How much do you work "effectively" per day? Office work rel.

Mjukis

Just curious - my job right now is very independent. Often I sit in front of my computer with 2-3 collegues (or zero, as the case today is) in the same office (though not in the same room) and a couple of workish things that need doing some time soon. Contrary to what Prince and the thread about Internet will have you believe, the internet isn't boring at all and I'm always drawn to its lure. So - if you have a similar work situation, how long is your EFFECTIVE work day?

Plaese to use Office Space jokes about "Spacing out" and working fifteen minutes per week sparingly.

BigK

I read a thing a while back that said most people only do about an hour's work in every 8 hour work day, the rest is internet, newspaper, talking to colleagues, snacking, etc

Big fan of snacking myself

onetet

my work's built around an annual event (film festival) that takes half a year's planning -- but (luckily) I have a year-round job. So there are about 3 months a year when I'm actually, effectively, working 8 hours a day, about 3 months a year when I'm doing so 12+ hours/day... and 6 months a year when I'm one of those people doing about an hour of real work a day.

I will say that even during the busy season, a lot of time is still spent on sites like Facebook, promoting the event as a whole and all the individual films.

Matt Adore

BigK said:

I read a thing a while back that said most people only do about an hour's work in every 8 hour work day, the rest is internet, newspaper, talking to colleagues, snacking, etc

Big fan of snacking myself

In an 8 hour workday I work maybe 1-2 hours so that statement seems pretty close to the truth. I guess it depends on what kind of business you're in. In my case it's not due to lazyness rather than the work coming in though.

The rest of the time is killing time on the internet, playing games on the phone, chatting with co-workers and drinking alot of coffee and tea.

cove

tough life

HarveyCanal

I'd say I do about 4 hours concerted work and 4 hours of goofing off each day. But I can literally work 3 times as fast and efficiently as any of my colleagues, so I still end up way ahead on what I bring to the table.

Matt Adore

cove said:

tough life

I should clarify that what I do isn't very glamourous and I don't get paid much to do it. It's just the situation right now. I'm moving on soon and I look forward to it.

Duderonomy

BigK

HarveyCanal said:

I'd say I do about 4 hours concerted work and 4 hours of goofing off each day. But I can literally work 3 times as fast and efficiently as any of my colleagues, so I still end up way ahead on what I bring to the table.

Word, that's what I find too, I can bash out a load in an hour or two and then that's the whole days workload done, so it's cool

high_c

Some days as much as 8-9 hrs. Today is not one of those days.

DJ_Enki

It varies greatly from "very little" to "a solid 6 out of 8 hours." But I'm in the odd situation of not being able to generate my own work; as a production editor, I need to be given content to edit/produce, and if nobody's providing any content, there's nothing I can do about it except wait.

Almond

At my last internship, I basically moved boxes around and stuff. On the box-moving days, I worked until all of them got moved or labelled, which took about 2 hours out of my 4 hour shift. After the moving project was over (maybe that's why they hired me) everything was over my head since I had no training (other than in labeling boxes). I probably did 30 minutes of work a day at that point until the semester ended.

At a previous internship, I probably consistently worked 5 out of 7.5 hours. I never went on any fun websites, took no more than 30 min for lunch and didn't speak unless spoken to. That was actually my best internship.

Big_Stacks

Hey,

I'll be honest, I work my ass off!!! I have a lot of responsibilities to various stakeholders, so I grind like a muthafucka. :real_headz: That's why I'll be going up for Full Professor in a year or so and I've only been a Associate Prof. for 2 years. Hard work has been very rewarding to my career, and my father (RIP) instilled me with a strong work ethic. I should earn my money!!!

Peace,

Big Stacks from Kakalak

Almond

Big_Stacks said:

Hey,

I'll be honest, I work my ass off!!! I have a lot of responsibilities to various stakeholders, so I grind like a muthafucka. :real_headz: That's why I'll be going up for Full Professor in a year or so and I've only been a Associate Prof. for 2 years. Hard work has been very rewarding to my career, and my father (RIP) instilled me with a strong work ethic. I should earn my money!!!

Peace,

Big Stacks from Kakalak

Most educators work their asses off; glad to hear you're one of them. If I ever have a career in teaching, I don't think I'd mind the long hours as much as if I worked for some private, profit-oriented enterprise.

Big_Stacks

Almond said:

Big_Stacks said:

Hey,

I'll be honest, I work my ass off!!! I have a lot of responsibilities to various stakeholders, so I grind like a muthafucka. :real_headz: That's why I'll be going up for Full Professor in a year or so and I've only been a Associate Prof. for 2 years. Hard work has been very rewarding to my career, and my father (RIP) instilled me with a strong work ethic. I should earn my money!!!

Peace,

Big Stacks from Kakalak

Most educators work their asses off; glad to hear you're one of them. If I ever have a career in teaching, I don't think I'd mind the long hours as much as if I worked for some private, profit-oriented enterprise.

Hey Almond,

Your last statement rings true as I left the corporate life (as an HR consultant for 5 years) to become an academic. I find my work so rewarding that I feel I was born to be in this career, my "calling" of sorts. I'm passionate about my scholarship, teaching, and service to the field, so I put my all into it for my students and my other constituents (e.g., department, university, employers, editors, practitioners, etc.).

Peace,

Big Stacks from Kakalak

Mjukis

HarveyCanal said:

I'd say I do about 4 hours concerted work and 4 hours of goofing off each day. But I can literally work 3 times as fast and efficiently as any of my colleagues, so I still end up way ahead on what I bring to the table.

This sounds about right - I've found ways to do what I do efficiently, but part of the motivation that made me do that was so that I could slack off at least half the day. Then again, that may change if my work gets more intense - the summer slows a lot of things down, not just me.

Danno3000

I'm expected to bill seven hours a day, which means a lot of ten hour days.

The_Hook_Up

Im on camera at my job and have to lead groups...also the interweb has blocked anything remotely cool/worth wasting my time with during my office time. Sad to say, I do at least 7 and half hours work during an 8 hour day. Plus I have to have a 90 page progress note/report done every friday...I dont have any time for slacking...SUCKS BIGTIME.

Breez

I'll be honest. I don't do shit all day. I sell records, beats, and anything else you can throw a price tag on, and been doing so for the last 10 yrs. When 2000 hit I left the daily grind in the 20th century. I guess I'm a "legal" hustler. I have my little off periods but usually I'm straight. The hardest part of my day is waking my daughter for her summer reading program. My hat goes off to all of you that do the 9-5 thing. I did that for 8 yrs and I don't miss it one bit. But, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Humanacat

I have had three points in my 6 year career that I could slack off. 1. As an intern 2. When I switched from an extremely fast paced position to a slower but more involved one and 3. When I recently returned from getting my Masters Degree. Those few weeks of slacking off have bolstered me as the class clown of the office but I have regretted these periods every time because i have been steadily hammered with work since. If I step away from my desk for a minute I am missing phone calls. If I head out to do field work, i actually create more office work because i have to document everything on a malfunctioning computer system that gets changed or updated every two weeks. Worse yet there are constant mandatory trainings which are not only boring and irrelevant but they also take me away from my desk and again more work piles up. So in closing i could slack off but it better be for a good laugh or some other great benefit otherwise i am only hurting myself. This also applies to one hour lunches.

dukeofdelridge

I quit my job to really devote every waking hour to the internet.