At what point does your work performance begin degrading? I’m currently on day 9 of working 12-hour days (three more to go). I know some jobs routinely require long shifts (industry, medical, military, etc), but how much is too much? I can handle a few 12-hour days and continue at 100%, however after 3 or 4 days I’m honestly not at 100%. Our deployed military fighting for their lives routinely work much longer days for up to 6 months before they get a break…way too much. According to reports here on Slowtwitch, medical personnel may work up to 30-hours straight…way too much. But, how much is too much? I know budgets and staffing mandate work hours, but what is reasonable?
This question is really too hard to answer, because so much depends on the work environment. I routinely worked 11-12 hour days at my last job, 5-6 days a week, for a little over two years. That was doing development and support for a fixed income trading floor. Talk about non-stop stress. The job was all about crisis management.
I was burned out, stressed out, pissed off, and generally unpleasant to be around(you know, more so than usual). Sadly, the company I worked for encouraged this sort of thing, so everybody was like that. I was so glad when I left, since I had no personal life there at all.
Some people can work long hours for many years, and have little or no home life. Others(like myself) reach a breaking point, where they realize that the long hours are not worth the sacrifice you make. Some just self-destruct.
The longest I ever went with no days off was 23 days of twelve hour shifts at the beginning of Persian Gulf I, when half our squadron shipped out. By Day 10 we were picking people up at the barracks because they were oversleeping, and by day 15 we were putting guys on post still drunk from the night before.(“Try to stay awake, answer your friggin’ status checks, and don’t puke at the turnarounds!”)
I’m so glad to work a job where I only work around 45 hours per week. I wouldn’t have time for my wife and for training if I worked a lot more.
Sorry for all the rambling. My point: You work to live, or you live to work. I do that first one.
I realize that long hours are a part of many jobs. But i rellay like the quote, “no man has ever been on his death bed and stated, gee, I wish I would have worked more.”
I work a 37.5 hour a week work week, usually 7:30-3:30 with a 1/2 hour paid lunch. So, 7.5 hours a day, tops. Outside of work, I have lots of hobbies (gardening, running, triathlon, etc), and I have plenty of time for those hobbies.
I would never work more than 8 hours a day, at least as long as I was working for someone else. If I had my own business, of course I would probably work longer hours, but that would be working for ME not for someone else. The corporate ladder is a ladder to nowhere.
IMO, it’s absurd for an employer to want you to work 12 strait days of 12 hr. shifts. I hope you get some decent down time when it’s over.
It’s not hours but productivity in those hours that counts. You reach a certain point where you’re actually more productive working less hours. The Euros realize this much better than North Americans and studies have often demonstrated that more productivity is accomplished in many cases with shorter hours.
This is my philosophy and I’ve deliberately taken myself out of the rat race by moving to a rural area, having a low overhead home office. I work a 32 hr week although I am occassionally called for weekend chiropractic emergencies. In July/August I cut down to 28 hrs a week. I have a small rural practise, but with minimal overhead to worry about.
Although I only work 32 hrs a week, remember that with this type of self employment it’s hard to take extended length holidays regularly. I’ll take long weekends here and there and a week off at Christmas. In contrast, my wife is a school teacher and has her whole summer off, two weeks at Christmas and spring break. She quit her pressure cooker job in the private sector several years ago to teach elementary school and has never been happier.
We made a lifestyle decision. We have a nice house, cheap because it’s in a rural area and it doesn’t bother us that we drive used cars instead of new BMW’s or SUV’s or that I use a CH Aero disc cover instead of a new Zipp disc. Overall, we’re content and comfortable but not rich.
You’re probably thinking about all the time cerveloguy has left over for training. No, ten hours a week is plenty for me. I do have other interests.
Life is about balance and deciding what is really important to you. I sympathize with people working those long hours in the urban jungle because I’ve been there.
I once did 14+ hours a day, January 2nd through March 10th without a day off (worked weekends and holidays) and was rewarded with a comp day. I was like “no F’n way!!! A comp day!!! I feel so appreciated!!!” 
Later this same year they decided not to give merit increases. I reflected on it quite a bit and realized that I put in over six months of work in that three month period of my life. That just can’t be healthy. At that point I decided that no job was worth it. Needless to say, ever since I have become a nine to fiver.
I don’t want to make it sound like no job is worth it, because there are jobs that are. Mine just happens not to be one of them.
Early in my career I did 1000 hours in a 10 week stretch. It stunk, but my wife was pregnant with our first child and we had very few options given the job market at the time. So I sucked it up and did it. I can tell you though, that 10 weeks did nothing for building my loyalty towards my employer. Since then “Death Marches” have been few and far between. They are something that I avoid at all costs as a project planner.
Vince
I’ll tell you how much is too much and what it cost in the end. I was in the Air Force and was doing a 1 year tour in South Korea. When I first got there we worked 2 months straight of 12 hour shifts. I was an F-16 mechanic and lives are at stake when you work on those things…luckily for us the more they fly the less they break. Anyway, on one foggy day air traffic control let a plane get on the runway to take off, what they failed to realize was that there was another plane landing on the same runway…Boom!! Two pilots dead. Why? because the base commander had an ego trip and wanted to fly as many flights as he could to make himself look good…so we all worked hard and long and it took two deaths to prove that this is not the way to do things. They couldn’t blame air traffic control, or anybody else because we were just waaayyy too over worked. Needles to say they shuffled that commander off faster than you can blink and things returned to normal. So too much work is not a good thing, for you or a company…people start to loose it after a while.
It really depends.
There’s a saying… “Do what you love for a living and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I don’t do what I love - that’s for sure. I used to regularly work 60+ hours a week. Did it for a couple of years. Was fat and unhappy. Got into triathlon and stopped working so much. Promotions and pay raises eased off, but overall quality of life went way up.
I think if my job was something I enjoyed - perhaps if I owned my own triathlon shop - I could easily put in six 10-12 hour days a week and think nothing of it!
Sounds like we are pretty much in the same boat. My hours are also from 7:30 to 3:30 and I get a 45 minute paid lunch, although I am on call during that time.
It’s been great for family and training!
It is hard to say how much is too much. I am sure that there are many including myself who have done long stretches of 60-80 hours per week. When you are in the midst of it, you kind of adapt and get used to it. Like another poster said, any project/program I plan ensures that employees don’t need to work more than the standard 40 hours per week and customer expectations are set accordingly. Typically, we satisfy customers with high quality work/products. In my experience, when teams work over 45 per week, their morale goes down, they become tired and they start making errors and productivity is basically 40 hours or work in 45, then it slips to 40 hours of work in 50 and then 40 hours in 60. Companies where folks routinely work overtime are where there is lots of wasted time during the day. I’d rather see focus and go home early than staying late, but that is just me. Of course there are times when you do need to fly across the country, work 12 hours per day, fly home on a red-eye and then meet a customer the next day. That’s just life, but hopefully, it evens out in the long run in some way or shape (time or monetary) !
I think there is a reason why the “standard week” is ~ 40 hours !
OTOH little kids are making NIke Shoes in some disgusting factory half way around the globe who would kill for your easy hours.
Or depends if your work is pysical or mental or both. My job is mentally debillitating but can’t be any easier on the body so even though I feel drained, I work right through it as it’s only the head. Usually I feel great after the workout.
The top is just to point out that what we can mentally handle is sometimes in the context of what we think we can handle, but usually we underestimate what that is. Perhaps that type of rationalization doesn’t work for you, It does for me. I completed my first marathon by the handicaped who watched and cheered the event. I could’t help but feel energized and thankful despite how bad I felt.
My last job I worked 8:30-5:00 took almost 2 hours to go to the gym each day at lunch and hated every second. Now I work 7:00 to at least 7:00 every day, lunch consists of walking to the kitchen and heating something up or running to the food court, compulsively check e-mails on weekends & at night before going to bed and even sometimes when I wake up to check on junior I will go check email quickly. But now I really enjoy what I do. I have a lot less time to train but my quality of life has gone way up. My wife says she is torn - I am home a lot less but when I do spend time with the family it is higher quality so it is a fair trade off. I also interestingly enough am less tired all the time. It is amazing how much unhappiness and stress can make you tired all the time.
One of my summer jobs I averaged 110 hrs/week for four months of generally physical work. I was in great shape, made a ton of cash and enjoyed it but couldn’t have done it for another two months.
I worked a job where I was there for 80-100 hours a week regularly for about 7 months. I used to show up at 6 and be happy if I was home by midnight. I only worked 5 days a week, 6 sometimes, so it was a lot of hour in a short span. On the weekends I was doing everything I could to keep my business moving smoothly. It all worked out in the end. Work just dried up and I was lucky if I worked 2 hours a day, my business was running smoothly and everything pretty much took care of itself (fiances are great that way). I am glad it is over, but kind of miss the excitment it had. Like sleeping in the car because 20 minutes was to far to drive just to do it again in a few hours.
It cost me my fiance working so hard, she said she wanted a nice house and car, and be able to travel a lot. I do not think either of us knew the sacrifices that were required for us to have that. Luckily for me, I ended up with it all, but have since changed jobs. 8-5, M-F for me. Maybe 3 hours OT twice a year, it is nice.
Not sure if my life is better now or not. If you including my tri training in, I easily put in 65 hours a week. Now I am single and have a daughter, so life is plenty busy. I am looking to retire soon, so I am never working more than 40 hours a week again.
Heck, I am only 26, life is to short to spend it all working.