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Sarah Bouchier offered:
>
> >My co-worker tells me that a 30-35 hour work week is the norm in other
> >parts of the world (outside of US, and even in some US sectors). Is
> >anyone looking at a work week shorter than 40 hours?
>
> My hours of 9-5.30 with an hour's lunch break comes to 37.5 hours a
> week. Sometimes I do more, sometimes 37.5 is more than ample, as work
> comes in fits and starts.
Our nominal business hours are 8:30 to 17:00, which is also 37.5 hours, and
as you say, sometimes it's not nearly enough, and other times it's more than
ample.
The company insists on core hours (for everybody except a couple of
tech-support guys who have worldwide response requirements) 10:00 to 15:30,
and we're otherwise able to work the rest of our day on either side. There's
even latitude within the "core" hours for people taking extended lunch hours
for gym or other recurring reasons, as long as accommodation is made for
meetings and such... and as long as the employee generally works that 7.5
hours... give or take. :-) No problem with personal time, and it's largely
self-policing. The company cares that we get our work done, and stand ready
to put in occasional extra effort when needed. Working on that basis, our
little division has become one of two mainstays of the company.
As a TW, I work hours that keep me near the necessary SMEs and managers for
my projects, and then I add a few as release time looms and the docs become
the bottleneck. So far, it works out quite well. It's a little uneven,
which probably shows in my pattern of posting to this list. <ahem!>
Since we recently became a private company, I now have some hope that the
new and refreshing long-term perspective (i.e., looking further than the
next quarterly results, that kept us myopic and hamstrung while we were
publicly traded) and the ability to step back and plan... will filter down
as far as my station. :-)
Kevin (in Canada, eh? but a US-owned company)
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