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@daniellemybelle: wow! that sucks! Is he in tech? Most of the Austin tech companies are super flexible I've found! DH gets out at 5 every day (but sometimes goes in early for India calls).
I WFH most days but have no obligations other than the hours designated to my projects - I'm a consultant though which is super flexible! -
I'm a government attorney and before baby I worked 8am to 5pm with an hour lunch, but we're allowed to take a 30 minute lunch to leave early (so 4:30pm). That would be a 42.5 hour week. However, we have 3-4 times a year where its busy and we get PTO for our overtime hours and then we have maybe 2 months out of the year where its really slow so if you want to take a lot of time off or leave early its not that big of a deal.
The reason I like my job though is that they allow for flexible work schedules. We use proprietary software so we can't telecommute and have to be in the office, but lots of people here work odd schedules. A mom just went 80% time so she could have every Monday off, another works 60% time and works 3 days a week, another is at 85% time so she can leave at 3pm every day and pick her kid up from school. I'm currently working 3 days a week, 7 hours a day (I'm in by 8am and out at 3:30) and would have been open to going 5 days a week eventually BUT I got knocked up again.
If you have work that needs to get done, obviously you're expected to figure out how to get it done, so I can't say its strictly those working hours, but people often leave, put have dinner and put their kids to bed, and come back and finish up if they need to.
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When I had an office job in the US, I worked 8-5 with a 1 hour lunch. But it was just a job and not a career.
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I teach. I'm generally in school from 7..15-4.30
I typically work through and don't take a lunch break so I can get away with only doing a little bit at home.
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I technically work "9-5", but work in a pretty flexible environment. I bill my hours so I need to bill 40 hours a week, 35 of those need to be billed to a payable job. But, I can work from home if I need to, which I end up doing 1x a week or so, not always. Or finish up at night. I end up going into the office by 9:45/10 (I have an hour commute) and leave by 4:30 usually, some days later.
My husband is an attorney and just got an in-house counsel job at a bank and that is going to be 40 hours a week, no more! Yay!
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I work in the tech industry. I WFH one or two days a week and in office the rest of the time. When I'm in office I'm there about 8 to 5:15 but that includes spending my lunch at the gym. At home I start very early and take some breaks for chores, errands, etc. As a whole I work around 40ish hours during quiet times and 50 hours during busy times. Those extra hours are always at home either super early or late. I'm glad to have the flexibility to get things done at different times and overall not work excessive hours regularly.
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I do think that FT 9-to-5 jobs, where you show up at 9 and leave at 5, including a "paid" lunchbreak, are hard to come by anymore. The only place I routinely hear of them are in the unionized factories near my hometown where there are 8hr shifts with 30 minutes paid lunch and 2 15 minute paid breaks.
Most other FT WOH jobs nowadays are more like everyone hear as commented -- no paid lunch, so you either work through your lunch or are at the office minimum of 8.5hrs a day.
My last job/boss was awesome and didn't track my hours, just my work. So as long as I was completing what she expected a FT employee to do (or more) and was around for the better part of the day, it didn't really matter my exact hours: coming in a little later, leaving a little early, whatever.
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@Mrs. Detour: doesn't it drive you nuts that 45 hrs in office + another 10 at home is part time in law? When I interviewed for the job I'm starting next month the manager asked why I wanted the job (bc going from litigator to staff attorney is not a normal thing) and I said I wanted a 40 hr job in a field that considered 40 hr jobs part time. He laughed and I thought I was exaggerating a little. But apparently not!
@KayKay: I think that is true. My husband is lucky that his job is legit 9-5.
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I work full time in a middle school. My actual hours are 7:50-3:00pm, with a 50 minute lunch (lunch depends on schedule. We have some schedules where each class period is 45 minutes, or 30 minutes, so lunch is the same on those days). And then we have required after-school faculty meetings at least once a week, sometimes more. Then the work day is more like 7:50-4:00 pm.
And we have required parent/teacher nights, science fair nights, literacy nights, etc.
And everyone has the expectation that you do some work on your own time, outside of school hours (contact parents, grade papers, respond to emails, plan lessons).
I the hours for my job would be A-ok, if only I didn't live an hour away and have 2 hours a day to be in the car. Add in daycare pick up and drop off, and realistically I spend almost 3 hours a day between home and work. And that sucks, big time.
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@Mae: wow, those are probably the best hours in legal I've heard of. LOL. You're pretty much part-time!
Was an attorney in my past life. 8am - 6pm with a :15 lunch that I scarfed down in front of my computer was an easy day. Most days I didn't leave the office until 630 or 7.
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@pinkcupcake: lol I know right? But its a staff attorney position so not exactly moving my career forward probably. I don't really know what my long term plan is I just know I need to work now and this is where is right for me right now. And the team seems really nice. I think this sort of thing is the best of all worlds for this stage of my life.
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@Mae: it sounds nice
I'm thinking about going back to work too (daughter is 3.5) but am so burned out by law that I can't even think about it without getting an ulcer...
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@pinkcupcake: lol understandable. we need me to go back. Student loans suck. But I'm hoping I like being back and doing something. And I think liking the people you work with is like 75% of your work place happiness if the money and hours are right. Several of this firm's staff attorneys were just promoted to associates on partner track and it was implied to me that that may be on the table if I do well. Which would definitely be a step up considering this is a large firm and my last firm was tiny. But like... I don't want to be a big law associate! lol. I'm hoping I can either just do the staff attorney thing for sort of a long time, or maybe if they like me well enough work into some sort of alternative/part time type arrangement that remains just 40 hours/week. I really don't need or want to be partner. I just want to do a good job and go home and have dinner with my husband and daughter.
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I'm also a litigator and feel extremely lucky. I work from home one day a week and in the office the other days from 10-6:30ish. If there's something urgent, which is often, I get it done from home. Weekends, midnight, etc.
ETA: lunch depends on how busy I am. Sometimes I forget to eat. On slow days, I grab something from outside and eat at my desk.
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When I was teaching my "required" hours were 8:30-4:00, but there was lots of work that had to be done outside of those hours, so I typically worked 7:30-4:30, with at least one night that I would work until 6 and occasional nights until 8 or 9 after a break for dinner. Sometimes I would do work on weekends but I tried not to. We got about 15 minutes for lunch, but that was usually spent desperately running around the school taking care of things that can't be done when the students were with me.
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@marley: thats amazing! What size firm do you work in? I had hoped that if I found a smaller firm it would be more reasonable hours, but the first position I was offered turned out to be a 2000 billable minimum with a decent load of non-billable work, and the second place I got close to said they prized work/life balance only to find out that they thought that meant 7:30-6. noooooooo. lol That is when I gave up on litigation positions.
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@Mae: I work for a mid-sized plaintiffs firm. We have no billable requirements. We just have to get things done (win, settle). I don't know how defense attorneys do it.
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@marley: Ah that sort of makes sense. And sounds sort of like my previous firm. I did work a lot more hours there but it was sort of because I could. And I wasn't as efficient as I could have been because we were also a plaintiffs firm and did not have hour requirements. I had expected (if I'd kept that job) I could cut my hours down post-baby and just be more efficient. But I don't know how that would've panned out since I didn't stay in the position.
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The typical hours in my office are 50+, but after LO fortunately my boss lets me work 45 max due to daycare hours.
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@mae The hours expectations drive me insane. Our FT billable hour requirement is 2000 + a ton of "good citizenship" hours like recruiting (which requires travel), publishing articles, client alerts and the like, none of which are billable. As the only partner-track woman on my team, a lot of the recruiting and mentoring junior attorneys falls to me (le sigh) so I went PT to get my billable requirement down to 1600 since the consequences of missing your hours is rough (no bonus, no deferred comp, 6 months-ish to find a new job)
My firm seems genuinely confused as to why there are so few women (and almost no women with families) in the more senior ranks except for us part-timers. I am constantly reminding the partners that I work for that they did not have a hard billable hour requirement when they were promoted.
@pinkcupcake Once there's a bigger dent in my student loans, I'm out. I joke to my husband that I'm going to do something nuts like open an etsy shop just to celebrate my freedom.
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@Mrs. Detour: How could they be that dense?! One of the women interviewing me for this position told me that this firm has been focusing on having better work/life balance for people because they were seeing SO many women working 5 years then just quitting because its just unsustainable to work like they want you to and spend any time with your kids. I never had big law aspirations. I have friends who do it and make unbelievable money but like... seriously not worth it to me even before I had a kid! Working is good but I want to have things outside of work too!
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@Mae: @Mrs. Detour: at my previous firm, the woman partner who did my review told me that in order to succeed, I would have to be willing to drop everything, at a moments notice, including my child's needs. I gave my notice in 3 weeks.
I'm thinking about going back to work too (daughter is 3.5) but am so burned out by law that I can't even think about it without getting an ulcer...
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