How many hours a week do you work? 4

[CuriousElectron]

Hello,
I have been pondering about this topic lately, and figured I'd ask on the forum. Most of us here are professionals and often we go extra mile to meet the deadline or assure a quality product.
Please put your discipline, type of business and average hours worked a week.

Electrical engineer
Utility engineer
45 hrs/week

 

[GregLocock]

Vehicle dynamics
20.0 average
0-50 in practice
but 20.0 average.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[dik]

Typically about 30... occasionally, but not often 50. On two occasions I've pulled 3+ days of 24hrs ea... one for a GUP pricing for Cornwall Centre Phase II, about 30 years back, and the other, about 8 years back, for a coffer dam for the Red River Floodway.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[CWB1]

37.5 in the current govt/regulatory gig. When I was in the auto industry my hours varied a lot, some years I averaged 50-60 and others I barely did 40.

 

[LittleInch]

Pipeline system design
Generally 40 to 45.
Europe

In the field usually 10 to 12/ day but I'm getting s bit old for that sort of stuff now...


Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[phamENG]

Structural Engineer in solo practice in the US.
50-65 hours

 

[Guest090822]

Structural Engineer
40 hrs/week hardly ever exceed that due to corporate policy.

 

[jayrod12]

Structural engineer in Canada. My timesheet says 37.5. Actually varies but I would say the average over the year is 40 per week. Around two months ago I did an 65 hour week. But those are rare.

 

[dik]

I've always put in my 'real' time for timesheets... never capped it at 37.5.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[jayrod12]

Oh I don't adjust my timesheet, I put my actual hours. But the timesheet indicates my work week is supposed to be 37.5 hours a week.

 

[fel3]

Civil engineer. Most of my experience is public works/municipal infrastructure/correctional institutions. My current firm does a lot more industrial site and infrastructure work than public works. I purposely stopped managing projects about four years ago. A large portion of my current work load is task-level engineering, technical assistance to project design teams, QA/QC reviews, mentoring/training young engineers, and writing proposals.

As I head towards partial retirement, I am currently working 32 hr/wk and occasionally a few hours more. The previous seven years it was mostly 40 to 45 hr/wk and only breaking 50 hr/wk a handful of times. On the other hand, for most of my career I averaged more than 50 hr/wk.

I have mostly worked in small offices (3-12 engineers) and losing one engineer or getting a big project in the door (or both at the same time) was very disruptive to a normal work load. Also, it seemed that we were never able to properly staff up for big projects because for every new hire, someone would invariably leave. Was it something I said?

============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[dik]

There were times in the 70s, that I often worked 80 hour weeks... I still sleep about 5 hrs a night. If I have the work, I do it, but about 30 hrs a week now. If I don't have work, I write SMath programs for my other work. Just completed my 601st project in two years... mostly small, but good.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[jorton]

I was a consultant structural engineer in transportation for most of my career. I rarely worked less than 50 hours per week. Some years it was closer to 70 on average. Now I work for a contractor, and I only work more than 40 when there is something that needs immediate attention. And I have time for Eng-Tips again after a decade of being too busy.

 

[fel3]

dik & jorton...

I've been there as well. In fact, I have an entire man-year of 90-hour weeks under my belt: a 7-month stretch, a 4-month stretch, and 4 individual weeks.

The 7-month stretch was back in 1993. I was a principal in a small firm and doing a lot of water system design work. My year was supposed to mostly consist of five design and construction projects, starting with #1 and #2 for one city, then #3 for another city, then #4 and #5 for a third city, all nicely spread out into a reasonable work load. Unfortunately, the first city pushed back projects #1 and #2 because they were having difficulties obtaining some easements that these projects required and the third city pulled forward projects #4 and #5. Then two young PEs, a young EIT, and a cad drafter quit and we had to fire our construction inspector (insubordination and conflict of interest). So, I ended up doing almost all of the design work, some of the drafting work, all of the construction contract administration, and all of the field inspections for all five projects. The rest of the office was also busy (but not as busy as me) because of the staff shrinkage. But, I had the heaviest burden because some of the work involved things nobody else in the company had any experience with. I averaged 13 hr/day, 7 d/wk. The only day I took off during this entire period was Independence Day. Damn near killed me.

The 4-month stretch was back in 2000/2001. I was Assistant PM and Lead Civil Engineer for a 5000-bed state prison in central California. Normally, the Department of Corrections fixes the main elements of the design at the 50% design level and only modest changes are made after that. Unfortunately, on this project major changes kept coming up to the day we signed and stamped the final drawings for bidding. Buildings kept moving and changing sizes, I had to find room in a tight site plan for a yard for charging the electric vehicles that deliver food to the housing units...that sort of thing. The last day changes included moving hundreds of equipment pads for no apparent reason, but I told the client that would have to wait for an addendum. Now, you might think that changes of this magnitude would lead to a schedule extension. But you would be wrong. The state legislature had fixed the deadline and we were stuck with it. Fortunately, we were paid nicely for the extra work and for overtime for the non-exempt employees working on the project. Ten of us (six engineers and four drafters) were on this roller coaster together. The only days during this period that we took off were Christmas and New Years. To make matters worse, the Monday after the Friday submittal for final drawings, two of us engineers and one of the drafters had to get started on a federal prison project that had us working about 80 hr/wk for the next six months or so. Damn near killed me again.

The four individual weeks were less dramatic and, fortunately, were far less stressful.

============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[NorthCivil]

one man band here. average 30 hours per week. sometimes 50-60 hours per week, sometimes 10.

This week is a 10hour week. unfortunately i never enjoy the slow weeks. instead of working, i toss and turn with worry that no more work will come in the door.

 

[Enhineyero]

I do about 30-40hrs now, used to do 50hrs easy on my first 5 years. Also did the occasional 70hrs, but I rarely do that now.

@ dik - I'm surprised that working hours back in the 70s were around the same as today. How were the fees back then?

 

[dik]

For the coffer dam, I found out on Friday afternoon that they weren't going to file for funding because there wasn't enough time... I told the office manager that I would take a 'kick at the cat' (an expression I often use) and worked all Friday, all Saturday, all Sunday, and had it finished Monday morning... they were able to get the funds. It's only the second time in 50 years that I've done that. I'm too old for that now...

Only issue was that I was using my laptop for design, printing out the files and loading the printouts to the company server. I got tired of doing that, and loaded some 'improper aka Cptn Sparrow' software on the local desktop which was part of the server system. I got flack later in the week for using 'improper' software.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[dik]

Typical work hours (in Canada) in the 70s was a 40 hour week and overtime with most firms was banked time (to take off at a later date) or paid at 1x salary for overtime (most firms). Ran into a small issue with one firm. I had over 250 hours banked time, and they wanted me to take some time off... My starting salary back in 1969 was $680 a month, if memory serves.

Fees were a lot less, but the profession had more recognition. The advent of the computer (IMHO) had an effect of cutting fees, real salaries, doing more work, lessening professional visability, and increasing liability. This was done without a significant improvement in building design. If I had known what I know now, I would have gone into medicine... I enjoy engineering, but could have had as much fun in another sandbox. I would never advocate or advise for someone to go into the engineering profession.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[csk62]

20 hours of real work, 20 hours of engineer babysitting.

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Not making a decision is a decision in itself

 

[skeletron]

Structural engineer (Sole practitioner)
Residential/Low-Rise/Analysis&Design
Desk/Site hours = 50-60 hrs per week
Billable hours = 40-50%

I've been thrust into WFH since 2020 and because of that had to start a practice. I end up working most days, throughout the day, and a lot of the non-billable time is essentially keeping up with the regulations to get my practice to an acceptable level of standard and maintaining my competence because my (poor) business model is to take whatever gets thrown at me.