What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

I'm sitting on a conference call last night about who-knows-what, and I start staring at the clock as it's already past 8; however, everyone on the phone is still going off on random tangents left and right. I was pretty much obsessing over the fact that I just wanted to go home, while everyone else seemed to be working hard and very interested as to the meaningless dribble anyone had to say.

So that got me thinking that everyone obviously has a different work-life balance. Some people don't mind putting in working 12 hour days, while some people (like myself) really get burned out very easily. Perhaps it's because I don't love my job - I just don't hate it.

How big of a priority is a good work-life balance to you? Would it change a lot if you loved your job vs. having a job you just "tolerate"?

I'm the kind of person who really tresures my personal and social life. I'll work my 40-45 hours per week with zero complaints. But when it starts getting into 10-12+ hour days on average, that's when I have problems. Yet many of the people that work for my company seem to put these 10-12+ hour days in on a regular basis and it doesn't seem to bother them.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

my goal is to find/start a business where I want to work 20 hours a day, or at least if I do work 20 hours I dont notice it.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

Cappy,

Nothing pisses me off more than meetings like this where people are just wasting time.

I also firmly believe that there's no reason to work more than 8 hours a day, because people just aren't that efficient. There are days that I get more done in 2 hours than I'll do for 3 days. It's more of a culture thing in consulting, IB, law, etc.

I look forward to the day that I can work on my own clock.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

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Nothing pisses me off more than meetings like this where people are just wasting time.


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I think this is my biggest problem. I don't mind working really long hours if I feel work needs to get done, but sitting around in meetings discussing things that are way out of scope is just not my idea of a good use of time.

I'm not even complaining about my job either. I work on a contract to contact type thing, so I could be off for a little bit between contracts yet still get paid.

I think a lot of the problem is image as well. The people that stay for 12 hours a day get promoted faster. Other people see this and stay for 12 hours a day as well. Next thing you know, everyone is staying for 12 hours a day, and you feel bad for leaving after 8-10.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

For me, it depends on the type of work i'm currently doing.

Being a programmer, if i have to work on maintenance tasks, things that might take 2 hours for me stretch to 2 days - and yeah, I stay in the office about 8 hours a day (maybe less).

When there's a new impt project rolling around with lots of new stuff to do i'll do things in one 12 hour day that might take someone else 5-6 days to do.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

It's hard to say. A year ago I would have said 0% work 100% life, but after spending 5 months unemployed, I got bored as hell, had no structure, found it difficult to take care of simple errands because I was always just sitting around. I suppose I would prefer working half time, 4 hours a day 5 days a week, but it's hard to say what seems ideal until you've tried it.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

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People that stay for 12 hours a day get promoted faster. Other people see this and stay for 12 hours a day as well. Next thing you know, everyone is staying for 12 hours a day, and you feel bad for leaving after 8-10.

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Ya, this is exactly it. People in my office do this too - it used to be that people worked until 5:30, then it was 6, 6:30, now it's closer to 7pm. The truth is, everyone is just waiting around for the boss to leave and browsing the web those last few hours, but they do it to look good.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

I'm with OP. When I worked, I hated having to take a later train (even if only by 12 minutes) because of a BS meeting or whatever. On Fridays especially I really felt I needed to seize the weekend and would get mildly depressed if I didn't make the earliest train possible.

That was in a job I hated though, and was over an hour commute each way.

In the old days working retail close to home, I didn't mind staying late if I was getting paid for it. I would also usually come in to cover for somebody if they were out sick and called me in.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

I like 4 hours a day.

Re: What\'s your preferred work-life balance?
 

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I'm with OP. When I worked, I hated having to take a later train (even if only by 12 minutes) because of a BS meeting or whatever. On Fridays especially I really felt I needed to seize the weekend and would get mildly depressed if I didn't make the earliest train possible.

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You know what (perhaps surprisingly) worked for me? I started chiming in on these calls and saying "Sorry to interupt, guys, but do you still need me on this call? I don't have anything else to add and this is off topic for me." The stunned silence was fun, but also I got a rep as being someone you don't invite onto calls without a damn good reason. Win-win.

I guess the challenge is to come off as "Important guy too busy to have his time wasted" as opposed to "Jerk who thinks he's the only one with important things to say".