5 ms·

Yep! I work in the steel construction industry. Damn near every day, typically mid to late afternoon, an order comes from on high: "this has to be on the truck

Yep! I work in the steel construction industry. Damn near every day, typically mid to late afternoon, an order comes from on high: "this has to be on the truck at 6am tomorrow", but you also have to continue to meet the existing deadlines. Then you lose an hour of production because a machine needs maintenance or breaks down. This is why we work 54hr weeks. All the time.

emj 9y ago
IMHO 54h/week is not sustainable if you are supposed to have a life outside work, if your employer have a pattern of this kind of behaviour you should really look at getting another job. You could easily employ one more on those extra hours (or two more).
- Retric 9y ago
  This really depends on commute times. 5x 8 hour work day + 1 hour each way commute = 50h/week. 54h/week + 20 minute each way commute = 57.3h/week. 54h/week + 1 hour each way commute = 64h/week. That said, 56h is half your time awake a week. It does not leave a lot of wiggle room for other commitments.
  - IndrekR 9y ago
    5*(8+2)=50, still. To get to 60h, one needs to commute 4h every day with 40h weeks.
  - zeta0134 9y ago
    You seem to be getting downvoted but no one's explaining why: check your math. At 8 hours a day, plus 1 hour there and 1 hour back, each of your 5 work days would total 10 hours. 5 of those is a 50h work week, not a 60h week: 5d * (8h + 1h + 1h) = 50h/week I do agree that commute times are important, but they're not quite the heavy hitter that your original example implies.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Edited it a few times, the original version was: 8 hours work + 2x 1h commute + off clock (30 minutes lunch + 2 x 15 minute breaks) = 55 hour week. 5 minute commute + 54 hour/week including lunch = 55 hour week. But, that seemed a little contrived. I think you saw a poor edit.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    That's a great way of looking at it. My commute, door to door, is 1500 meters, no quite 1 mile. There is very little traffic to speak of, even at the the busiest part of the day.
  - kbart 9y ago
    Don't forget that 8h workday actually lasts 9h if you count in a lunch break. Sure, you don't work technically, but depending on a situation (which is the case more often than not from my personal experience), this hour still might be crossed out of your life.
singularity2001 9y ago
I'm sorry you work in a third world country. Advanced societies have working limits of 35 to 40 hours per week.
- stevehiehn 9y ago
  Im not sure which advanced society you are refering to. But i think you mean 40hrs of mandatory work. I worked at a chainsaw factory ~15yrs ago and in Canada & the managers would put huge amounts of pressure on the workers to do constant overtime. When you are desperate for job security being seen as the worker who won't go the extra mile does not feel optional.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    I sometimes wonder if someone has sat down and worked out that stealing from the employees in this way is actually a net positive for the firm or if one asshole just does it naturally and then it sets the rest in motion.
    - skywhopper 9y ago
      While I agree that forced overtime is a problem. I'm not sure I would call it "stealing", as presumably these are hourly workers who are getting paid time-and-a-half wages for the overtime. At the local margins, it's definitely more efficient for the firm, since the other solution would be to hire more workers to meet peak demand who might then sit idle during lower demand periods. To some extent, common overtime availability can be beneficial to both the worker and the firm, but if the demand is highly consistent throughout the year, it's probably ultimately a net negative for the firm.
      - froindt 9y ago
        >At the local margins, it's definitely more efficient for the firm, since the other solution would be to hire more workers to meet peak demand who might then sit idle during lower demand periods. There are also times where it's not really a choice. I interned in a town of 1200 which hosted the only traffic light in the county and was 30 minutes away from a city of 30,000. Production was 4 10's, but turned into 5 10's when things were booming, and then an extra 4 hours on Saturday. The only way to guarantee a weekend of was to take a vacation day on Friday. They had a tough time hiring when it's booming. When the economy is good, good welders are in short supply everywhere (not just small towns). They pay sufficiently for living in the rural Midwest, the only way they can really get the work done is by working the hours.
goldenkey 9y ago
Others are commenting about the 54 hours. Probably because it almost comes off as you are proud of the number. I've been around people before who've boasted about how long their job hours are -- it comes off in bad taste. I'm aware that in many industries you simply won't keep your job if you don't do these ridiculus hours. Even as a newly hired dev at Amazon, my manager tried to coerce me into doing free overtime - as if because I was new I owed something to the company... I eventually quit because that's bullshit. Its in poor taste to be proud of being taken advantage of. Hope you make the best of it.
- knieveltech 9y ago
  In poor taste? What's in poor taste here is an individual working in an extremely privileged field (in terms of job security, ease of finding work, and pay scales) attempting to issue a style guide for blue collar workers. For people that actually work for a living this kind of work ethic is a self-defense mechanism. The alternatives are frequently minimum wage service jobs or homelessness. If you feel this strongly about worker's rights (and you should) you might consider volunteering with AFL-CIO organizing efforts in your community. Simple sneering will not suffice.
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    Read my comment again. I said I was aware that some jobs provide no alternative. I did not sneer - in fact I wished him the best. My main point is that many of these workers have the wrong mindset - they get taken advantage of because they are proud about how they have such a ballbusting job-- when in reality many times they are simply being violated. Usually by the direct manager. It is often hard to see outside of ones' direct work environment to gain a perspective. It really depends on the average conditions in that industry and whether they have options. Hopefully the worker is diligent and doesn't get an uneven workload compared to the industry norm. But it takes mindset and effort not to get bamboozled. All I mean is for the best..not trying to talk down to anyone who is a hard worker..
    - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
froindt 9y ago
Ah yes, the emergency shipment that must go out ASAP and throws a wrench in dozens of other orders who were previously scheduled to maximize throughput. Unfortunately you can't really tell management "a lack of planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part". Contracts often have penalties for late delivery or worse, running a vendor managed inventory level to 0 (full on stopping production costing many thousands of dollars per hour).
- bluedino 9y ago
  We have the exact same problem. Why can't sales just put a 2 day notice for orders in the contract?
  - abakker 9y ago
    Well, it depends. Scrambling the production might be worth it if it doubles the margin. Without knowing the price they're quoting for the "emergency order" it's hard to judge what the business case is. I am a bit concerned about scrambling workers and production lines in heavy industry, though. Makes me question the safety of pushing tired workers to work faster/longer hours...
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Commissions (which makes up a large part of a salesperson’s compensation).
yorby 9y ago
can't you plan for 32hr weeks with more employees/machines? and end up with about 40 hours? or do you like the overtime?

emj 9y ago

IMHO 54h/week is not sustainable if you are supposed to have a life outside work, if your employer have a pattern of this kind of behaviour you should really look at getting another job. You could easily employ one more on those extra hours (or two more).

Retric 9y ago
This really depends on commute times. 5x 8 hour work day + 1 hour each way commute = 50h/week. 54h/week + 20 minute each way commute = 57.3h/week. 54h/week + 1 hour each way commute = 64h/week. That said, 56h is half your time awake a week. It does not leave a lot of wiggle room for other commitments.
- IndrekR 9y ago
  5*(8+2)=50, still. To get to 60h, one needs to commute 4h every day with 40h weeks.
- zeta0134 9y ago
  You seem to be getting downvoted but no one's explaining why: check your math. At 8 hours a day, plus 1 hour there and 1 hour back, each of your 5 work days would total 10 hours. 5 of those is a 50h work week, not a 60h week: 5d * (8h + 1h + 1h) = 50h/week I do agree that commute times are important, but they're not quite the heavy hitter that your original example implies.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Edited it a few times, the original version was: 8 hours work + 2x 1h commute + off clock (30 minutes lunch + 2 x 15 minute breaks) = 55 hour week. 5 minute commute + 54 hour/week including lunch = 55 hour week. But, that seemed a little contrived. I think you saw a poor edit.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  That's a great way of looking at it. My commute, door to door, is 1500 meters, no quite 1 mile. There is very little traffic to speak of, even at the the busiest part of the day.
- kbart 9y ago
  Don't forget that 8h workday actually lasts 9h if you count in a lunch break. Sure, you don't work technically, but depending on a situation (which is the case more often than not from my personal experience), this hour still might be crossed out of your life.

singularity2001 9y ago

I'm sorry you work in a third world country. Advanced societies have working limits of 35 to 40 hours per week.

stevehiehn 9y ago
Im not sure which advanced society you are refering to. But i think you mean 40hrs of mandatory work. I worked at a chainsaw factory ~15yrs ago and in Canada & the managers would put huge amounts of pressure on the workers to do constant overtime. When you are desperate for job security being seen as the worker who won't go the extra mile does not feel optional.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  I sometimes wonder if someone has sat down and worked out that stealing from the employees in this way is actually a net positive for the firm or if one asshole just does it naturally and then it sets the rest in motion.
  - skywhopper 9y ago
    While I agree that forced overtime is a problem. I'm not sure I would call it "stealing", as presumably these are hourly workers who are getting paid time-and-a-half wages for the overtime. At the local margins, it's definitely more efficient for the firm, since the other solution would be to hire more workers to meet peak demand who might then sit idle during lower demand periods. To some extent, common overtime availability can be beneficial to both the worker and the firm, but if the demand is highly consistent throughout the year, it's probably ultimately a net negative for the firm.
    - froindt 9y ago
      >At the local margins, it's definitely more efficient for the firm, since the other solution would be to hire more workers to meet peak demand who might then sit idle during lower demand periods. There are also times where it's not really a choice. I interned in a town of 1200 which hosted the only traffic light in the county and was 30 minutes away from a city of 30,000. Production was 4 10's, but turned into 5 10's when things were booming, and then an extra 4 hours on Saturday. The only way to guarantee a weekend of was to take a vacation day on Friday. They had a tough time hiring when it's booming. When the economy is good, good welders are in short supply everywhere (not just small towns). They pay sufficiently for living in the rural Midwest, the only way they can really get the work done is by working the hours.

goldenkey 9y ago

Others are commenting about the 54 hours. Probably because it almost comes off as you are proud of the number. I've been around people before who've boasted about how long their job hours are -- it comes off in bad taste. I'm aware that in many industries you simply won't keep your job if you don't do these ridiculus hours. Even as a newly hired dev at Amazon, my manager tried to coerce me into doing free overtime - as if because I was new I owed something to the company... I eventually quit because that's bullshit. Its in poor taste to be proud of being taken advantage of. Hope you make the best of it.

knieveltech 9y ago
In poor taste? What's in poor taste here is an individual working in an extremely privileged field (in terms of job security, ease of finding work, and pay scales) attempting to issue a style guide for blue collar workers. For people that actually work for a living this kind of work ethic is a self-defense mechanism. The alternatives are frequently minimum wage service jobs or homelessness. If you feel this strongly about worker's rights (and you should) you might consider volunteering with AFL-CIO organizing efforts in your community. Simple sneering will not suffice.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  Read my comment again. I said I was aware that some jobs provide no alternative. I did not sneer - in fact I wished him the best. My main point is that many of these workers have the wrong mindset - they get taken advantage of because they are proud about how they have such a ballbusting job-- when in reality many times they are simply being violated. Usually by the direct manager. It is often hard to see outside of ones' direct work environment to gain a perspective. It really depends on the average conditions in that industry and whether they have options. Hopefully the worker is diligent and doesn't get an uneven workload compared to the industry norm. But it takes mindset and effort not to get bamboozled. All I mean is for the best..not trying to talk down to anyone who is a hard worker..
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago

froindt 9y ago

Ah yes, the emergency shipment that must go out ASAP and throws a wrench in dozens of other orders who were previously scheduled to maximize throughput. Unfortunately you can't really tell management "a lack of planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part". Contracts often have penalties for late delivery or worse, running a vendor managed inventory level to 0 (full on stopping production costing many thousands of dollars per hour).

bluedino 9y ago
We have the exact same problem. Why can't sales just put a 2 day notice for orders in the contract?
- abakker 9y ago
  Well, it depends. Scrambling the production might be worth it if it doubles the margin. Without knowing the price they're quoting for the "emergency order" it's hard to judge what the business case is. I am a bit concerned about scrambling workers and production lines in heavy industry, though. Makes me question the safety of pushing tired workers to work faster/longer hours...
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Commissions (which makes up a large part of a salesperson’s compensation).

yorby 9y ago

can't you plan for 32hr weeks with more employees/machines? and end up with about 40 hours? or do you like the overtime?