How much OT is too much?

72 hrs/ wk here... I'm berkeleying tired

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Life's too short to do that for a prolonged period, unless you truly love what you do.

14-16 hours a day, seven days a week for about a month was almost too much. Oh wait, overtime? You don't get that in the Navy. LOL The going joke was the more you worked, the less you got paid (per hour). This was during refuel/refit in Portsmouth Shipyard for those of you interested in what the job was. Don't know how much radiation I received due to the fact my SIPD was maxed out in a short amount of time - I found an unregistered hot spot to sit in while waiting for reactor fluid level to register. After checking my dosimeter and seeing that I very quickly requested relief and the viewing spot was changed. LOL

But yes, I agree too much OT can be a very difficult thing to deal with. I always told myself two things (depending on which was applicable at the time) 1. you can't stop the clock and 2. the paycheck will be worth it. Good luck, try to keep your head on straight!

I get about 15 hours of OT per month, paid out at double time. So, an extra 30 straight hours on my paycheque. Considering this includes the time I spend traveling AND is only during weekdays, it ain't so bad.

People who work OT on salary get screwed though, unless you have only 2 weeks of paid vacation, then banking OT is ok.

Typically in those positions though, work wants you to take the banked time off in large chunks. F that noise, what am I going to do for 2 weeks straight?

Edit- I guess basically what I am saying is that with the way my current position works, I'd take as much OT as I could get. With a salary position/one with banked time, I'd take as little as possible.

Eh, it varies depending on how much I want to get done and how tired I am. I try to stick to a 5/12 week though....unless I have to coach soccer, or go to b-ball/football/baseball practices or games.

edit:

72 hrs/ wk including OT, they wanted more but I refused. I've heard ppl pulling 80+ hrs on here... howtheberkeleyyadoit?

I lose my sense of humor and screw up when I'm tired

Thats what depressed me the most about getting older. Not only will I no longer have vacations, well I dont anymore as it is, but Ill be more or less obligated to work ~50 hr/wk. Allegedly thats what engineering jobs are like. Academia looks so attractive sometimes...

I work 12 hr shifts and used to work 1 day OT on my long week, and 2 days on my short week. That's 48 hours followed by 72 hours hours in every 2 week pay period. I did that for 2 years straight and it really helped to get ahead. Now I only work 4 hours per pay period.

i learned a couple of years ago that you have to factor in your commuting time into your hours.. i never used to have a problem working a 60 hour week, then i got a job 65 miles from home and the 60 hours i was actually working and getting paid for each week was actually over 80 hours away from home, and my paychecks really weren't much bigger than when i was working 45 hours a week 30 miles from home- especially after the cost of gas was figured in.

now my theory is that if i can't get by on 40 hours, then it's time to find a better paying job. life's too short to be working all the time.

There was a while there where I would have six or seven hours of overtime on each paycheck. I thought that was bad. Apparently I was mistaken.

I've been averaging about 8/ week this year. Combined with the fact my weekends are rarely very relaxing, I am quite burnt out right now. I do believe it may have to with getting older. I seem to remember working 50+/hr weeks and then racing on the weekends and it not bothering me.

I only get paid straight ot, but even at that, the extra money has been nice.

I was on a job that required a manditory-minimum 70 hrs./week. After 10 months I left. I work to live, I don't live to work. Now, I'm of the mindset that if I'm regularly doing more than 45 hours a week something needs to be adjusted. I'm either a slacker or your expectations are too high. I'm salary so generally, I won't give them more than 10 hours a month OT. I'm very good at what I do and my family loves me. If you want me for more hours than that, I expect compensation.

I've been working 55-60hr weeks for the last 3 years without any real vacations. My weekends haven't really been considered "days off" with the rest of the crap i've been doing for a good year and a half. (Worked on MX6 wiring things yesterday due to more bullE36 M3 i found from previous owner. Didn't get real far, but still took all friggin' day. Will probably do more today.)

Yeah. I'm tired.

In my 20's I worked for the local Coca-Cola Distribution operation for 9 years. Seven of those years were as management (salary.)
We used to call it "working half days."
From 6a - 6p was a typical work day but the other half of the day you could do whatever you wanted. Add to that another 4 hrs of "catching up" on Saturday and I did years of 60+ hour weeks.
In the later years as a District Manager, every 7th week I had to pull the full weekend responsibility which would then result in 12 straight days before a day off.
It sucked, I wised up and got out.

I found that more thanm 12/week is not profitable. They take it all in taxes, and you're not a whole lot of productive after 10 hours a day.

I took close to a 20k paycut last July so that I could get into a job where 75-80 hour work weeks were not expected. That job was production pay but did have overtime. However if I turned in more than 45 hr they would take a percentiage off the front end. Basically 40-45 hours were 5% if I turned in45-50 or more hours they would still pay me overtime but would bump my percentage down to 3.75 or 4% or whatever they really felt like. Never was a set standard. I got tired of fighting with them over it so I just started turning in 50 hours.

Now I'm on salary, so doing the budget is so much easier. I never work weekends, which the family loves. But I don't make as much money. I would make that deal everytime. I can't believe I wasted three years of my life like that.

I worked 102 a couple of weeks ago.

60 is pretty common for me, 72 or more once every other month or so.

I salaried, so no OT for me. Nothing more than my base salary.

I don't recommend it at all. It's not healthy.

It's a season- I am trying to reign it in.

what's overtime? It makes me sick to see you guys pulling in all this OT and there are people still unemployed.. or like me.. only able to work part time (I had 5 hours of work this week.. but will be hitting 32 next)

What is this overtime you guys speak of?

i thought this thread would be about the proliferation of off topic threads.

SVreX wrote: I don't recommend it at all. It's not healthy. It's a season- I am trying to reign it in.

+1

My work is streaky like that too - we do a long design or plan phase followed by heads-down for a couple 100hr back to back stretches that always seem impossible going in. They always leave me wiped out, sick and tired. I try to make the best of the slow weeks at home because you gotta strike while the iron is hot or they will all be slow weeks and nobody wants that.

Yesterday I looked up my grandparents in the 1940 census records that were just released. My grandfather was a farmer, and he reported that he'd worked 84 hours the previous week.

Personally, I've had those long weeks now and then but they're out of the ordinary - I agree that sustained periods aren't good but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Fortunately, I'm not salaried so I get paid for extra time.

When in the same shipyard that chknhwk referred to I spent too many weeks where I worked 90-100 hrs. It was brutal. Those hours are counting the days I had duty, so on those days I did get to sleep for a few hours, but I still counted it as work.

The worst stretch I ever did was work 11-12 hours on and 4-3 hours off for about 2 months. Me and one other guy where on 8 on 8 off shifts, but there was at least an hour before shift of turnover preps and then at least an hour after. On top of that I had to spend a little time trying to keep up with my real job in my 'off time'. I actually went home every few off times just because. The most sleep I got at any one time was about 4 hours. I was an utter zombie and had trouble forming complete sentences after a month of that. It was the dumbest thing, but the CO would not let either of the other two qualified people to partake in the fun so it was just the two of us.

In my current job, I am trying to do the work of 6 people. I work usually 10-15 hours of OT a week. I get paid for it, but at straight time rates. My last paycheck had 80 hours of regular time and 61.5 hours of OT. That is too much OT for my tastes, but at least I get paid for it, unlike how it was in the Navy.

I've been doing 60-70 hour weeks for a couple months now. Today is the first day I've had off since St. Patrick's day. St. Pat's was the first day I'd had off in a month.

I'm looking forward to our large project being done.

I've pulled 85 hour weeks before. I decided a few years ago, after several 15 hour days, that I was done doing more than 12 hours a day, period. I rarely put in more than 10 hours a day now.

The company where I work is small, about 4 people. My boss easily puts in 100 hour weeks with some regularity. I came to the conclusion that me dropping everything and trying to keep up was just me being an enabler. Putting in less overtime has actually meant the company has become better organized and work is being better distributed.