The length of my working week

[mtbc]

Here at the University of Dundee the hourly workers, those up to grade 6, typically work 36¼ hours per week. Up at grade 8 my contract is vaguer: as a salaried employee I am expected to put enough time in to get my work done. Still, I was surprised to realize that I am probably averaging over 43 hours per week which is perhaps more than I ought and could help to explain why I have difficulty also getting as much done outside work as I used to.

For much of my working life I was on Federal cost-plus contracts from the Department of Defense that most easily expect an average of 40-hour weeks which worked fine for me. At my previous job the arrangement was instead a minimum of 40-hour weeks that, given the occasional need to work rather more and their reluctance to count times when their computers stopped working or whatever as work time, felt mean enough to me that I considered it a victory to have averaged under 41 hours over the course of my employment there.

I am not sure what is appropriate in my present position but my sense is that I still ought not average much over 40 hours. I get into work at 8h to snag a parking space and so that my workday better corresponds to when my children are also out of the house; I routinely fast so I need not take lunch; I also do not want to leave my desk before 16h because many of my colleagues arrive after 9h, take lunch and work correspondingly later. I figure that I should thus feel okay about doing some personal things over my workday such as making journal entries here and I should also try harder to not stay well after 16h.

Comments

[emperor]

FWIW, Sanger tells you to do 37 hours a week (and the culture is pretty much that's what one does).

[mtbc]

Thank you, that is a useful data point. Having worked mostly in the US until our move to Scotland may have left me rather miscalibrated, though half the management above me now is also American.