You always hear the phase “9 to 5” and also the song with the same name. Assuming you include 1 hour worth of breaks (30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks), you’re only working for 7 hours a day which comes up to 35 hours a week.
Now it feels like you have to work 8 hours a day (for a total of 40 hours of actual work), plus your other time off meaning you’re really there for 9 hours each day (for a total of 45 hours). Am i looking at that wrong, or did expected times change, and if so, when?
Everything changed. You’re not crazy. If you watch movies made before the 2000s about office culture, including the movie 9 to 5, you can see that the hours included a lunch break. Which was paid.
Yes, those of the older generation had it easier in every way.
Is this a US thing? Do you not get paid for your lunch hour? That’s wild.
Most people don’t. So, for an average employee, it would be 9-530 to account for their unpaid 30m lunch required by law.
I believe many places lunch is not required, and neither is any limit on number of hours per day required.
In the US, you’re lucky if you get paid for the hours you work. And many don’t get all of their hours paid.
In the US, it’s Salary, not Hourly. It’s not “getting paid for the time”, you get paid for doing the job you agreed to do.
You get paid for lunch? Where is that? We don’t either in Switzerland
In Spain, if you work more than 6h you have at least a 15 minutes break that almost always is paid. But people usually work 5 or 6h, 1 or 2 hours for lunch (not paid), then the rest.
Ah that’s interesting, thanks.
Here in Switzerland if a shift is longer than 5.5 hours it needs to have at minimum 15min unpaid break for lunch by law. Longer than 7 hours means 30min unpaid lunch and longer than 9 hours means an hour unpaid lunch by law. Additionally if the split is uneaven such that the period before or after lunch is over 5.5 hours, then you recursively get another break following the above rule by law. But these are all unpaid and do not count as hours worked.
The usual reality for typical 8.2 h/d office jobs is that people take half an hour to an hour of lunch, unpaid, and companies allow two 15 min paid coffee breaks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, despite not being forced to by law.
The unpaid break is also the same in the general work law (Estatuto de los Trabajadores) but professions get extra laws that apply to them (convenio del metal, convenio de farmacia, etc) where they can go better than the general law, and most ‘convenio’ pay for that 15 min break. Lunch time? Never paid unless you agree directly with your company, but some nice companies (I don’t have numbers but in my experience in the IT industry may be around 30% of them) give you 10-12€ a day to help pay your lunch or they have cafeterias where you eat for 4 or 5€.
Ah yes we have some general contracts for whole sectors as well that ususally contain better conditions (called Gesamtarbeitsvertrag GAV).
My workplace, also IT, also gives 180 Swiss Franks a month to help with lunch (much appreciated in Zürich, shit’s expensive). There are some tax rules concerning workplaces either offering cafeterias or lunch subsidies. I believe 180 is the most they can give you before it counts as a separate form of reportable income that needs to be taxed. I think this is common for office jobs, but I also don’t have hard numbers.
Same in Germany, I think this common in many countries, no?
Where do you get paid for your lunch hour? I’m in Germany and while work life balance is certainly a thing here, more so than in the US, a paid lunch break is something I have never heard about.
Typically no but my current employer pays us for 1/2 of our 1 hour lunch.
Spaniard here. Not only does my company not pay me for lunch time. It also demands it to be at least 30 minutes long. How is it even legal to force my unpaid time to be a minimum amount?
It’s probably a law. Mandatory minimum breaks make perfect sense for factory workers.
They should be paid though
Those old tv shows where they casually eat breakfast before work make more sense. They weren’t up at 6, rushing to get to work by 8. They had a whole hour more.
Is the part about being able to socialize also a mythic fantasy? Where ever do people work that they find the time to have conversations?
You’re thinking small-time, like an hourly worker. Good office jobs are generally salaried positions and the idea of clocking in and out is… not a thing. Some days you work more, some less, whatever needs to be done. The idea of 9-5 is just a general time frame. And no one gives a shit when you lunch or break. In a real profession the yardstick is, are you getting it done or not?
I’ll catch grief for saying that, so I’ll preempt by saying, if your job isn’t like that, you likely have a shit job.
Gentle reminder that without “small time”, hourly workers doing real labor your easy, sweatless, office job would disappear overnight. Perhaps some gratitude? Maybe even some solidarity?
As a former IT professional turned baker, I dislike the condescending attitude too many white collar workers have toward the actual wheel turners of the world.
“doing real labor” “easy, sweatless, office job” “the actual wheel turners”
“I dislike the condescending attitude”
It never ceases to amaze me how often people see and hate shit in other people that they epitomize themselves.
And honestly, my experience has been the opposite and I see the condescending attitude, at least more openly, coming from blue collar workers more often.
I was waiting for the /s the whole time, that comment read like a joke but I think it was actually sincere…
I’m a capitalist and this thread is giving me a hard-on
I’ve done it all, from shoveling asphalt to dishpits to customer service, all that and a dozen more. Guess what? Those were shit jobs. Doesn’t make the person doing those jobs shit.
Some of y’all are so eager to be offended it’s ridiculous.
Lolol what kind of fantasy world do you live in? Salaried worker here and although my job isn’t 9-5 strictly if I don’t work at least 40 hours a week my pay will be docked. So I get to choose between 8-5 or 9-6 or I can work while I eat and get that cushy 9-5 life. Or if I miss work I can make up those hours by working at night. It’s a real luxury to be able to do that compared to shift work, but the hours are still being counted.
Also stop being so entitled. Most of your life necessities come from industries (groceries, power plants, gas stations, hospitals, etc) where people work on a timecard/shift basis so don’t you come out here and pretend timecard or shift work isn’t a “real” profession.
the hours are still being counted
Refer to my last sentence. And you will note that I didn’t denigrate anyone’s work, only that if they’re on the clock, the job probably sucks.
Tell me more about this “some days you work less” concept. It’s completely foreign to me
Those would be Fridays at my last job. Swear to god no one did anything unless absolutely necessary and most were gone by mid-afternoon. LOL, which sucked because that’s when I was often jamming along and no one was around to help, question, etc.
If your job has you grinding non-stop, that’s no way to live and a good employer recognizes that.
Tell me.more about this “good employer” concept. That’s completely foreign to me
USA. Been working 20 years. Every job has been 8 to 5, unpaid 1h lunch, 2x15min paid breaks. :(
The last time I worked hourly was the late 90s. We got a paid 15 break per 4 hours worked. If we worked more than 6 hours, we also got an unpaid 30 minute lunch. I got no benefits because I was part-time at 37.5 hours per week.
37.5 hours
part-time
crazy, in my world that’s pretty much full time
I believe it is where I am too, 36+ is full-time for benefits requirements. Apparently the insurance company asked my employer to please make sure I was working at least 36hrs a week, because for a month or so I was only getting to 32.
I had a job where I was working 80 hours a week without breaks and my boss told me I was part time
Imagine being that guy scheduling people for 39.9 hours thinking you’re a goddamn genius.
The “genius” was the IN state Congress that made it law that 37.5 and under must be considered part time, even for minors. I was working exactly that every week while also going to high school when I was 16.
That’s wild that it wasn’t full time. IRS now defines 30 as full-time thankfully
Yes. And if you interview for an 8 to 5 job, you tell them that it sounds like a crock of shit and you don’t want the job.
So sick of that shit. Fuck any employer who pulls this shit.
I don’t WANT your crock of shit job! I’ll go live on the streets!!! I’ll give blowjobs for $20! And hey…you want a blowjob? Got $20?
Not to mention commute time, time spent getting ready for work/bed, and time spent sleeping. I don’t consider any of that to be free time.
I work 10 hour shifts, so once you factor in all that stuff, I get about two full hours for myself each day to do whatever I want, before I have to start the process all over again for tomorrow.
Where are you working where you are expected to work through your breaks? 9-5 should include your break times as well, yes.
America I’m guessing.
I’d guess too. In central and eastern Europe, 7 to 3 is the norm but nobody pronounces it that.
I’m Canadian myself but isn’t this illegal? In Canada we have a labor program where you can file a complaint if it comes to that.
Depends on the state. But the reality is you need to hire a lawyer to fight it and we already have to choose between a roof and food most of the time so good luck with that.
That sucks, sorry to hear that. I honestly thought the US had a similar thing as well. I guess that explains the huge push for more unions across the US over the past few years.
Oh I’m sure you can FILE a complaint here too.
Doesn’t mean anybody gives a shit.
Probably the US, specifically. Most of America has unions, except the US has all but made actual unions illegal
As a guy with an actual office job. It’s usually 8-5 or 9-6 with an hour lunch, plus whatever time you spend on coffee or whatever.
It’s pretty standard, and it’s been that way for a couple decades at least.
Hour long mandatory lunch, no pay. Switzerland.
Half an hour mandatory lunch, paid. Austria.
(pretty much depends on your job a bit, just wanted to continue with the same comment style)
Oh shit I need to go pester my family to let me be a citizen (or recheck and go talk to an EU focused immigration lawyer to discuss where exactly in Europe my family was when to see if I qualify)
Having worked in a couple of European countries, I thought 7.5 hours of work plus a half an hour lunch break is the norm everywhere in the western world. So the 9 to 5 did totally make sense to me. I was honestly surprised reading all these comments.
Here in America I work 7.5 with two 15 minute paid breaks and a half hour unpaid lunch. So it’s really more like 8:30-5
Nevermind the world. Even here in Europe in Switzerland the standard is somehow 42 hours a week.
In Spain it’s 40h a week maximum but to explain it simply there are 2 ways to go higher: 1. some professions can go higher as long as they compensate later the same year (the total maximum hours are anually, not weekly). 2.up to 80h a year on extra hours that need to be paid.
That said, that’s what the law says but many people do extra hours without getting paid and people do not sue for a few hours a year.There are various exceptions in Switzerland too, I think the weekly maximum if going over your contract is 50h and that can either be paid with 25% extra, or compensated by free time in another week. And then even this maximum can be surpassed by another 2h/d, for a real max of 60h, if there is exceptional work that needs to be done, also paid with 25% extra, or compensated by free time in another week.
It seems a little complicated to me, lukily I haven’t really had to deal with those protections in the law yet, since my workplace is pretty sensible overall.
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if someone tried to dictate the amount of work hours that I put in during the day I would just start puking and shitting
Your math ain’t mathing.
The stereotypical “9 to 5” is an 8 hour shift with a paid hour “lunch break”. This includes two 10-15 minute breaks, which are also paid. You come to work at 9, do work, take breaks, take lunch, and then leave at 5. That’s 8 hours.
My job is 8 to 430. I come in at 8, work till 12, then I have a half hour unpaid lunch. The unpaid lunch means I cannot be required to stay on site, which can happen with a paid lunch. Then from 1230 to 430 I work until I go home. There are two 10 minute paid breaks in there. I work 8 hours total in an 8.5 hour work day.
Different jobs are different
Sorry for rambling
It’s one of those ambiguous things that employers seem to be leveraging to their advantage. Where I work, plenty of people do 8-5. Those of us who have been around longer and don’t give as much of a shit will count lunch as part of our day.
Dutch law describes a mandatory break of 30 minutes (or 2 15 minute breakes) if a working day is longer that 5.5 hours. Break is not work, thus not payed.
This neglects that the breaks are not free time spent as desired and is entirely constrained to the circumstances of employment. You would not eat or do the same tasks in the timespan. Therefore it is not your time and should be compensated for. Like owning a vehicle, you still own it even when you are not driving it or it is broken down. Pretending ownership is only limited to the time the vehicle is in gear and moving is delusional logic for any such pro slavery State. Employment must include far more ethical responsibly than this.
Using that logic this includes commuting, as that is also not free time spent as desired.
