9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?
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When I was that age, 40 hours was never enough.
I really liked the work and never spent fewer than 70-80 hours at the office per week. 100 hour weeks were common.
If the gen z is so lame that they can't find a job they like for at least 40 hours per week, they are too pathetic for words.
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I found my own way - have positions where no one knows where you are supposed to be and whether you are there or not, and support contracts that are essentially retainers. Also find a niche like my pathology system conversions. I had most all the software written after I did it for a Chicago client and could charge $20K a pop. I was one of two firms nationally that offered it and I had a much better, fixed cost offering. I'd get 4 or 5 a year that would only take me 40 hours or so of actual time.
Don't get me wrong - I worked my share of 80 hour weeks, but when I did it was usually a labor of love and I was paid hourly.
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One of the things I love about coming here is it makes me feel so young, and the reactions to this are a perfect example.
My attitude to work has always been that if they didn't pay me, I wouldn't go. The instant they don't pay you it's not a job but a hobby, and if your job is your hobby, then you need a new hobby.
I was only joking
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When I was that age, 40 hours was never enough.
I really liked the work and never spent fewer than 70-80 hours at the office per week. 100 hour weeks were common.
If the gen z is so lame that they can't find a job they like for at least 40 hours per week, they are too pathetic for words.
@Copper said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
When I was that age, 40 hours was never enough.
I really liked the work and never spent fewer than 70-80 hours at the office per week. 100 hour weeks were common.
If the gen z is so lame that they can't find a job they like for at least 40 hours per week, they are too pathetic for words.
Yeah but you don't work anymore.
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Yeah working 9-5 sucks. Add on the commute, meals, hygiene, errands, responsibilities... yeah there isn't much time left for hobbies, friends, etc. It sucks, it's called work... if you're lucky you'll find something enjoyable, or more flexible. And I'm not saying it has to be this way, but the younger generation (if I can lump them together, which is unfair), needs to be prepared better with a work ethic. I read a stat that the average age of people getting their first job keeps going up up up... you wonder how many of them had a job when they were 14.
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One of the things I love about coming here is it makes me feel so young, and the reactions to this are a perfect example.
My attitude to work has always been that if they didn't pay me, I wouldn't go. The instant they don't pay you it's not a job but a hobby, and if your job is your hobby, then you need a new hobby.
@Doctor-Phibes said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
One of the things I love about coming here is it makes me feel so young, and the reactions to this are a perfect example.
My attitude to work has always been that if they didn't pay me, I wouldn't go. The instant they don't pay you it's not a job but a hobby, and if your job is your hobby, then you need a new hobby.
That doesn't work for everybody, though. For me, turns out that when I work that way I get asked to leave in pretty short order.
I need the work itself to be fun. Sure, meetings and co-workers and procedures and clients and invoices and all that bullshit is terrible, but as long as I like what I'm actually supposed to be doing, then I can more or less put up with the rest.
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Some of my work is genuinely fun. I like the engineering bits. I'm less keen on all the rest of it. Sitting at a computer all day isn't great.
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Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
The Brad
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Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
Interesting comment. I spent about 9 months (over two summers) working in a factory that made stainless steel tubes. Of course, it was hourly work, and I was a "laborer."
When you realize that every hour results in a few extra $$ in your paycheck, it really changes your mindset.
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I've never worked hourly. I did do some pretty challenging stuff in the UK - a 3-month long site inspection of a Paraquat weedkiller plant spent hundreds of feet up going up and down a plant near the River Mersey, and I got to go offshore on a north sea oil-rig, which was very educational, although again not particularly pleasant.
The people I work with now doing this kind of work don't know they're born. The biggest danger in our office is a paper-cut.
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Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
It’s already true for most people in the contemporary USA anyway. Summer jobs in food services industry are hourly, baby sitting jobs are hourly. Most on-campus student jobs and paid internships are also hourly as far as I can see.
Not sure why that should be preferable for the “first job,” or why it’s preferable only for the “first job” but not subsequent jobs, though. :man-shrugging:
Manufacturing jobs (e.g., shoe making, garment factories) maybe “by pieces” rather than “by the hours.” Should that be less preferably for the “first jobs”?
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I had a few early jobs that were not hourly, caddie, paper boy and Fenway Park vendor were not hourly. Caddie pay was by 9 or 18 holes, paper boy and Fenway were commission.
Soda jerk, bookstore clerk and manual labor jobs were hourly.
I think hourly and the non-hourly were both fair methods, depending on the work.
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I had a few early jobs that were not hourly, caddie, paper boy and Fenway Park vendor were not hourly. Caddie pay was by 9 or 18 holes, paper boy and Fenway were commission.
Soda jerk, bookstore clerk and manual labor jobs were hourly.
I think hourly and the non-hourly were both fair methods, depending on the work.
@Copper said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
I had a few early jobs that were not hourly, caddie, paper boy and Fenway Park vendor were not hourly. Caddie pay was by 9 or 18 holes, paper boy and Fenway were commission.
That’s even better than hourly…You get back what you put in in both terms of work and talent.
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@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
It’s already true for most people in the contemporary USA anyway. Summer jobs in food services industry are hourly, baby sitting jobs are hourly. Most on-campus student jobs and paid internships are also hourly as far as I can see.
Not sure why that should be preferable for the “first job,” or why it’s preferable only for the “first job” but not subsequent jobs, though. :man-shrugging:
Manufacturing jobs (e.g., shoe making, garment factories) maybe “by pieces” rather than “by the hours.” Should that be less preferably for the “first jobs”?
@Axtremus said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
It’s already true for most people in the contemporary USA anyway. Summer jobs in food services industry are hourly, baby sitting jobs are hourly. Most on-campus student jobs and paid internships are also hourly as far as I can see.
Not sure why that should be preferable for the “first job,” or why it’s preferable only for the “first job” but not subsequent jobs, though. :man-shrugging:
Manufacturing jobs (e.g., shoe making, garment factories) maybe “by pieces” rather than “by the hours.” Should that be less preferably for the “first jobs”?
Don’t care for “by pieces”, it should be hourly with bonuses based on performance levels.
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@Axtremus said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Everybody’s first jobs should be hourly.
It’s already true for most people in the contemporary USA anyway. Summer jobs in food services industry are hourly, baby sitting jobs are hourly. Most on-campus student jobs and paid internships are also hourly as far as I can see.
Not sure why that should be preferable for the “first job,” or why it’s preferable only for the “first job” but not subsequent jobs, though. :man-shrugging:
Manufacturing jobs (e.g., shoe making, garment factories) maybe “by pieces” rather than “by the hours.” Should that be less preferably for the “first jobs”?
Don’t care for “by pieces”, it should be hourly with bonuses based on performance levels.
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Don’t care for “by pieces”, it should be hourly with bonuses based on performance levels.
Why?
Oh, just thought of another job payment metric ... "by word count."
@Aqua-Letifer, what do you think of payment by word count? -
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Don’t care for “by pieces”, it should be hourly with bonuses based on performance levels.
Why?
Oh, just thought of another job payment metric ... "by word count."
@Aqua-Letifer, what do you think of payment by word count?@Axtremus said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
@LuFins-Dad said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
Don’t care for “by pieces”, it should be hourly with bonuses based on performance levels.
Why?
Oh, just thought of another job payment metric ... "by word count."
@Aqua-Letifer, what do you think of payment by word count?It's ridiculous.
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I’m not surprised by your reactions to “pay by word count.”
I am myself not a fan of that practice.
Still, I brought it up because it’s still being practiced.
https://www.pressboardmedia.com/magazine/why-do-we-pay-writers-by-the-wordMany decades ago a family elder supplemented his income by writing for local newspapers, a lot of times translating poetry from one language to another and provide annotations/explanations. He was paid by word count back then.
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@Mik said in 9 to 5 is inconvenient! Who knew?:
That just generates words, not really content.
The art of brevity is underrated.
Indeed. Other considerations:
- It puts the writer at motivational odds against his employer.
They're going to want an article as short as possible, the writer's going to want to pad it. Never pick a cost structure that pits payer and payee against one another.
- It illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what a writer does.
Say there's a widget company who hires Writer A to write a blog post with the intention of describing to would-be customers how their lives would benefit from buying one of their widgets.
Writer A writes a 500-word article on how to use the company's widget as a doorstop. It's also not optimized for online use, inaccessible, and boring. The odd person who's never heard of a widget before might find this article helpful, but most site readers are going to bounce after visiting. It's going to tank.
Writer B writes a 500-word article on how to use the company's widget to cut their heating bill in half, make bespoke pizzas that are cheaper and better than any pizza oven and stop all robocalls from reaching the customer. It's also expertly optimized, customer-oriented and fun to read. Far more readers are going to read the whole article and share it. As a result, the company gets the customer reach it was hoping for.
What Writer B has done that Writer A and the employer haven't a clue about is (1) introduce useful novelty, which is what you want out of any creative professional because it's a money faucet and (2) understand the platform and the audience and write to both.
In what universe does it make sense to have both of them be paid the same?
You're an idiot if you hire a writer to write.
