For like 12 years I’ve worked in the service industry. That means sporadic hours and shifts that can happen whenever. About a year ago though I got a 9:00 to 5:00 job and it has been absolute hell trying to live my life as I have. How do normal people do this? All the business hours of places that you need to go, the bank, the doctors, the post office. Office they’re closed by the time you get off of work. I have to actually call off of work just to get anything done. There’s no way the majority of people are living like this, right?
This is part of the reason 9-5 used to be paid well enough to be salary instead of hourly. When you’re salary and have decent rapport with your boss taking off for these things is just a heads up I’ll be in late or I’m leaving early. No worry about using time off, PTO, etc. As wages have stagnated/been suppressed over the decades now positions that should be salary are instead hourly and as you and anyone working them can note it doesn’t work well.
Fixing that requires a societal/cultural upheaval which has been rumbling for at least a couple decades but things seem to be going backwards right now despite unions getting stronger in the past few years than they had in decades.
How do normal people do this?
They don’t, look around everyone has some sort of problems they are either sick, mentally ill or braindead.
People and society need to acknowledge that the current work ethics are alienating humanity and destroying the world.
Edit: i misread and though op was talking about working hours in general not allowing people to do much with their life after they are done working
And the most broken, fucked up people act like they are vaguely ‘stronger’ because of it.
Not that I don’t agree with you, but I think we would still have the same problems if we shifted to say a 4 day work week, because then the bank tellers and postal workers and such would either have to work the same days to allow people to use the services or we all do 4 days and still no one can make use of them. It seems like people get shafted no matter what
Who said that you have to work 4 days a week or 40 hours a week? These are arbitrary numbers crumbled down from slavery.
I think we’re talking about different things here
oh i though you were ranting about working hours in general
Here’s how it works in countries that are not dystopian hellscapes:
You tell your boss “I’ll be at the doctor’s on Tuesday from 08:30 to about 11:00.”
You go to the doctor and pick up a paper from the receptionist when you leave that confirms the hours you were there.
You go back to your job and hand HR the paper, they put the hours into the system. The time you spent at the doctor’s office as well as the time you spent going there counts as work time.
This works the same for other things like getting your passport renewed or school events that parents should attend.If the system in your country is worse in any way you should probably fight to improve it, or get out of there as fast as you can.
it actually got worse with covid. Places that used to have late night and weekend hours stopped. In particular doctors offices. I used pto mostly.
Living? No. Just surviving.
I let my boss know I have to duck out on occasion, same courtesy when they have to duck out. No big as long as the job is done.
They know that they will get that time back in work travel/overtime and it will balance out
a monday-friday ‘9 to 5’ is actually pretty brutal if you live alone, are a single parent, or your partner also has the same work schedule.
you will find yourself taking a vacation day here and there just to ‘get stuff done’ instead of, ya know, taking a vacation or at least days off to ‘rest’.
if you can get a 4 day schedule (even at 4x10), it helps a lot. saves on commuting too, since it’s 20 percent less of that bullshit (expense and wasted time). swapping a weekday for a weekend day every now and then, if it’s possible, is also an option.
I just leave my jacket on the chair and pick up my stuff like I’m going to a meeting. Then I fuck off and do whatever I’ve got to do.
I wish I could but I don’t really get any sort of downtime in my job, we could be working, pushing heavy stuff clock in to clock out
It’s massive bull shit that I have to use my lunch and PTO to go to Dr appointments and the like. I am losing my mind to because I need to call my bank, but they’re only open when I am at work. Like bro! I don’t want to talk about my personal banking shit anywhere near my coworkers. I know that there is the claustrophobic phone office, but that room sucks! I just save up all of that shit for my WFH days.
decades ago, banks in the US used to be worse – would open at 9 am local time but close when the stock market closed – so California banks would be 9 am to 2 pm …
9-5… I work 7-7. If i need to do something i just leave work and do it.
It really depends on the job. My 9-5 is hybrid, so 3 days in a week minimum, others can be remote. We have core hours, 10-4, where I should be available. So I can WFH and have something for 4PM, get back, and wrap up my last hour. But my boss is also very understanding, and if I need to be unavailable within core hours, he won’t force me to take PTO if I make up those hours.
I worked 12h day/night shifts on an irregular schedule for 4,5 years.
Working normal 08-17h was amazing after getting out of that job…
Yeah… it does seem like a bit of mystery, but clearly there must be some customers.
At least for package deliveries there’s now package boxes all around the city where I live.
For things like banks, their biggest customers are other companies, and other companies are open during business hours. Individuals using their services are small potatoes in comparison.
In my country you have some overtime on your clock in case you need it for stuff like that. 5-10 hours are usually enough and it doesn’t take long build them up.
