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How many hours do you work per week? 31

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curiousmechanical

curiousmechanical

Mechanical
Dec 14, 2006
54
0
0
US
Hello All,

I recently spoke with an old college friend and he said that he was working 60 to 70 hours per week. I feel this is way above average, but not unheard of. Anyway, this got me thinking...

I see a lot of salary surveys in trade magazines (Machine Design, Design News, etc.), but they rarely talk about hours worked. In fact, the only time I remember seeing any stats was in a Design News article back in 2008 (see attached). They reported the following:

Average = 49 hours
Median = 46 hours

I think this is important information to have. We need to know what the market trends are in order to know what is expected of us, stay competitive, and make sure we are not taken advantage of.

Would you guys like to trade stats? At the end, I'll work up our numbers.

I'll start us off. I think it would be useful to mention dicipline, region, and company size.

Mechanical Engineer
New Jersey, USA
Average = 45 hrs/week and 3 or 4 Saturdays a year
 
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Structural Engineer
Philadelphia, PA
Average = 55 hrs/week and 2 weekends/month (I expect this to continue for the foreseeable future. ZERO paid overtime.
 
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Varies because of business travel, and for business travel more hours are, in general, involved because you are captive. Plant visits tend to go after hours, business meals, working in hotel room, etc.

In the office - 45 hrs/week

During business travel - 55 hrs/week (based on hours worked when away)
 
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I do about 50-60 hours a week. I've had a couple of 3-week periods already this year wherein I worked 16-hr days for the entire stretch, no weekends off, at a remote site with no phone access. The guys back in the office groused that I wasn't getting my regular office work done. Not much fun. The major difference between that and county jail would be that you have the option of quitting and going home. My current parole ends in about a month, then it's back to the site. (no extra pay or comp time for it, but I guess I'm stuck unless I find something better)



 
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Engineering Tech III, Energies Group. Never less than 46, 60 is more common, and the month of March was 7 12's all month. At least I am hourly now. At the current rate, I will be very close to doubling my base pay at years end. The hours I work aren't so much the issue as it is to cover off shifts because those more senior to me have 50 weeks of holiday / yr. You do that for a while and it messes with your meal schedule. IE) you wake up in the morning and you want a cheesburger for breakie.

Cheers,

Scott

I really am a good egg, I'm just a little scrambled!
 
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When I worked for salary, I came in at 5:00 am to take calls from the UK and points east. I usually stayed till 6:00 pm to get my job done without the traffic of wankers wanting "just a second of my time". So 65 or so hours/week. Plus a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday in my home office checking e-mail that I couldn't get to during the week.

Since I "retired" and started a consulting business I have averaged 280 billable hours/month, call it 70 hours a week. Had a slow time last year where that was down to 120 hours a month and I went flipping stir crazy. Finally started developing course material to keep off the video games.

David
 
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i've a lot a flexibility and my work time can vary. since i'm not compensated for time > 40-hrs/wk, i take time off when conditions allow (i.e. not leave immediate matters go unresolved or otherwise) when i do work > 40-hrs/wk. worked time > 40-hrs/wk are rare. other than that, right at 40-hrs/wk. today was a long day (10-hrs); spent driving mostly (5-hrs). tomorrow afternoon is looking very flexible.

-pmover
 
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To quote the movie Office Space, "I wouldn't call it work Bob."

I'm here 50hrs, salaried at 40hrs.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?
 
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Military and Special Vehicle Suspension Engineer
60-65hrs / week
Usually on the phone most Saturdays
Sundays are just spent e-mail with overseas contacts
No overtime, straight salary.

Cabbages, knickers, It hasn't got A BEAK!
 
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Machine Design
39 hours (with flexi time so varies somewhat)
UK - part of a very large company

Will
Sheffield UK
Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws
 
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Utilities company in Ontario.

40 Hours a week. Not a minute more. Sometimes I feel the project I've been assigned to is not big enough to have one person assigned to it completely, and yet I'm one of three people at my company on it, plus we have consultants we pay to do the work junior engineers could do. The manpower and consultant hours are not my decision though. Hard to imagine why it's not as profitable as expected.

I spent a few months 3-4 years ago at another company working 80+ a week in the office. Got an entire $100 bonus at the end of the year for it. It will take a lot to convince me to work those hours again.

I do like commissioning work, so I will work extra to get that work done whenever it comes up.
 
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Southwest US.
Mechanical Engineering
45 hours per week average in office, salaried.
Usually spend an extra few hours a week at night or over the weekend trying to keep everything organized so my direct reports are more productive during office hours and don't have to put in unpaid O/T.

--Scott
 
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Officially I report 40 hours per week (you have to feed the beancounters since the cost of software development can be capitalized as the source code does have value as a corporate asset) however since about 80% of what I do can be done from my laptop, as long as I have a good network connection, the number of hours I actually work is much higher and never officially reported.

For example, I take my laptop home every night and since we are a multinational company with operations and customers aross the globe the idea of an 8-hour, 9-to-5 job, has gone totally out the window. Like today; I generally work at home on Fridays (as I am today) and have been logged on since 6:30am local time and probably will do a final check of my mail around 11:00pm tonight. Also, when I'm on vacation I take my laptop and even if it's only 3 or 4 times a week, I'll still check my mail and maybe even work on some project if I have some down-time that I can't justify doing something else with. I know that sounds terrible, but when you're part of global a team, being able to respond to others in almost real-time and have them respond to you, whether it's one your fellow employees or a partner or even a customer, it helps keep things running smoother over all.

Now there are advantages to this situation as well. For example, two weeks ago today my wife had foot surgery and she will be in a cast for 6-8 weeks, however that first week she had to keep her foot up and basically couldn't do much for herself. My company allowed me to 'work-at-home' all of last week as well as each of the days when she has to go to the doctor as she can't drive with the cast. This allows us flexibility without having to worry about using sickdays, family leave days or vacation days. And while it is true that I'm not spening an unbroken 8-hours working at my laptop on those 'work-at-home' days, they are still getting way more than their money's worth (and look at the gas money I'm saving not having to make my 42 mile round-trip commute on those days). In fact, I suspect that on any given day 10%-15% of the people in our group (of some 700+ people) are working from home and close to 5%, for all intents and purposes, works from home 100% of the time (one of the pluses with software development).

Anyway, the bottom line, for many of us the concept of an 8-hour day, 40-hour week, went out the window once laptops got to be powerful enough and highspeed network connections become ubiquitous and our individual jobs became almost totally computer intensive.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 
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Senior eng and project manager, small-ish company, Ontario. 40-45 hours/week when we're "normal", 50-55 hours/week max when we're very busy.

As PM, my job is to plan and schedule so everybody works 40 hours, not 50 or 30.

I have 8-10 hrs/week of commuting, which obviously I'm not paid for beyond my salary. I work 4 days in the office and one from home. Having that work-from-home day has increased my productivity and effectiveness a lot, not to mention improving my sanity.

I don't do more work when I get home from the office. It will still be there tomorrow.

To deal with a problem that I've created, I've put in 70-80 hrs/week for short bursts. I've even slept in the office to spare the drive during a real crunch. I don't create those sorts of problems often!

But aside from business travel, I've never worked a single weekend day. If anyone asks me why, I say it's for "religious reasons"- shuts 'em up quickly.

Salary is based on 40, but the bonus more than covers my OT. Better than that, it pays me to be smart and productive during my base 40. Feedback is a powerful thing!
 
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