Working Late

[Chromatic]

On overseas trips I end up working all hours

On a recent trip I went on I left work in the afternoon to drive to Luton airport, flew to Italy in the evening, had about a 2 1/2 hour drive to the hotel and got to the hotel and in to bed at half past midnight. All next day was spent doing what I went for, then there was the drive back to the airport where it was discovered the flight home was delayed for about 3 hours (this was the day of the thunder storms around London), finally left Italy at 10 to 1 in the morning, got to Luton about 10 to 2 our time, took an hour to get through passport control and get the bus to my car, then had a drive home, finally got to bed at 5:15, just enough time for about an hours kip before getting up to get to work in the morning to see to a client, who had cancelled but I never knew he had.

I didn't get paid extra for any of that.

 

[Dan B]

.... before getting up to get to work in the morning to see to a client, who had cancelled but I never knew he had.

- And when we got home our Dad would beat us to death with broken bottles and then dance up and down on our graves
- Aye, but we were 'appy then

 

[Chromatic]

It does read a bit like that doesn't it?

At the risk of perpetuating it, the trip before the one described was almost identical in timings, again it was to Italy but a different part and from Stansted, only this time I got home at about half past three in the morning instead of 5:15. Aaaah luxury.

 

[Globalti]

Back in March I was in South Africa and one day my agent picked me up from the hotel at 5:30 to beat the traffic. We drove for miles, saw five customers and I didn't eat breakfast until 4:30 that afternoon! It was worth the wait though; a ham omelette with fresh coffee and wholemeal toast with marmalade!

 

[dan_bo]

I'm often on the M6 at 8 in the evening/ 5in the morning, but like Fab Foodstuff noone bats an eyelid if I Fjork off at 2 on a friday afternoon or whatever. It has its perks.

 

[gbb]

On a recent trip I went on I left work in the afternoon to drive to Luton airport, flew to Italy in the evening, had about a 2 1/2 hour drive to the hotel and got to the hotel and in to bed at half past midnight. All next day was spent doing what I went for, then there was the drive back to the airport where it was discovered the flight home was delayed for about 3 hours (this was the day of the thunder storms around London), finally left Italy at 10 to 1 in the morning, got to Luton about 10 to 2 our time, took an hour to get through passport control and get the bus to my car, then had a drive home, finally got to bed at 5:15, just enough time for about an hours kip before getting up to get to work in the morning to see to a client, who had cancelled but I never knew he had.

I didn't get paid extra for any of that.

Trying to remember the sequence on my trip to Uruguay...
24 hours from leaving the house to getting to the hotel in Montevideo.
2 hours flight (roughly) to get to Madrid, 12 hours flight (roughly) to get to Montevideo...the remaining 10 hours spent travelling in an assortment of cars/taxis and waiting in airport lounges.
Jeez, i slept well at the hotel.. ....then a 3 hour drive up country to our destination.

 

[Fnaar]

I spent two years working every evening 6-12 on top of my 9-5 day job, plus all day Saturday and Sunday. Two years, and I wrote two books during that time. One does quite well. So it was kind of worth it, but it half killed me, I ballooned in weight, and I would never ever do it again.

Thank the lordy I wasn't into cycling forums then, or it'd have been three years. As it was, I reckon I wasted a fair bit of that time, as because i was so tired, I wasn't working efficiently. But had to keep working, as i was contracted to produce the goods.

 

[Fiona N]

I'm another basically self-employed (own company). I work on 'project contracts' and get paid once they're finished. So generally there's a deadline for the project - usually producing the draft report for review and possibly a second deadline for the final version so i work what it takes. Sometimes I leave the work until close to the deadline and work 12 hour days to get it finished - this is stupid as the weather is always beautiful and I don't have time to ride, but other times I spread the work out over a few weeks of short days and ride my bike every afternoon

 

[Adasta]

I'm often on the M6 at 8 in the evening/ 5in the morning, but like Fab Foodstuff noone bats an eyelid if I Fjork off at 2 on a friday afternoon or whatever. It has its perks.

What do you do?

 

[the_mikey]

I occasionally work late, I will do this monday, but hopefully just the one day. On a normal day I'll start at 8am, I'm past my best at 2pm, at 4pm I'm pretty grumpy, if work continues past that I'm pretty ineffective, make lots of mistakes and also suffer headaches. If this sort of reigime continues for a few days I usually get quite ill.

 

[E11a]

When I'm in the office I always make sure I leave in time to get a certain train home, even if it means excusing myself part of the way through a meeting. I get in early, sometimes don't take a lunch break and more than make up the time and have worked weekends before now.

When I'm working from home, I start early, don't take a break, and will take calls in the evenings if needed. There are other advantages like posting on certain websites when I'm waiting for other people to come back to me

Overall, the company definitely benefits at the moment but this might change if they introduce overtime or call out payments, in which case I won't be working the extra hours for nothing.