours vary, somedays I do an early, some days a mid, some days a late. It is not unheard of to start at 4pm and still be there at 6am, thankfully it isnt all that often, finishing at 2am is about average. I do feel the pay is appalling for what is expected of us, we have a lot more responsiblity than the team members yet they often come out with the same amount or similar pay to what we do as they get paid double time for bank holidays plus all the hours they do.

My direct managers do not get paid all that much more than us yet a lot more is expected of them, 6 day weeks for them is not unusual, nor are 12-14 hour days.

I feel there needs to be a bigger gap between the lower levels, once you get into the higher paid levels the jump is a lot more dramatic and they do less hours which is a perk of being at the top.

I'm contracted for 35 hours a week and that tends to be what I do. Definitely no more 38 hours a week. I'm on a low salary and only get over time if prearranged with my team leader, so don't do it unless I am asked. Don't take work home with me either, if it doesn't get done in my working hours one day it will have to roll over. Appreciate all jobs are different though.

I am contracted to do a 37.5 hour week, I would imagine I do nearer 50+ most weeks though. Unfortunately I can work from home, which is great if you need to for personal reasons but also means it is way too easy to just log on at home.

I contractually am entitled to OT but at the moment can only get paid for it if I have it pre-approved by my Senior Manager.

In the company and industry I work for long hours are a pretty standard way of life, even more so for the fee earning staff (I work in HR), work/life balance is promoted, but not generally practiced, my OH would tell you that I am married to my laptop a lot of the time unfrotunately.

I am contracted to 25 hours, but always work around 35-37 hours per week. This is a good amount for me, as my little boy hasn't started school yet, so I get 2 days off every week plus most Sundays, so I am happy! Last night though turned into a 12 hour shift (yawn), but needs must! All of my shifts are super long, usually about 9 or 10 hours.

I never take work home with me, I am a shift worker too. I either start at 5am or finish at midnight, it is very here there and everywhere haha!

With a 25 hour contract though, it means that I can have the odd rare quiet week where I only work 3 days, and have a bit of a break without oweing them hours

I am paid very well though, mainly due to my loyalty over the years, the longer the service, the higher the pay packet, so I am happy in that respect!

It is a very good job, very stressful, but it not my life's calling, midwifery is! Can't wait to apply for uni

I am a Deputy Manager

I'm contracted to do 37.5 hours a week and that's generally what I do. I have a few new responsibilities which are due quarterly so I imagine I'll be putting more hours in round about then but I will continue to take proper breaks away from my desk. I've been there done that with over-working and burning out and it's just not worth it. I work a late shift one week out of four. For the first time in a long time I feel like I have a decent work/life balance.

On paper I average 35 hours over a 4 day week over the year (13 lots of 4 weeks) some weeks are slightly longer and some slightly shorter but all average out.

The shortest booked shift is 5 hours, longest 10 hours. Very strict rules about the amount of breaks required depending on shift length and you cannot miss one or cut it short.

Over time is available and then certain rules apply: not allowed to work over 12 hours per shift, must have a minimum of 12 hours 'rest' between shifts. Cannot work more than 72 hours in 7 days or more than 13 consecutive days.

I have very good working conditions.

I cannot take work home with me- awesome as that would be