Work schedules?

[ChrisoftheNorth]

I’ll never make great money, but the .gov employment is absolutely the way to go for a low stress job with solid benefits.

You probably make more per hour than I do.

[SAWCE]

I’ll never make great money, but the .gov employment is absolutely the way to go for a low stress job with solid benefits.

You probably make more per hour than I do.

Oh dang. doe.. I took a cut down to $78k annual coming here to the .gov. My hourly is something like $37.88 iirc. I’d have to double check that hourly number.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

You probably make more per hour than I do.

Oh dang. doe.. I took a cut down to $78k annual coming here to the .gov. My hourly is something like $37.88 iirc. I’d have to double check that hourly number.

You work nearly half the time I do (especially when factoring holidays), but don't make half. I'm afraid to calc my hourly.

[SAWCE]

Oh dang. doe.. I took a cut down to $78k annual coming here to the .gov. My hourly is something like $37.88 iirc. I’d have to double check that hourly number.

You work nearly half the time I do (especially when factoring holidays), but don't make half. I'm afraid to calc my hourly.

Oh…. Yeah when calculating pay for time spent actually working I do fairly well. I need to get an online coaching thing off the ground, I could easily respond to client emails while I’m at my NOAA desk “working”.

[Johnny_P]

I WFH 2x a week now. Generally 8am - 4pm, no commute, hour lunch, so it’s pretty good.

In office 3x a week, 7:30-4:30/5. About 30 minute lunch. Due to office politics bs. But still pretty dece compared to prior jobs. Commute is about 25 min each way on subway so totally mindless.

I’d guess 39-42 hrs a week is pretty typical. I’m beat at the end of it though because it’s non stop triple booked virtual meetings all day.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

I WFH 2x a week now. Generally 8am - 4pm, no commute, hour lunch, so it’s pretty good.

In office 3x a week, 7:30-4:30/5. About 30 minute lunch. Due to office politics bs. But still pretty dece compared to prior jobs. Commute is about 25 min each way on subway so totally mindless.

I’d guess 39-42 hrs a week is pretty typical. I’m beat at the end of it though because it’s non stop triple booked virtual meetings all day.

That's overall. Do you go to the office to just sit on virtual meetings all day? That happened to me one day last time I was in the NYC office, I felt the entire time.

Also, agreed on how draining meetings can be, especially when they're back to back and/or double booked. I have to multitask during my meetings otherwise nothing would get done, and I've noticed my brain is REALLY tired by the end of the day from all of that activity.

[Johnny_P]

I WFH 2x a week now. Generally 8am - 4pm, no commute, hour lunch, so it’s pretty good.

In office 3x a week, 7:30-4:30/5. About 30 minute lunch. Due to office politics bs. But still pretty dece compared to prior jobs. Commute is about 25 min each way on subway so totally mindless.

I’d guess 39-42 hrs a week is pretty typical. I’m beat at the end of it though because it’s non stop triple booked virtual meetings all day.

That's overall. Do you go to the office to just sit on virtual meetings all day? That happened to me one day last time I was in the NYC office, I felt the entire time.

Also, agreed on how draining meetings can be, especially when they're back to back and/or double booked. I have to multitask during my meetings otherwise nothing would get done, and I've noticed my brain is REALLY tired by the end of the day from all of that activity.

Yeah it’s weird. Our team isn’t all in the office at the same time. So when you’re in the office you are still in virtual calls all day. Which is kind of stupid but you do get to see people you work with.

Later today I have a virtual meeting during my lunch hour to discuss diversity and inclusion which will likely have a 5 minute safety topic on managing burnout.

I dunno. It still kicks the refinery’s ass. So I’m not exactly complaining.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

That's overall. Do you go to the office to just sit on virtual meetings all day? That happened to me one day last time I was in the NYC office, I felt the entire time.

Also, agreed on how draining meetings can be, especially when they're back to back and/or double booked. I have to multitask during my meetings otherwise nothing would get done, and I've noticed my brain is REALLY tired by the end of the day from all of that activity.

Yeah it’s weird. Our team isn’t all in the office at the same time. So when you’re in the office you are still in virtual calls all day. Which is kind of stupid but you do get to see people you work with.

Later today I have a virtual meeting during my lunch hour to discuss diversity and inclusion which will likely have a 5 minute safety topic on managing burnout.

I dunno. It still kicks the refinery’s ass. So I’m not exactly complaining.

is how I feel about my situation. I may be working to death, but it's still better than my previous employers by a drastic margin.

I feel like eventually in office time will be better utilized. There's still a lot of figuring out to do there, but I've had a few in person office trips now that have proven to be fantastically efficient and useful, so I'm not complaining that more are starting to pop up.

I was hired with a plan for quarterly travel, and that's proven to be monthly so far this year. I despise commuting for some reason, so I prefer this way AND since the company is paying to fly us around, it forces us to really manage meeting agendas to maximize time. I feel like this is the way we should be working, but we'll see how that changes going forward.

[Desertbreh]

I WFH 2x a week now. Generally 8am - 4pm, no commute, hour lunch, so it’s pretty good.

In office 3x a week, 7:30-4:30/5. About 30 minute lunch. Due to office politics bs. But still pretty dece compared to prior jobs. Commute is about 25 min each way on subway so totally mindless.

I’d guess 39-42 hrs a week is pretty typical. I’m beat at the end of it though because it’s non stop triple booked virtual meetings all day.

How do you actually get anything done if you are in meetings all day?

[ChrisoftheNorth]

I WFH 2x a week now. Generally 8am - 4pm, no commute, hour lunch, so it’s pretty good.

In office 3x a week, 7:30-4:30/5. About 30 minute lunch. Due to office politics bs. But still pretty dece compared to prior jobs. Commute is about 25 min each way on subway so totally mindless.

I’d guess 39-42 hrs a week is pretty typical. I’m beat at the end of it though because it’s non stop triple booked virtual meetings all day.

How do you actually get anything done if you are in meetings all day?

Have to work during meetings, it's the only way. I find it extremely mentally taxing.

[Johnny_P]

I WFH 2x a week now. Generally 8am - 4pm, no commute, hour lunch, so it’s pretty good.

In office 3x a week, 7:30-4:30/5. About 30 minute lunch. Due to office politics bs. But still pretty dece compared to prior jobs. Commute is about 25 min each way on subway so totally mindless.

I’d guess 39-42 hrs a week is pretty typical. I’m beat at the end of it though because it’s non stop triple booked virtual meetings all day.

How do you actually get anything done if you are in meetings all day?

I only half listen to the meetings while I work on other stuff. It’s horribly inefficient. We are behind on a lot of things and boss is actively trying to hire like 5 people.

[MexicanYarisTK]

That's overall. Do you go to the office to just sit on virtual meetings all day? That happened to me one day last time I was in the NYC office, I felt the entire time.

Also, agreed on how draining meetings can be, especially when they're back to back and/or double booked. I have to multitask during my meetings otherwise nothing would get done, and I've noticed my brain is REALLY tired by the end of the day from all of that activity.

Yeah it’s weird. Our team isn’t all in the office at the same time. So when you’re in the office you are still in virtual calls all day. Which is kind of stupid but you do get to see people you work with.

Later today I have a virtual meeting during my lunch hour to discuss diversity and inclusion which will likely have a 5 minute safety topic on managing burnout.

I dunno. It still kicks the refinery’s ass. So I’m not exactly complaining.

Thats pretty much the only advantage I see when it comes to "old school" office work days, that if of course depends on the people you work with. But on a long commute like I had right before covid is a little bit of an overkill for that alone imo

[MexicanYarisTK]

How do you actually get anything done if you are in meetings all day?

I only half listen to the meetings while I work on other stuff. It’s horribly inefficient. We are behind on a lot of things and boss is actively trying to hire like 5 people.

I remember one time when I was driving to Rehoboth and on i95 towards Miami (before the madness that is) with the rental car I was on a zoom meeting via phone holder which I had to participate, I only needed to listen for some of the things and I'm an active listener. But if they asked me to find something important, I'd pull over. Mind you those only lasted an hour.

[ChrisoftheNorth]

How do you actually get anything done if you are in meetings all day?

I only half listen to the meetings while I work on other stuff. It’s horribly inefficient. We are behind on a lot of things and boss is actively trying to hire like 5 people.

I used to half-listen to larger meetings. But somehow my boss can fully listen and work at the same time. Often I'll be zoned out in a meeting working on something else and my boss will slack me "DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS SET UP A MEETING ASAP TO DISCUSS"...and I have NO CLUE what he's talking about because I wasn't paying attention. Then it's a scramble me hitting up my guys to figure out what was discussed, when most of them me because they were doing the same thing.

SO I've learned to recognize verbal queues when someone is changing a thought. I'll listen to the first 5 seconds of the new thought, then work 30 seconds or something until the thought changes again. For 10 hours a day, 5 days straight. My brain is mush half way through the day. Doesn't matter.

[D Griff]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

[max225]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

Even while wfh ?

[Johnny_P]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

95% are internal meetings. I generally have about 1 hour of work time free each day.

[D Griff]

My ability to focus in meetings is terrible.

I start zoning hard after about 15-20 mins, especially when the olds start dredging up things we covered in the first 5 mins. Just let me GTFO.

If it’s something I actually care about I pretty much have to turn my camera on the entire time to have any chance of engagement.

[D Griff]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

Even while wfh ?

Yeah, two 30 minute team meetings/week (I miss some due to customer meetings), 1:1 with my boss for 30 minutes every other week and maybe 15 minutes of time on the phone with him per week, a couple of training calls/month, some one offs about supply chain or a trade show or something like that. Maybe one meeting/month with product teams but most things can be accomplished with a Teams chat.

[Johnny_P]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

The good ones are working meetings, where one of the guys on my team needs help figuring something out. We actually figure things out and get good direction in those.

But others are things like..
-Daily coordination
-Cost forecasts
-Capital program updates
-Weekly reviews of work plans
-Standing meetings for large projects
-"Working" meetings for large projects, which are basically a bunch of people debating on specific wording in a procedure

So those "other" type meetings, there might be 5 minutes of relevant information for me to soak up but I have to listen to an hour of bs to find it. Or I might have 30 seconds of an update to give in the meeting but otherwise its an hour of wasted time. So I typically zone out in and work on other things during those meetings.

The challenge is when I get triple booked. Trying to figure out which one to attend. Our "department" is 2.5 worker bees (engineering for a 550,000 customer natural gas distribution system) and one boss who thinks he doesn't have to be a worker bee now that he's recently been promoted to a low level manager. I'm the "lead" engineer, which basically means I screen everything from my boss and other department heads, and help divide the work among the other 1.5 people.

[Desertbreh]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

95% are internal meetings. I generally have about 1 hour of work time free each day.

That is completely fucking insane.

[D Griff]

So John and Chris... these are just internal meetings that you're in all day? What are they about? What is the point? Very to me that this is so prevalent in corporate life. Are these very repetitive?

I have maybe three hours/week of internal meetings.

The good ones are working meetings, where one of the guys on my team needs help figuring something out. We actually figure things out and get good direction in those.

But others are things like..
-Daily coordination
-Cost forecasts
-Capital program updates
-Weekly reviews of work plans
-Standing meetings for large projects
-"Working" meetings for large projects, which are basically a bunch of people debating on specific wording in a procedure

So those "other" type meetings, there might be 5 minutes of relevant information for me to soak up but I have to listen to an hour of bs to find it. Or I might have 30 seconds of an update to give in the meeting but otherwise its an hour of wasted time. So I typically zone out in and work on other things during those meetings.

The challenge is when I get triple booked. Trying to figure out which one to attend. Our "department" is 2.5 worker bees (engineering for a 550,000 customer natural gas distribution system) and one boss who thinks he doesn't have to be a worker bee now that he's recently been promoted to a low level manager. I'm the "lead" engineer, which basically means I screen everything from my boss and other department heads, and help divide the work among the other 1.5 people.

Wild that there's a manager and a lead for a team of 3.5 people... and the reason is that both leaders are wasting their entire day in meetings. Corporate life is still kind of to me.

I still feel like 90% of things could be knocked out with a Teams chat in two minutes.

[max225]

The good ones are working meetings, where one of the guys on my team needs help figuring something out. We actually figure things out and get good direction in those.

But others are things like..
-Daily coordination
-Cost forecasts
-Capital program updates
-Weekly reviews of work plans
-Standing meetings for large projects
-"Working" meetings for large projects, which are basically a bunch of people debating on specific wording in a procedure

So those "other" type meetings, there might be 5 minutes of relevant information for me to soak up but I have to listen to an hour of bs to find it. Or I might have 30 seconds of an update to give in the meeting but otherwise its an hour of wasted time. So I typically zone out in and work on other things during those meetings.

The challenge is when I get triple booked. Trying to figure out which one to attend. Our "department" is 2.5 worker bees (engineering for a 550,000 customer natural gas distribution system) and one boss who thinks he doesn't have to be a worker bee now that he's recently been promoted to a low level manager. I'm the "lead" engineer, which basically means I screen everything from my boss and other department heads, and help divide the work among the other 1.5 people.

Wild that there's a manager and a lead for a team of 3.5 people... and the reason is that both leaders are wasting their entire day in meetings. Corporate life is still kind of to me.

I still feel like 90% of things could be knocked out with a Teams chat in two minutes.

Sorta the higher up you go the more meetings you have. This has been the case for the last two decades of my work life.

[D Griff]

Wild that there's a manager and a lead for a team of 3.5 people... and the reason is that both leaders are wasting their entire day in meetings. Corporate life is still kind of to me.

I still feel like 90% of things could be knocked out with a Teams chat in two minutes.

Sorta the higher up you go the more meetings you have. This has been the case for the last two decades of my work life.

That is certainly true here as well. One of my many reasons to prefer to stay an 'individual contributor' for as long as I can.

[max225]

Sorta the higher up you go the more meetings you have. This has been the case for the last two decades of my work life.

That is certainly true here as well. One of my many reasons to prefer to stay an 'individual contributor' for as long as I can.

Yea... being an IC is