As a CEO, treasurer, chief cook, and bottlewasher, I'm expected to work when needed, period. If not, I'm out of business, because I don't get paid.
If I have a meeting at 7AM, guess where I'm at at 7AM. If I have a meeting at 10PM, guess where I'm at at 10PM. If I have a ton of work and little time because of deadlines, I can go from 7AM to 2AM and be up the next morning at 7AM to make sure I beat the 5PM deadline. It sucks then, but not when I collect my fees and gain a repeat customer for good work.
Weekends and weekdays are the same with me, which has advantages and disadvantages. I can sometimes take a quick vacation during the week and not have to fight the traffic and get work done during the weekend. Most of my meetings are on weekends because my customers and potential customers have the traditional job hours and can't take time off work. Flexible hours......
The bottom line is this. I do my job well, or someone else will do it. If I charge too much for the job or don't work fast or accurate enough for the price I charge, I'm out of business. Fired. Done. Game over, man.
Some folks need to man up...or if in you're in my line of work, don't man up. I'll take your business.
The hell they are.
If they want to work for a traditional, MONEY MAKING business...especially in my shop...they need to earn the privilege of telecommuting.
The exception is that I allow them to telecommute after working hours...you know, for those occasional 70hr weeks.
I like my work hours just the way they are, thank you - ZERO!
You won't.
(We didn't work for the Chinese or the Indians. You will. I'm sure they'll be very “flexible” with your time.
The last few corporations I worked for supported flexible schedules.
And why wouldn’t they?
The technology and the implicit expectation is that you will work 12 hour days.
It seems most of the people I work with are never separated from work but always “in touch” with what is or may be going on.
It’s by design. The government wants you enslaved one way or the other. Good little employees seldom protest the policies that are making those employees work twice as hard and long.
I’d LOVE to work 8 hours a day.. any 8 and make enough to feed my family and cover my low 600 a month living expenses...
But I work 10-16 most days to do that now.
It is 8 pm here, and I am headed to my second job..
That’s why you’re in the one percent! [snort!]
Good luck running any kind of production with workers who show up when they feel like it.
When I started my last factory job I worked 12 hours per day, 7 days a week for the first 4 months before seeing my first day off. Its also a big part of the reason I made foreman inside of a year and a half.
I am working in the Alaska Bush. It is a 4 weeks on, 2 weeks off. For the 4 weeks I am on I get paid and work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. For the 2 weeks I am off I dont get paid anything.
That is old school Gen-X work hours. Gold does not mine itself over the phone. Its rock delivered, crushed and concentrated that works.
The reality is that I work when I'm needed, regardless of where the sun is in relation to my location. When I'm not needed by customers, I either do my own thing, or "side work" for the company. Indeed, many times I do my work in my living room instead of going to the office, so I can get back to bed that much faster when I get called in the inky blackness of night.
Hurry-up-and-wait. That's my job, man.
The job takes whatever it takes.
My project manager recruited some good new staff in the 20 to 25 year old range. Those of us in the 50+ age range are "grooming" those hires to carry the project into the future. They are certainly willing and able. The project has never been a 9 to 5 "powder puff" assignment. We all knew what we signed up to do. The new staff comes in well polished in Java and needing to spin up on C/C++/Ada and FORTRAN to handle the old code base. X11/Motif as well. The new paradigm is web oriented, so we have a "fusion" between old and new as the project continues into the new world. The "old guys" grew up with the web. We already know that technology inside out. We invented most of it.
Yea, mainly by living in their mom's basement, getting up at noon and going to check in for their union paid protesting gig until mommy calls them home for dinner.
rolls eyes.
How about we ALL just don’t work, collect the $20/hr. that OWS says is fair, whether you work or not? Sounds like a plan (don’t know how it’s funded, but that’s a minor detail to them)..
I work 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at a local factory and am mighty glad to be employed. It’s not the most fun job ever BUT I am done with it when I clock out and home before the kids get off the bus.
When we had dairy cows, we only worked partial days ... we could pick whichever 12 or 16 or 18 hours we wanted to work.;-)
I work from 7a-5p, Mo-Th. The early morning hours are worth the 3 day weekends.
I telecommute, and I’m very thankful for the opportunity (I have MS and couldn’t make it into the workplace everyday.)
That being said, there are advantage for my employer. I’m available morning, noon, and night, if a problem arises...plus weekends. Not really a problem for me because I’m home most of the time. And there is flexibility, I can take breaks when needed, and make it to doctor appts. etc. So it works for me and for my employer.
I know I’m much more productive from home than I’d be in the office. No distractions, so I get more done in a shorter period of time.
Last time I was hospitalized I worked while recuperating, from the hospital. I think that qualified me as the most “loyal” employee...I didn’t really do it out of loyalty, but out of boredom during the hospital stay, :)
Well not all of us are CEO’s. I can work from anywhere as long as I have my laptop and blackberry. I’m currently working from home.
My job does not require me to sit in a specific building with a supervisor looking over my shoulder.
Many parts of my job can be done at any hour of the day.
Not all jobs can do that, but mine can and does and it works just fine.
I love this, because it’s dead on. My first job out of college (in 2001) allowed telecommuting twice weekly and was a very flexible workplace overall. My most recent job allowed absolutely no working from home, no flex time, no flexibility whatsoever. Guess what? I worked about twice the hours for the first job...in exchange for the freedom, I worked harder, while “on vacation,” etc. For the last job, once 5:00 hit, I was done, and I never once even checked my email while out of the office.
We’re self-employed, you do whatever needs to be done whenever it needs to be done or you go broke.