I’ve just finished my first week at a new job. I like the job, but it’s the first time in several years that I’ve had relatively standard 8 hours a day, 5 days a week as my schedule. The last time I did was in 2019 or so, and then I went and got back into graduate school for the interim.
Now that I’m back to standard hours, the commitment of time and energy seems to be quite a lot, more than I remember from prior ft experience(It could well be that this job is actually mentally demanding, whereas my prior full-time job was pretty brainless) and I’m not sure how I will make room in my life for anything else.
I like the job I’m doing, and I don’t feel as if I’m being unreasonably pressured at work (Boss even said to go out of our way not to work overtime, and it’s a salaried position so I know they’re not trying to skimp on hourly pay), so I guess I’m mainly wanting to ask how the rest of you full-timers do it.
And does it get easier to manage as you start to get used to it and make a routine?
Maybe it feels like quite a basic or rudimentary to ask… But these are things I’ve forgotten in the interim since last working 40-hour weeks.
Don’t fret about it. It only lasts another 40 years or so.
I’m 15 years in paper office space and already having a bad neck how can older gens stick to a same spot for so long.
For me, it was my hips. I really do think sitting for long periods in front of a computer is really bad for your health. Good luck to you. Get lots of exercise and take as many breaks as you can get away with.
You don’t have to do the same job the whole time?
I was an engineer. I worked with four different companies, but the work was substantially the same, working in front of a computer.
No true I did change but in this business culture, especially family run there’s a core culture loyal to the company. Coming in as a job-hopper implies you’re a temp help. Even though everything is on friendly terms, the smoke break spot is the spot for gossip. :-D
The whole work from home drama during and after COVID regulations shown how many people actually dread the fulltime office space on a long term.
I still remember my first managers’ sons swimming lesson updates and skiing in the Alps slides like a trigger memory when I recognize the striped pastel blue blouse tucked in formal loose pants.
Nah man, it’s 50 years of this and then you die
You ain’t kidding. Looking forward to that final break.
Im still hoping to get good enough at drawing to be adopted im as a live-in hermit artist by some rich furry, so I can live out my life with no societal expectations /j
Exactly, and think of the value your work generated for someone else!
There’s culture shock and then hopefully you settle into the idea that this is your life now.
This is how it worked for me. Followed by just fucking get up. Tired? Slept like shit? Don’t want to go? Just fucking get up and go, I don’t want to be late or lose my job, I’ll be homeless. I don’t recommend this attitude as you’ll burn yourself out but it’s how I get up.
My problem is everything else. Where do you find time to tidy the house, clean, do laundry, shower, brush your teeth, now the lawn, etc, etc and then have energy for hobbies?
I should mellow this a bit.
Right now you’re experiencing some degree of culture shock so that’s going to take ~6 months before that is fully settled. “This is weird.” “Yes, that’s something people experience in a variety of contexts”.
But outside of that in the long run you really have to think about what’s important to you and carve out time for that or you will be lonely and miserable. Something with regularity. I play board games with friends once a week. Sometimes I can’t make it and they do it without me. But there’s still way too much of my time that ends up being me staring at Lemmy or the TV, thinking that I really should <some chore>. And you can end up like that whether you are single or in a relationship. School was simpler.
School wasn’t simpler. It rewarded you for efficiency and intelligence by returning time back to you for completing the work quickly and correctly.
There is no reward in the corporate world. You slave away endlessly and the reward is you either get to slave away more or sit there for your 40 hours + commute.
This is the part I can’t wrap my head around. I’ve been a productive member of thr workforce for over 20 years but the idea that this is what the rest of my life consists of horrifies me.
I can’t speak for everyone, because I fundamentally believe that the increases in productivity due to technology should have been applied to flexibility for the working public instead of pure profit for the capitalist owning class. But for me, sometimes I can’t stand another MOMENT of my work shift, and other times I find myself lost in the work for 14 hours before I even realize it. It’s purely a function of what you’re working on and what it means to you. Or doesn’t mean to you.
I’ve been jobless for a year and recently found a job again as well. After my first day I was so exhausted, it was unbelievable. I literally came home after work, made and had some food, chilled on discord with a friend for an hour and was already too tired, so I went to bed after being awake for about 12h.
Starting a new job, a new chapter of your life is exhausting. You learn a lot of new things, you get a lot of new impressions. All this requires the gray matter in your skull to work pretty hard.
Now, even with mentally demanding jobs, you’ll form routines that make things easier. Not just stuff like a morning routine or your route to work, but also work processes become easier after you get into the groove. On top of that, with time there are less new things you need to remember, like names of your coworkers, your offices layout, or what bus to take.
It gets easier with time. Hang in there.
Personally, I find that if I work in a day, then I’m drained. One great thing I was able to do was find a job that has longer hours, because working 8 hours and working 12 feels the same to me, but now I get 2 extra days off. With 4 days off I can have a recovery day where I do nothing, a productive day where I catch up on life’s demands, and 2 days to spend however I choose.
I went from 3/4 twelves to 5 8s and it sucks ass trying to do anything after work. I have 6 ish hours to do anything. I used to have two days off in a row during the week plus 3 day weekends every other. It sucked working weekends and getting home later.
And does it get easier to manage as you start to get used to it and make a routine?
European here. I worked many years for 40h/week and I never got used to it, really. There was not enough spare time in my life to enjoy it (especially, since commuting to work took off even more useful time). I neglected cleaning my room, postponed important appointments as much as possible and I was often too tired to do the things I love.
Since 2024, I now work 30h/week, completely from home. I have every Friday off and Thursday is a short day. My life has improved drastically. I am no longer tired all the time, I’m more motivated at work and I am actually capable of going to concerts, parties, cinema. It’s amazing.
Every human is built different. I realized I absolutely cannot function having a 9to5 job from Monday to Friday.
So okay here is what you do.
You get up, go to work, spend all day there, go home, stay awake too long, sleep too little, do it 5 days then try to catch up on lost sleep in the weekend.
This way you will get as little out of all your free time as possible, and eventually get depressed and/or have a mental break.
Good luck!
That’s the neat part, you don’t.
Others have offered fantastic advice, I’m not going to add anything from personal experience. I will share this link: https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
Reading this isn’t going to change your life, but I find it very helpful to reframe how you think about life. It deals more with the long term impact of having a full time job, outside of work in a way that worked for my brain. Hopefully you find it helpful but it’s not a single solution.
Congratulations, you’re now a slave. Get back to work.
It only ever gets worse. Just wait until you get to do that new process you just learned for the 2,000th time while emails flood your inbox, bringing the unread count to 672.
Try not to think too hard about how most of the evidence points to shorter work weeks being better on pretty much every metric.
Or that most of the “return to office” mandates are counter productive cruelty.
I think I saw an article that claimed most office workers in the UK do like 3 hours of work a day, and the rest is puttering and looking busy.
Our system is stupid and it’s stuck stupid because of people. It’s not physics. It’s not biology. Like there’s not much you can do to fix like humans need to eat and sleep, but the workday is just made up.
Life is hard, and then you die.
Does it have to be though?
Another phrase like this one:
It is what it is.
No no. It is what it is because people made it what is. People can change what it is.
The owners of the world can change it, yes.
i was on a similar situation recently, except boss wasnt so keen on curbing overtime (or paying us for it for that matter)
been working from home for almost 10 years, but in the post-pandemic world they refuse to let it happen now.
it gets easier to deal with as time goes on, but like, unionize. fuck giving our entire life to these leeches. also you don’t need to work as hard as they demand you to. save yourself energy to do a bit of stuff for yourself.
