9-5? More like 8-5 at a minimum wherever I’ve been at.
9-5 is a dream.
Doing the bare minimum of responsibilities/hygiene my weekdays are 7am-630pm so once I’m settled I get maybe 2-3 hours to eat and do something fun. Assuming there isn’t anything I need to do around the house.
Also those leisure hours are “fun” while I mentally prepare for the next day’s beatings.
Saturday is a burner day to recover, Sunday is all chores and errands to get ready for the next 5 days.
It sure is grim when I type all that out.
Sounds horrible. My day is wake up at 7, have breakfast, work from 8.20 or so, stop working at 15.30 or so (depends on my energy and what I decide to do).
I sleep at 22.30 so there are lots of hours to do what I want.
This is a very typical life for IT workers where I live (western Europe, not USA).
It’s not common in the US but there are decent jobs, they are just very competitive to get and people rarely leave them aside from retirement so turnover is very slow compared to shitty places with high staff turnover. It took me several years working experience, a degree, and a bit of luck to land one. Currently working IT in the US 10-5 with on call rotation a couple times a year, good salary in low-ish cost of living area, pension, 401k, a little over a month off a year PTO plus holidays that increases with seniority, mostly reasonable people to work with and for, etc.
The secret sauce is around 10% of the workforce is union and strikes are fairly regular to protect workers rights that affect both union and non union workers.
I’m in the same boat too. Honestly I don’t think this will get better. The grind never stops. I am thinking to consider moving to jobs which are at least interesting to me since I’m going to spend 70%(might be more if math done properly) of my rest of my life working, might as well it be interesting or fun to me. Idk if I can pull it off.
I feel you. I never thought I’d get out of retail management and landed a sweet operations job that pays well. The downside is it’s a small company so I do everything. I’m good at it and it’s stimulating, but I’m accountable for so many things and people that it’s been really wearing me down for the last few years, I’m at 11/10 effort almost every day.
I could find something else but it probably won’t pay as well, and likely wouldn’t be any better for my health. Doesn’t hurt to look though, right?
I just want to contribute and do good work and enjoy my life.
