Evenings. Weekends. Holidays. Some of us work them all.
Overtime pay? Not a chance. Lack of free time, family time, fun. Many a teacher
has experienced this. But are we alone? I mean, are those memes that suggest
teachers are the only ones working at home in the evening actually accurate? Well,
there have been studies: its official! Teachers work more than any other profession!
However, I know some pretty hard working folk who aren't
teachers and I decided to ask a few of them about their working hours. I asked
them their role, contracted hours and overtime (either paid or unpaid). Here’s
what I discovered:
Many of the workers I asked are contracted at around 40
hours, similar to teachers. Many of them said that they work around 20 hours
extra, unpaid, on top of their contracted hours. Workers who answered in this
manner included a
Director of a water company, a Vice President of a manufacturing
firm, an Associate Director of a political consultancy, an Enterprise Architect
for a publishing company, an IT Consultant, an HR Business Partner in a telecoms
company, an IT Architect in a small data consultancy and a Senior
Finance Manager for a construction Services company. If my friends are
representative of workers in those industries then that’s quite a lot of people
around the world working similar hours to teachers without being paid overtime.
Some of those I asked reported that working around 90 hours per week is
sometimes necessary.
What
about working from home? The IT Architect said “for me there is little to distinguish work and home. Holidays
increasingly are measured on broadband quality. I don't think I really ever
switch off from thinking about work.” Echoing the sentiments of
others, the Finance Manager remarked “My
phone is on 24/7 and I'm expected to check email at all hours.” A
number of those I spoke to revealed that they did extra work at home, others
did not say whether their 20 hours of overtime was done in the office or at
home. The Vice President stated “I'm always
working: nights, weekends, vacations! I have found the saying "It's tough
at the top" to be very true.”
Another
major finding was that travel takes up more time on top of extra hours for non-teachers. Whether
it’s being ‘at work’ 24/7 on foreign business trips away from family or
sandwiching a week’s hotel stay with 15 hours of UK-wide driving, this is
something most teachers don’t have to deal with.
It
may be noted that those I spoke to all hold fairly senior positions and are
likely to be paid well. I didn’t ask for
salary details simply because those who compare the workload of teachers to
that of other professions never compare salary either. My anecdotal evidence is
in direct reply to the blanket statements of ‘no-one works as hard as teachers’.
Well they do. There are many men and women all over the country up late
working, arriving at the office early to get an extra hour in, missing out on
time with their children, spending every waking hour replying to emails, going
on ‘holiday’ with a project to complete. Teachers are amongst those people but they
do not have a monopoly on these characteristics.
One
of my friends concluded: “It appears most
people really enjoy the work they do and they do what is needed to be
successful! I'm feeling lucky to enjoy what I do and that I have fun doing it!”
If you really are in teaching because you are passionate about it and you
love working with the children, then surely this is the attitude to have.
Imagining that you are the only one still up at 11pm preparing for the next day
will not change the fact that teaching is a hard job with many demands and
pressures. Knowing that everything you do can have a positive impact on the
lives of others can make all the hard work worthwhile. Counting yourself as one
of the many workers around the world who goes the extra mile for no reward could
begin to take the edge off the pain you feel.
And
if you are still up at 11pm preparing for tomorrow, perhaps you’d benefit from
reading up on maintaining a good work/life balance. Although the pressures are
high and the workload is heavy, I believe there are things we can all do to
address the balance. Might I suggest you begin with a couple of my own blog
posts?
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