is it normal to work 60 hours a weekis it normal to work 60 hours a week

I agree with @IanSudbury and others that 60 h / week far less common than people think. Individually, there is not much you can do. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. In some cases, the culture has even gone as far to glorify working these long hours. fully qualified professionaly not being paid for the research work) towards PhD students being employed for their research. Summary. So how do we get everything done without feeling like were in a constant relay race? 2 days of 'and the lord changed my name' [i have a new name] - day 1 || nsppd || 22nd june 2023 (Besides some effective and efficient academic work practices not lending themselves well to such recording approaches) This . However, many employees work unusual shifts and go above and beyond this standard, putting in more than the average 40 hours. Despite this line, they meanwhile laid claim to literally anything that could be construed as our intellectual property. Of course, it's good being armed with precedent. Two studies from Germany that are relevant in this context although they are with Bachelor/Master students rather than PhD students are the ongoing Studierendensurveys and the ZeitLast study using online diaries (report, there were also a number of articles in the general of news, often with quite snarky headlines). And speaking of Scandinavia. Unfortunately, sometimes it is necessary to remind people of this - but if this is necessary you need to do this. Preface: In my experience, most companies just want you to work an eight hour day and a forty hour work and generally offer at least some flexibility as to how long of a lunch break you want to take and when you want your start and end times to be. Reddit, Inc. 2023. But with many misinformed professionals heralding long work weeks . But 60 hours is more than people realize it is, and few students I have known work 60 hours a week, week in, week out for years on end. Sadly the blog is gone, though you can find it in the web archives. I am assuming that by "work," you mean both work for your professor and/or department, and work on your thesis and courses. Exercise helps your body stay healthy while reducing the stress that threatens to harm your future health. They really didn't like that idea. The percentage of full-time workers in the U.S. has dwindled since the recession began in 2007, but the number of hours they say they work each week has held steady, at about 47. However, the traditional power of unions comes from their ability to strike. Unfortunately,American employees are not taking half of their vacation days, and two-thirds of Americans report working even when they are on vacation. This video from Dr. Brynn adds more color to the importance of taking breaks at work: For white collar workers in the United States, the most common schedule is some variation of 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday Friday (a 9-to-5). There are many university graduates in relatively poor countries who want to migrate to the West. How can one know the correct direction on a cloudy day? Are you sure you really need to work/are working 60 hours per week? Up to the Master thesis, the situation in Germany is very clear that there cannot be any money (work contract or otherwise) involved between the group where the student does their Master thesis and the student (a student can be employed there before and after their thesis, but not during), and also that intellectual property produced during the thesis is the student's (contracts to assign IP to the university are safest made only after the thesis is finished, incl. The employer pays higher rates for overtime hours as required in the law. You know, you graduate from a university, and you have done some research for your Master diploma and have some connections with some professors. If you do want to do something for yourself, then my advise is to accept that the rules will not change, but you can choose to play a different game. He has been a hiring and people manager on multiple occasions, and has also gone through the hiring process himself at a variety of different companies. We wanted to be viewed as employees for the additional protections and lower tax rate it enabled. Are other big tech companies like this? Well-executed distributed work makes for happier, more productive teams, New data on flexible work holds good news for great teams, Teamwork makes the dream work: an origin story, Impossible alone, possible together: Van Jones on the universal truths of teamwork, How Employee Resource Groups help build a culture of belonging, Shared understanding: finding the why behind the what, Adaptive leadership: a framework for the future, Organize the chaos: 5 steps to effective change management. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? My opinion is that we should analyze this situation as a "free market paradigm". Moderators will remove debates, arguments or opinions without notice. Did we just create the worlds first collaborative sonic brand? opting out of the 48 hour week is a good way to work more. Crossed wires and missed connections good communication among teams is tablestakes for effective teamwork. A study from the World Health Organization (WHO) found that working an average of 55 hours or more each week increases your risk of stroke by 35 percent and your risk of dying from heart disease by 17 percent, compared to averaging a 35-40 hour workweek. Note that people also work variations of 8-to-5 or 9-to-5 schedules with adjusted start times, leave times, and lunch breaks. For example, Ive found an 8:00-to-4:30 with a half hour lunch break in the middle to be a pretty popular schedule. 6.2 to 6.6 are based on international labour standards. I abhor the fact that this is a situation where someone trying to get a PhD has almost no way of making the situation any better and, on top of that, everybody seems to be accepting of it and going along. Less than 10% of workers are able to achieve that schedule. Can you explain that a bit? Recommendation: start a personal work time diary. Hardly ever has anyone of my colleagues commented on the situation they were in. For more info go to /r/Save3rdPartyApps/ One of them is offering you a PhD position, and all you have to do to secure a white-collar job for yourself for the next few years is to simply say yes to his offer. Looking at typical position offers might help, too. In Germany, this is DFG. Moreover, since I dealt with microorganism, I spent a considerable amount of my weekends in the lab and my overall time in the lab amounted more to like 60h+ of which only 30 h were actually paid. Unions for PhD students may help as a lobby group. But, in the US it is increasingly common to work 60+ hours/week . Of course, it would be immoral to ask an undergraduate to volunteer to do so; but you could hire one (or two, or however many). I remember a professor saying, "I'd rather spend my grant funds to hire an experienced postdoc than three PhD students." At the university where I did my Master's, the graduate students had a union, and were able to demand slightly better salaries, better health insurance, and other resources. Looking backward, I'd say now that I should probably have taken the industry position, shifted my thesis towards more theoretic topics so to not require lab access any more. Often, this does not exceed a 45 or 50-hour work week. WHY WORKING 45 HOURS A WEEK WILL MAKE YOU FAIL! As far as your second question, one thing the graduate students at our university did to address this was unionize. The better course of action is collective. I was trying to adress my concerns with ther workers council, but they didn't feel like anything was amiss. Particularly not if living in a village outside Cottbus or Gieen gets you the same quality of education for a fraction of the cost of living). I have to caveat that by stating that students don't have to pay tuition to attend university, so it's, broadly speaking, free. At the end of the day, it boils down to your supervisor: pick an established scientist with a family, and you'll likely work a regular work week. A look at what we're sharing with our investors and stakeholders each quarter. These above two instruments set out the principle of the 40-hour workweek. It is quite common in the US, too. A Western professor gets a highly motivated hard-working student graduated from, let's say, one of the top universities in China or India and pays him very little money from a grant, and the student gets an excellent opportunity to get a Western degree and build a career in the West. In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act does not set a legal number of hours that divides full-time/part-time work and it is left to the employer. Answer (1 of 7): Salary could mean 24/7. Listen, I understand itthis advice comes from a well-meaning . Still, there are those who do work hard and do work a lot in academia. "This is not your grandfather's submersible," Rush said. Crypto Working a 60-hour week entails working an extra 20 hours compared to the traditional 40-hour working week. When it comes to your work, try to work part-time, 3035 hours a week on average, he says. And giving up a negotiation that hasn't even started is IMHO not taking care of yourself. And I can confirm from some postdoc positions later on that the PIs are not at all used to subordinates bringing up the possibility of quitting. In the end, they may also decide to use (part of) the time they don't spend with the local friends they don't have for work - resulting in lots of work. I may say that even though those jobs added a non-negligible income, in the end the factors reducing the money spent did more to my savings. This does not work for PhD students, the work still needs to be done. The average hours worked per week in the U.S. was 38.7 hours as of 2021. As a PhD student, I was given a 30 h/week contract but expected to work loads more, since this was a totally unrealistic workweek if one wants to get one's own thesis done while doing all the lab work required to do so. It's a win-win situation, so why would scientists be motivated to change that? Yep. @user111388 : Sure, many professors teach because it's their passion or because they are required to teach. As a PhD student, I want to limit myself to 40 hrs/week. About 20 percent of responding physicians aged 60 to 69 work fewer than 40 hours per week. ago You guys are different. Stipends/scholarships (or extending Bafg) breaking this bad mix of being at the same time legally subordinate and by exam rules required to work independently may be an ingredient to the solution - but right now, I'm also not aware of any scholarships in Germany that pay out a fair amount compared to the PhD salaries, so could be PhD committees that are actually independent of the group where the PhD student works. IMHO it is very difficult to estimate working times unless one keeps a dedicated diary, works on the clock or uses some other method of time tracking. . I mean 60 hours a week is obviously not normal, but I wanted to run it by this forum. I suppose it was just one angle that was worked that was fruitful, YMMV. My current role is 50 hours a week but can hit 60-70 at Plan time or quarterly review time including weekends. "Things have been this way for very long. Ask the secretaries and lab assistants what salary they are paid, and how they are making their living. Is it normal for PhD students to do much "non research" work? Working from 8-to-5 is eight hours if you take a one hour lunch break in the middle. But most of my investigations were growth experiments. I've talked with my friends in other orgs (PXT, Retail, Ads) and many of them say similar things about their work hours. If you want to achieve the perfect blend of productivity, happiness, and time affluence, a more realistic goal is to work slightly below 40 hours per week. That's the math. If you're competing in academia, you will necessarily compete against these people, so there is a degree of pressure to be highly productive, at least. None of the work from the first university was lost. Widen your horizon to adjust your expectations. If I recall correctly, a set of policies we found to be in line with what we wanted have been adopted by University of Toronto. They often mandate the part-time positions (50%, 65%) for more popular and in-demand fields. 60 hours is why salary is offered. I started a tiny side-business as freelancer. It's the norm in the US. Not no one, but definitely not "typical" as the question asked. Unfortunately, the whole situation is quite susceptible to abuse of power. Currently it is illegal for companies to make employees work longer than 48 hours per week unless they opt out of the EU working time directive. I think the IP clause was brought up once, but it's basically a good way of gaining leverage in general. People in Denmark work hard and are just as productive as other workers, but rarely put in more than 37 hours a week, often leaving the office by 4 or 5 PM each day. In my experience (in the USA), the norm was closer to 80 than 60 hours, but here in Mexico it might be slightly less--maybe around 50-60 hours. What is purpose of backup-power-connectors on 826701-B21 (Riser Card)? The "old" PhD "system" in Germany had the PhD students not paid for their PhD thesis research - thus treating the PhD thesis more like a Master thesis. Is it even worth it to finish this PhD? my specialization). You aren't afraid to get fired quickly and be left without any money to pay your bills and rent an accommodation. There is a reason people in academia do get congratulations when they manage to get a technical job that allows them to work on a punch clock (but here the same factors that lead to high stress regardless of short study hours may play a role). Update crontab rules without overwriting or duplicating. How to professionally decline nightlife drinking with colleagues on international trip to Japan? In many Western countries, international students are a considerable part, if not a majority, of all PhD students. In reality, everybody but the high-level administrators with six-figure incomes gets screwed, and the students, being near the bottom of the hierarchy, bear the brunt of it. There are loads of ways to grow a company learn about our approach here. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. In addition, international students (which are the majority in many fields, especially in STEM) by visa requirements are not legally allowed to be employed over 20 hours/week or off campus, so there is no possibility to get a side job or tutoring or anything to make up for the very scarce salary that one gets with a teaching or research position at 20 hours/week. In a way, work, I'd probably also say that the highest achievers in any field or discipline are these types of mutants. In many cases they need that work for their thesis. Non-traditional schedules are gaining traction in places like Spain and Scandinavia. Reminding them that noone can force me to sign a follow up contract turned out to be decidedly helpful in making supervisors stop misbehaving. Supervisor gave my PhD project to another student, Possibility to use PhD Thesis work in another university. The system has inertia." In such a circumstance, a way to really turn the heat up is to then say, 'Okay, by that logic, you won't mind us claiming ownership over any intellectual property we produce in self-guided projects that aren't explicitly directed by our PI or a supervisor employed directly by the institution.' Yes, it's longer than the traditional workweek, but I really don't mind. CSCareerQuestions protests in solidarity with the developers who make third party reddit apps. Pick a field leader, you'll get better publications and potentially be present for some awesome breakthroughs, but you'll likely have less of a life outside of academia. That is why you may commonly hear the term working a 9-to-5.. The PhD and postdoc may be seen as the academic version of journeyman's years: it is rather common to also use PhD/postdoc positions to get experience in foreign countries and/or to get an entry into foreign countries. Our non-stop lifestyle has also resulted in additional work-related stress. What's the meaning (qualifications) of "machine" in GPL's "machine-readable source code"? So I just got an email from a perspective advisor saying that he expects me to put in 60 hours per week while doing my PhD, because that's how many hours he works. This is also relevant here, because high workload may result from the PI excercising their rights as employer in a way that prevents the student from getting along with their PhD thesis - resulting in a high workload when the student tries to catch up with the thesis work. Finally, a data-backed answer to an age-old question. For those people, an 80 hour week doesn't produce burnout because, for those people, they would just sit around thinking about their work if they tried to relax anyway - becoming stressed in the process. (2) When I did my phd, my friends who did work after their master's in the same field got higher payment. It's like CEOs, who tend to average about 65h a week - they're fanatically driven people who are consumed by their work. My personal experience suggests that your negotiating power may be much better than you think. a grant to allow them to live). I also got myself a plan B (freelancing) ready to be put into action whenever there may not be a follow-up contract. The old good spirit of science is getting lost, and nowadays it's about the number of publications and the h-factor, to a considerable degree. Oh, snap! Business, Economics, and Finance. Has 8 years experience. And I guess there is a third factor, albeit it's debatable. This is probably what the OP means, not how much secretaries are paid (plus at least in my uni, they are paid better then phd students since they have a full position). Dan writes to share content, tools, and resources to help people discover and thrive in their own best fit work. And, in case of PhD students, the price might not even be that high. "As a PhD student, I was given a 30 h/week contract but expected to work loads more" - You are not paid for writing a thesis, which few people will read, and to gain a title. If you become a PI, remember how horrible it was working ~80 hour weeks for peanuts and try to break the cycle instead of perpetuating the same norms! Research tells us thatproductivity falls sharply after 50 hours per week, and drops off a cliff after 55 hours. At any rate, my point is that the abundance of hard-working Asian students (from China, India, etc.) I wonder about your "tricky financial situation". Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. When it comes to determining how many hours over the standard work week, if any, a salaried person should have to work, the amount of time required to satisfactorily complete the job should be a primary determining factor. As chemist I went for highly paid student jobs rather than the McDonalds/waiter jobs: programming, after I finished my Diplom also working as chemometrician (chemistry version of data analyst, i.e. This sub will be private for at least a week from June 12th. Is it normal to be working about 60 hours per week regularly I work in Rainforest (specifically AWS) and i work on avg 10 hrs a day mon-fri and often a couple of hrs over the weekend. Let me add: (1) "not paid for writing a thesis" -- this is not neccearlily clear (especially for phd researcher positions it is expected that the person does a phd and writes a thesis". So a supervisor that demands this is not only exploiting the student, but also mostly likely not getting good science out of it either. Is it true that PhD students need to work 10-12 hours a day every day to be productive? In the end, I obtained my PhD (with that work plus some more) at another university many years later (always being paid full time for doing research). OTOH, I've encountered lots of colleagues complaining about the working conditions and not even considering it remotely possible for them to attain any level of independence to actually negotiate rather than gratefully accept whatever follow-up contract they are offered. ago ellewoods_89 4 mo. Letting new approaches come to you because you are not trying too hard to push at the old approaches. How growth levers help your business go the distance, Yes, its possible to be too good at your job, The upskilling imperative: nows the time to future-proof your workforce, Dont underestimate the outsized impact of short-term goals. I was referring more to letting a problem sit - turning it over sub-consciously. I was wondering whether this was just a local phenomenon or it's the generally accepted status-quo around the globe. Apart from my PhD peers and I being in the office long evenings and weekends, some faculty (especially early career) also spent their weekends and evenings working. What is Parkinsons Law and why is it sabotaging your productivity? So watch this space. The critique here was obviously that fully qualified professionals would do research work for free. 60 x P 60 < 40 x P 40, where P 60 is the average productivity of employees working 60 hour weeks, and P 40 is the average productivity of employees working 40 hour weeks. Most physicians work between 40 and 60 hours per week, but nearly one-quarter of physicians work between 61 and 80 hours per week, according to the 2014 Work/Life Profiles of Today's Physician released last year by AMA Insurance. It might be a legitimate question during the employment talks: "What workload do you expect from me?". . Also relevant: the ZeitLast report does point out that being higly stressed by workload can happen with short study hours. Get best practices and sound advice on how to create understanding and work together better. The workload varies strongly by field, I would also argue that the personality of the supervisor plays a role. The system has inertia. Hardly ever has anyone of my colleagues commented on the situation they were in. Job stress isn't just annoying; it can cause many health problems, too. Answer: Because it's their passion/their job! It's a kind of bottleneck, and this is pretty unhealthy for science and results in a fierce competition and the publish-or-perish attitude. That said, the biggest thing that employers expect is that you are generally working about an eight hour day and about forty hours per week. I did notice, though that it was a new experience for my supervisor when I told them after the probationary period of my TA contract ended that I was very much aware of the fact that this means I cannot just cancel the contract anymore. Moreover, since I dealt with microorganism, I spent a considerable amount of my weekends in the lab and my overall time in the lab amounted more to like 60h+ of which only 30 h were actually paid. You cannot work more than 48 hours a week on average - normally averaged over 17 weeks. The big things is working eight hours per day, forty hours total per week, and doing it on a schedule that is more or less in line with typically expected working hours (generally, 8:00am 5:00pm-ish). I guess the distinction is that a PhD will at least likely consume 60-80h of your attention a week, whether or not you want to consider all of that time as "work". See: Why do the moderators move comments to chat and how should I behave afterwards? Some PhD students become real pain for their mentors, and you never know in advance whether a particular student will be a problem or not. Maybe chatting about it over beer. I've met my share of abuse of power, e.g. Keep on top of your work from home life with these tips and ideas from our team to yours. OTOH, such students do not have as many ties and friends in the new place. I am in psychology, and most of us do a decent job of keeping to around 40 hours a week. Sure, you can ask around in your future department, try to contact current PhD students of your supervisor-to-be, or at least get a statement from someone in the same field and the same country. Contributing Writer. Generally what happens is quantity increases and quality . All rights reserved. It only takes a minute to sign up. My undergraduate research advisor pressures me to work more hours than I want to, but I don't want to risk ruining the relationship. Demotivate prospective PhD students by low pay and long working hours in order to ensure that only those who truly love science enter the game. Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. A truly independent external committees judging whether the ongoing PhD work is on track may be another ingredient. Does your team have a toxic workplace culture? (Already mentioned above: candidates who treat the PhD as exam and decide to put their very best effort.). Updated 23 January 2023 Finding a work-life balance is essential when you have a job that involves working long hours, more than the standard eight-hour working day. The experience of working long hours, for little pay and little power is, unfortunately, an almost universal experience for science PhD students around the world. BTW: I left the university where I did most of my PhD work without handing in my thesis when I got an offer for a full position somewhere else. You don't need to acquire new skills to get that job, and you don't need to send out your CV to hundreds of companies. (And I still hold that living downtown Munich is not a human right. is wrong; PhD students that have unionized have gotten better working conditions. - LTC: Directors, Assistant Specialties LTC Directors Salary - is it normal to work 60 plus hours a week? So a supervisor that demands this is not only exploiting the student, but also mostly likely not getting good science out of it either. The situation is difficult because even if you have a good supervisor, there is still a minimum amount that is needed to pass a PhD (which is outside the supervisors control), often a maximum time limit to complete it (also outside the control of the supervisor), and more often than not, a the stipend/salary paid to the student is also outside the control fo the supervisor.