Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer at amlaw100 firm. I am generally at the office from 9-630, but almost always go to the gym for an hour of that. I check emails at night but unless something is due I don't work at night.

sounds like you lucked out, not sure that's typical in amlaw100

Anonymous wrote:I had four years where I worked 8:30-5pm M-F at a law firm, then 6:45-11pm at a fitness club four nights during the week and Saturday, and 11-6:45pm on Sundays.

So my free time was one night during the week, most of Saturday, and Sunday mornings I'd meet my grandparents for breakfast. During the week I'd get home from work, change my clothes, breathe, and leave for the second round.

Sure, having two part-time jobs is different, though, than claiming to work 70 hours in one job.

I used to teach school from 730-330, wait tables from 430-930 4x/ week, and on the other 3 days, I had class from 7-10. I would then do schoolwork and work prep from 1030-1230 most nights. I don't miss it.

I had four years where I worked 8:30-5pm M-F at a law firm, then 6:45-11pm at a fitness club four nights during the week and Saturday, and 11-6:45pm on Sundays.

So my free time was one night during the week, most of Saturday, and Sunday mornings I'd meet my grandparents for breakfast. During the week I'd get home from work, change my clothes, breathe, and leave for the second round.

A surgeon who is physically at the hospital from 8am-6pm every day is working 10 hours a day even if he/she takes a 30 minute break in between surgeries and (gasp!) checks his/her email.

If I'm at my office job and I can not leave the office until I see and approve a project that another team has been working on - I, too, am still working even if I check my personal emails while I'm waiting on the team to finish up.

I used to. Worked in a law firm, seven days a week, at least 10 hours a day during the week and 4 on weekends. Billed over 2300 for 6 years then I ran away despite really loving the job. It just wasn't a life I wanted long-term.

Anonymous wrote:
My old boss, a scientist at a university doing biomedical research, worked 70-80 hour weeks. His grad student brought a SLEEPING BAG to work.

A friend's husband working in a healthcare start-up works about that much. He gets home in time for dinner and his kids' bedtime, and then goes to his home office and works until 3 am. He doesn't need a lot of sleep.

People like you who don't believe others' hard work disgust me. Just because *you* couldn't do it doesn't mean no one can.

My mom is a biomedical scientist too and she works these hours. She definitely does not kill time on FB (she does not have one), and usually works from home when needs to do the theoretical/statistical/administrative part on the computer.

I do, my full time (40 hr. a week) job doesn't pay enough to cover all my bills so I supplement it with a 20 hour a week part time job. It's hard to live in this area when you work for a non-profit!

I finished up yesterday around 1:30 AM and was back at my desk this morning at 7:50 AM. Taking a short sanity break right now.
Federal employee. My work is incredibly detailed oriented and tedious. It wouldn't be so bad except for the productivity metrics they use to measure our work don't allow enough time to actually complete the work so a lot of people in my organization work 10 - 12 hours a day. I usually get a weekend every other week.

i'm a senior associate in biglaw (vault 60-70 firm). my practice area is L&E (i do almost all traditional labor). i generally bill 2000-2100 a year. i generally am in the office from 9-6 or 7 on a normal day, and sometimes i will work from home at night (but try to avoid this). anywhere from 2-5 hours of work on the weekend is normal. not all that bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on the field. That's very much possible in the medical field. Doctors in training, residents, have to work long hours, especially surgical residents. They are on-call around the clock. Nurses have to work mandatory overtime. That's after a 12 hour shift!

I worked 5 X 12 hour shifts as an RN last week. One of my techs worked 6 X 12 hour shifts.

My dad ran his own business. He worked from 6:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night M-F. He worked "only" 6-8 hours on Saturday and about 4 hours on Sunday night.

wow, this is brutal as an RN. I'm also a nurse and maybe did that once or twice in my 20's. A 12 hour shift turns into 12.5 or 13 in the hospital (with report on both ends) plus commute time. When you're away from home for 14 hours there's nothing left to the day, assuming you sleep for 8 hours.

My husband is a physician in IT and he's in the office for 9 hours a day plus he works 2-3 hours each night at home. Goes to bed at 1am and is up at 7am every day.
He trained before the residency hours were restricted and when he did months in the ICU he easily worked 100 hours plus. 36 hours on at the hospital (awake), 12hours off at home to sleep. Repeat for a month.
Now THAT was nuts.

Anonymous wrote:I think it depends on the field. That's very much possible in the medical field. Doctors in training, residents, have to work long hours, especially surgical residents. They are on-call around the clock. Nurses have to work mandatory overtime. That's after a 12 hour shift!

I worked 5 X 12 hour shifts as an RN last week. One of my techs worked 6 X 12 hour shifts.

My dad ran his own business. He worked from 6:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night M-F. He worked "only" 6-8 hours on Saturday and about 4 hours on Sunday night.

I had a job where I was regularly on-site 645-645 (60 hours) and another where I was regularly on-site 9-7 (50 hours). Both of those jobs required taking phone calls before and after work, sometimes as early as 5 am. Sometimes there would be evening events, or I'd work half a day on Saturday.

That was super long, and I could never realistically go back to that or work longer hours without losing my mind.

But even on those long days, I would still eat lunch, check Facebook, go for a walk / jog, or zone out for 2+ hours / day. At some points, I was just physically there in case something happened.

I was in the office at least 60 hours a week. Probably worked 50 hours of that. Was still a lot. Now I'm in the office 45 hours a week and work about 35.

Agree with the OP that "most" (not all" people who say they are working these hours are in part exaggerating. People are rounding up, including travel time, turning a 30minute after hours email into 1-2 hours in their brains. They work out, have lunch, chit chat at the office, follow espn and dcum. They do long days 3 days a week and round up for all 5 days. They have periods (weeks or months) where they work those hours and then use that as their bragging threshold for the rest of the year. Women on here who say "my DH definitely works 70 hours a week" are perhaps the most deluded. When your law firm partner goes into his office on sunday to work 5 hours, he's not really working that much. Sorry you had to hear it this way.

I'm a lawyer at amlaw100 firm. I am generally at the office from 9-630, but almost always go to the gym for an hour of that. I check emails at night but unless something is due I don't work at night.