Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

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I think it depends on your job.

Doctors, lawyers, quant analysts dont frequent 2p2.

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maybe they log onto 2+2 during surgery, they might love poker

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

A lot of slack happens in most non-manual labor jobs. The brain just doesn't tend to function at a high level for long periods of time, so you slack.

The manual labor equivalent, I suppose, might be sprinting in a marathon length job. Anyone seeing you mosey down the road might think you're slacking, but the reality is you can't sprint all day long, only in short bursts.

Not a good analogy, but best I can think of. However, even taking into account "necessary slack", most of us probably slack way too much [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

My current job is working 2.30pm to 10pm in the word processing department of a law firm. So, I type up handwritten revisions the lawyers have made to documents, as well as transcribing tapes, and scanning in outside documents and converting them in to house style. I work alongside between one to three other people, all middle-aged women.

I would say I work 40% of the time. From 2.30 to 5.30 there is never any work to do, so that's sweet. From then on it can get busy, and I don't want to seem like I'm the only one slacking off, but we have the radio on and I make myself as many cups of tea as I like. And I do a lot of surfing too - 2+2, or writing posts to my blog, or Facebook (though not so much since I have no friends ofc!!), or just news sites or whatever. At 7.30pm I go for a half hour break to eat a free hot meal in the canteen (a perk of working evenings).

The good thing about this job is I don't feel like I'm accountable to anyone. The lady who's my boss is a sweetie and finishes at 5pm anyway. And since it's shift work, I needn't feel intimidated by the piles of documents being brought round through the evening by the postroom boys, since it can always be done by the night shift people after I've gone home. And, if there's no work coming in, it's perfectly acceptable for me to sit doing nothing - you don't go looking for work.

So, yes, there are some office jobs where you really don't have to do much. Depends whether you want any kind of job satisfaction or sense of being on a meaningful career path - if not, and you have plenty of things to do to fill the time you're spending not working, then I say go for it!!!!

By contrast the lawyers I work for I'd say spend 90% of their time working, as opposed to the 40% or less we do, plus they do many hours of unpaid overtime. The junior ones get paid just twice as much as we do. Is it worth it? No [censored] way. Not for the first few years, anyway. But one day they'll be rich, I guess, and we won't.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

In the past, there were times when I'd have estimated 10-20%.

Currently it's probably about 80%.

I actually like it better now.

Sad.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

this reminds me of the time i worked at sears for the summer, and was in training for like 3 months and never actually went on commission. I could've sold treadmills, grills, lawn tractors, etc. I probably sold 10 patio sets, and then it was just someone coming up and telling me they wanted to buy a patio set. sold absolutely nothing else. the only legitimate sale i was trying to make, the guy asked if he could put the flavor briquet things down in the metal part of a grill and i said sure, then another salesman walked up and said no you can't, and i walked away.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

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I work for the government and I spend maybe 30 minutes a day doing real work and the rest of my time on the interweb

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Post this over in 'Politics' with a few details about you and your coworkers.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

Well I'm a high school teacher, and my official workday is from 7.55 - 2.55:

7.55 - 8.55 period 1
9.00 - 10.00 period 2
10.00 - 11.25 break
11.25 - 12.25 period 4
12.25 - 12.55 lunch
1.00 - 1.55 period 5
2.00 - 2.55 period 6

And I'm done for the day. Obviously on days grades are due or if I give a test, I spend a few minutes after school grading, but that usually amounts to about an hour or so per week.

No teacher in their right mind would be up teaching for all 55 minutes (I typically teach 25-35 minutes, depending on the material). The rest of the time is spent with either classwork or quiz or whatever. But then again, it's not like I can just disappear and surf the web the rest of the time. I still have to make sure the kids aren't getting out of hand or anything. So I dunno, I guess I'll just say I work about 50% of the time.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

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No teacher in their right mind would be up teaching for all 55 minutes

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Say what??? Why wouldn't the teacher teach most of the time and then assign homework.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

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No teacher in their right mind would be up teaching for all 55 minutes

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Say what??? Why wouldn't the teacher teach most of the time and then assign homework.

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Maybe in an AP course, but for a regular class that would never work. In credentialing courses, you're typically taught to not do the same thing for more than 15-20 minutes or so, otherwise the kids will start to get squirrelly. In fact, during a class session one time when a principal was in observing, after the class got out we talked a bit and his only real complaint was: 'you were up there teaching for about 30 minutes. Is it possible to split that up into 15 minute chunks and have something else to do in between?'

Sigh, kids these days.

Re: Percentage of time spent actually working.
 

I am an in-house lawyer and I would say 90 to 100%, or even 110% if you count that my average day includes "unpaid" overtime.