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?
did […] included
Nope. It’s ‘did include’ .
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.
Different jobs are different
Sorry for rambling
My job is 9 to 5 including one hour lunch time when I started, it at least that’s what the HR person and my boss told me when I started. Early this year I saw my position “obligations” or whatever is called and it says that I work 9 to 6 so 🤷 I hope they never enforce it
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.
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.
Ha! Hour. You’re funny. Federal law only gives half an hour.
Ha! Nah, Federal law doesn’t require a lunch period, or breaks, at all. It’s all state side.
Only thing is that if an employer gives a short break, like 5-20 mins, it must be paid and included in overtime.
I live in Canada. We get a half-hour lunch that isn’t paid in my province.
Also, if you take more than 3 sick days a year, your boss can fire you. And the 3 sick days are unpaid. The government lowered the number from 10 to 3 shortly before the pandemic, and didn’t raise it again! Oh, and to count, your boss can demand a doctor’s note. Which cost money to the patient.
Where do you live, Alberta? Or one of the maritimes??
Sounds like Ontario 🙃
That really sounds like one of the flat-lander regions.
I get 21 holidays a year, not counting every second friday off because of my 9x9 compressed-time agreement. If I plan it right, and hit the stats with the comp days, that’s 7 weeks off a year. Why, that’s almost european. I’ve just finished my first year at this shop.
Most people don’t. So, for an average employee, it would be 9-530 to account for their unpaid 30m lunch required by law.
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.
No. Some jobs are hourly and some are salary.
That’s just salaried folks though. The vast majority of american workers are hourly or contractors. Per the Dept of Labor’s own site:
The Wage and Hour Division is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the welfare of the nation’s workforce with a focus on low-wage, underserved workers. In fiscal year 2023, we successfully recovered over $274 million in back wages and damages for more than 163,000 workers nationwide.
Wage theft is when employers don’t properly pay their employees and is a HUGE problem because it isn’t always out of malevolence, it can be as simple as the time clock not properly computing overtime, etc.
If you don’t think that $274 million is large amount, think about how the vast majority of these things never get reported to the authorities; that number should be higher.
Source for quote: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/data
Most salaried workers are written up if they fail to work 8+ hours. Salaried is now just a method to deny people overtime - fancied salaried workers may still operate in the intended way but even most developers I know have to obey some sort of time tracking method.
Depends on the state, in my state you legally have to get paid for 30 minute lunches but not hour long lunches. No idea why but because of this most office jobs will give you an hour lunch in addition to your mandated 2, 10 minute breaks.
Honestly I would love to just take a 30 minute break and get out earlier. It’s not even about the money.
Typically no but my current employer pays us for 1/2 of our 1 hour lunch.
I work 10’s and we get 2 paid 20 minute breaks that are actually usually 25-30 depending on how caught up we all are individually since they let you walk away early if you’re caught up and how long after you get up, go to the bathroom, get some coffee , put your stuff up.
They’re actually pretty chill as long as you stay caught up
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.
They also had someone to make it for them. One income was enough for the household.
I am 51. When I started working my job was 9-5 with a one hour lunch an unofficial 30 minute coffee break and about four unofficial ten minute smoke breaks.
What’s it like for you now?
My company went full time “work from home” in 2012 and we are specialists that are only brought in when everyone else has fucked up. So basically, I am on call 24/7/365.
Retired in a 3-bedroom home paid off that was purchased for $57,000.
/kidding
You’re thinking boomer so you are off by ~20 years.
All my jobs have either been 9-5 or 9:30-5:30 with an hour lunch included. TBH I’ve never tracked my pay by the hour, just the day.
It has definitely changed, I don’t know when, but it’s been like this for at least the last decade.
Though, in my experience (NB: I’m a software engineer, which is a notoriously lax field.) only what the piece of paper says has changed. Hell, most of my employee handbooks have claimed that “full time” is 50 hours a week. They get away with it because I’m classified as a “computer employee” (lol) and make more than $35k/year (super lol) which means my employment is exempted from minimum wage and overtime pay laws.
Nobody that I know actually works that consistently. Most people I know don’t even do 40. I do 9-5 (or 8:30-4:30 usually), I take breaks when I need them and nobody has ever complained to me about the amount I’m working.
My only guess for why it’s this way is that having that be the official working time means it’s easier to fire anyone for no reason because they’re not working their “contractually obligated” amount of time.
I actually had an argument with a former employer quite a few years ago about that ‘computer operator’ / ~36k limit thing.
My scummy boss at that time was telling me that because of those stipulations I wasn’t eligible for any overtime and they could demand I work as many hours as they want - even though I was hourly. When I said that didn’t sound right he dared me to look up our state’s employment laws.
So I did (side note: I’m in one of the most employee-friendly states), and it very clearly said that my boss was profoundly wrong. So I sent him the URL to that page. And he and the piece of shit HR person shut right up about it. Me and all of my colleague never heard that ridiculous argument again.
My last couple of jobs, including my current one, have been much more reasonable and accommodating. Even though I’m now salary, they aren’t exploitative of me or my colleagues.
So my advice to other IT folk is: take the time to check up on your state’s employment laws. If you are being exploited by your employer they may be totally in the wrong.
So my advice to other IT folk is: take the time to check up on your state’s employment laws. If you are being exploited by your employer they may be totally in the wrong.
100%
I’m unfortunately in a state with even more vague and useless definition of who gets to be exempt than the federal definition.
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?
I think i would just not apply if i felt like you do
Employers don’t usually broadly advertise their anti-perks. This is the kind of thing you usually discover with a question during an interview or when you’re handed your employment contract.
I work in a salaried office job in the US, and in 2 decades of working at different companies I’ve always worked 9 to 5 AND taken an hour lunch. Of course, I’ve also had plenty of pressure to work outside of those hours when needed. Which escalated to 50-60 hour weeks with night and weekend work at the worst (I left that job shortly after).But I’ve never done 9 to 6 as official hours.
Same. For professional work nobody really cares how you punch the clock as long as you get your work done and don’t try to be too annoying about your hours. The only time I’ve ever even heard it brought up was when someone tried to work like 5am to 1pm meaning they had a very small window to schedule meetings with normal people.
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.
And that lunch hour is unpaid.
Where are you working where you are expected to work through your breaks? 9-5 should include your break times as well, yes.
Every job I’ve ever had.
Most jobs I’ve had will schedule 8-430/9-530/etc, so that you work a full 8 hours but you have a 30min mandatory unpaid lunch break. The two 15 min breaks are paid, but they were also “discouraged.”
Man, I have worked some shitty jobs and not one of them as ever discouraged me in any way from taking my breaks.
Days off is a whole other thing though
I’ve been in construction for many years, and the norm is working straight through till lunch then straight till the end of the day. Usually no one bats an eye if you take a few minutes to catch your breath or smoke if you bust ass, but yeah there typically isn’t a designated 10-15 all stop. That and most guys usually take 20 min to take a shit, so I guess it tends to balance out.
Meanwhile, I’ve only ever had one that encouraged taking breaks.
Sounds like you’ve been taken advantage of. Assuming you live in a western country they should have some kind of department for labor violations you can escalate to if it comes that.
I’m in the US.
I’ve never had a job tell us we can’t take our 15s. But most places keep staffing tight enough, and busy enough, that people feel guilty taking a 15 unless they have a real reason to.
Personally, I find them kind of frustrating. By the time I begin to calm down, it’s time to head back. It’s not even like a real break. Where I am now, 30min is auto deduced for lunch, so we take 45min lunches most of the time.
I remember asking about breaks before accepting a job and explaining that I take a 10-minute walk every afternoon. I was assured that was fine! Until I was working the job and actually did so every day. Then it wasn’t fine.
At a low paying non-profit, no less.
I’ve never had a job tell us we can’t take our 15s.
That’s be super illegal, yeah
I’ve worked one place that enforced they be 10 minutes, though, which is the requirement in California, shockingly
I’m in Germany. I’m 40 years old. And this year, for the first time in my life, I work in a job that is 9 to 5 with an hour of breaks.
Which counts as 7 working hours. Because the breaks are not included as work time. Never have been. In none of the official, unionized jobs I ever worked.
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.
In British Columbia our labor laws were basically written by EA so tech workers have almost no protection against overtime unless it’s contiguous - the only hard limit on working is once you hit 32 continuous hours you must be given time off… BC high tech employees are exempt from any overtime and the only limit they still get is that they must be given eight hours off every day - but that’s eight hours not working, not necessarily eight hours of sleep. So you could be asked to work 32 continuous hours then be sent home with a forty-five minute drive, get home, sleep for six and a half hours (or try to) then get back in your car to drive back to the office to work another sixteen hours.
If you objected to this schedule you could quit but you’d have no legal recourse to sue your employer.
Oh, and in the above three day scenario (home for eight, work for thirty two, home for eight, work for sixteen) you’d be paid the same if you worked for twenty four hours over three days.
BC tech workers have no rights.
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.
They have it really bad over there. My understanding is most European countries would laugh at Canadian labour law, but Canada laughs at the US’s.
Oh I’m sure you can FILE a complaint here too.
Doesn’t mean anybody gives a shit.
In Canada full time is whatever an employer decides it is, not 35h, not even 40h. In Quebec an employer isn’t required to give 15mins break. But if they do they must be paid. The 30mins lunch break is mandatory, but also unpaid. You’ve just gotten lucky with decent employers/union jobs. I’d imagine other provinces are similar.
An employer is under no obligation to offer breaks but when a break is granted, it must be paid and be included in the calculation of the hours worked.
After 5 consecutive hours of work, a worker is entitled to a 30-minute meal break, without pay. If the worker is required to remain at their workstation during this time, their meal break must be paid.
Depends on the Province I think. Where I’m at you’re entitled to 30 min off (unpaid) within the first 5 hours, and another within 8 if you’re working longer than 8 hours. 15 min breaks are not mandated except that if the company gives you them they must be paid.
Shit, 45 hours a week would be amazing, my now former employer wanted me working 5 12hour shifts and pay me so little I needed a weekend job on top of that.
In Canada, the regulations have been 8 hour workday with two paid 15 minute breaks in that period and an unpaid 30 minute break for salaried workers, unless otherwise agreed by contract, since I started working in the early 90s.
This means a lot of people work 9-5:30 or 8:30-5. Union jobs generally have a 8 hour day in total with a 1 hour lunch break, and other professions have other arrangements.
For a number of years, I took my “lunch break” at 5 and just worked a straight 8 hour day with two 15 minute breaks.
