How long can you stand to work?

[xSilverPhinx]

It depends on what I'm doing. If it's solitary and repetitive lab work then I can't carry on for very long. The longest I've gone in one sitting was 4.5h, and by the third hour I wanted to die. I could hear the clock ticking and it drove me nuts, every second seemed to take forever. Every minute even more. Not being able to take breaks doesn't help either as people schedule experiments without much leeway and you have to finish yours quickly so someone else can use the room and/or equipment. The normal time for a solitary and repetitive experiment is about 2 hours, which I get through fine.

As a paid intern, I have to put in about 20 hours per week, though no interns punch the clock. I have tasks to do and I stay until they're done, and these tasks vary day by day and week by week. Sometimes I stay longer, other times less. 

As for what influences my motivation, it's a learning experience and makes it slightly easier to get into a master's program. I'm not paid very much (government only pays 400 reais or more or less 130 US dollars per month), so it definitely isn't the money... 

If I'm working at home on my computer than I set my own hours, but my then I have to deal with other problems, the worst being I'm too easily distracted ( HAF...), which can double the time I spend on a task or job. This in itself is not a problem, I just need to plan things taking my tendencies into consideration.

[Arturo]

Ok I think everyone responded. I didn't want to tell you at the beginning but I'm just asking to compare to my father, who normally works 10 hours a day, and he's been doing that for 2 years. He's always worked a ton of hours like that for as long as I've been keeping track. Lately he's been working everyday like that and I've been helping him on weekends but I just can't work that long and not become a zombie by the end of the day who can barely stay awake.

[Icarus]

 I warn all of you to never start or run your own business.  I have done that for about 40 years.  Sixteen hour days are not unusual. Working on weekends and holidays and foregoing vacation time is standard procedure. That would be all well and good when the rewards are worth the efforts. Some times they are, too many times not.

This is not to discourage entrepreneural types. There is a certain satisfaction in busting your ass for the  presumed good of your own enterprise.   The best and most accomplished students do that, you will note

One of the lines of work that I most admire is the  small  Farmer.  He or she  she damned near kill themselves working from "tis til taint". Their continuous work may or may not yield the hoped for result. ( for you gentle folks that are not familiar with  American vernacular; Tis til taint implies that you will work from daylight until there is no daylight.)

[Arturo]

I warn all of you to never start or run your own business.  I have done that for about 40 years.  Sixteen hour days are not unusual. Working on weekends and holidays and foregoing vacation time is standard procedure. That would be all well and good when the rewards are worth the efforts. Some times they are, too many times not.

This is not to discourage entrepreneural types. There is a certain satisfaction in busting your ass for the  presumed good of your own enterprise.   The best and most accomplished students do that, you will note

One of the lines of work that I most admire is the  small  Farmer.  He or she  she damned near kill themselves working from "tis til taint". Their continuous work may or may not yield the hoped for result. ( for you gentle folks that are not familiar with  American vernacular; Tis til taint implies that you will work from daylight until there is no daylight.)

That's pretty much what my Dad does and has been doing for about Over 10 years. He's in his 50s now and somehow he looks younger than everyone else his age.

[Pasta Chick]

I warn all of you to never start or run your own business.  I have done that for about 40 years.  Sixteen hour days are not unusual. Working on weekends and holidays and foregoing vacation time is standard procedure. That would be all well and good when the rewards are worth the efforts. Some times they are, too many times not.

This is not to discourage entrepreneural types. There is a certain satisfaction in busting your ass for the  presumed good of your own enterprise.   The best and most accomplished students do that, you will note

One of the lines of work that I most admire is the  small  Farmer.  He or she  she damned near kill themselves working from "tis til taint". Their continuous work may or may not yield the hoped for result. ( for you gentle folks that are not familiar with  American vernacular; Tis til taint implies that you will work from daylight until there is no daylight.)

This is why I don't petsit any longer. You are literally never off the clock. If you're doing houses your day starts around 4AM and ends around 11PM. If you've got dogs in your house (hope they're quiet!) there's always the risk of that 3AM emergency vet run where you can't get ahold of the owners because it's 3AM...

[Recusant]

I warn all of you to never start or run your own business.  I have done that for about 40 years.  Sixteen hour days are not unusual. Working on weekends and holidays and foregoing vacation time is standard procedure. That would be all well and good when the rewards are worth the efforts. Some times they are, too many times not.

This is not to discourage entrepreneural types. There is a certain satisfaction in busting your ass for the  presumed good of your own enterprise.   The best and most accomplished students do that, you will note

One of the lines of work that I most admire is the  small  Farmer.  He or she  she damned near kill themselves working from "tis til taint". Their continuous work may or may not yield the hoped for result. ( for you gentle folks that are not familiar with  American vernacular; Tis til taint implies that you will work from daylight until there is no daylight.)

It's not too bad when you're young and enthusiastic, though. The business that I started when I met those requirements operated 24/7, but the call coming in at 11 PM was pretty rare.

[xSilverPhinx]

I warn all of you to never start or run your own business.  I have done that for about 40 years.  Sixteen hour days are not unusual. Working on weekends and holidays and foregoing vacation time is standard procedure. That would be all well and good when the rewards are worth the efforts. Some times they are, too many times not.

This is not to discourage entrepreneural types. There is a certain satisfaction in busting your ass for the  presumed good of your own enterprise.   The best and most accomplished students do that, you will note

One of the lines of work that I most admire is the  small  Farmer.  He or she  she damned near kill themselves working from "tis til taint". Their continuous work may or may not yield the hoped for result. ( for you gentle folks that are not familiar with  American vernacular; Tis til taint implies that you will work from daylight until there is no daylight.)

But...I've always dreamed of having my proper business.

The taxes though, they're really off-putting.

[Bad Penny II]

I warn all of you to never start or run your own business.

He flew too high, the same old storey.
There's tax advantage for the prudent.

[xSilverPhinx]

...there are taxes and accountant fees to consider.

[Icarus]

Get over the tax fright.  If the business is profitable then the taxes will be proportionate. If the business is astoundingly profitable the taxes will be higher but the profits will be astounding even though some proportion of them may have to be forfeited to the tax.  That is a good deal.  Sure enough your business is the beneficiary of all kinds of public services....like roads and streets that customers can access to get to your business to spend their money.  Like fire departments, and trash collectors and a lot of other things that you need to have, but are unable to provide for yourself, in order to keep and operate a successful business even if it only a small coffee and donut shop.

[xSilverPhinx]

Get over the tax fright.  If the business is profitable then the taxes will be proportionate. If the business is astoundingly profitable the taxes will be higher but the profits will be astounding even though some proportion of them may have to be forfeited to the tax.  That is a good deal.  Sure enough your business is the beneficiary of all kinds of public services....like roads and streets that customers can access to get to your business to spend their money.  Like fire departments, and trash collectors and a lot of other things that you need to have, but are unable to provide for yourself, in order to keep and operate a successful business even if it only a small coffee and donut shop.

Some taxes might be considered reasonable (for instance, to import books there is no tax, and to sell them taxes are minimal) but I was thinking mostly about employment taxes. In Brazil if you pay x as salary then you have to pay roughly x in taxes plus employee benefits as well. It can be crippling. My mother, for instance, who owns and runs her own English school, just had to fire all but one  employee because it was too much. They weren't generating enough to pay for their own expenses, much less profit. I don't know how it is in other parts of the world, but here the longer you have an employee with you, the more you pay them to fire them. So now she's thousands in debt due to this weird system she set up which involves salary plus a bunch of weird bonuses.

I wouldn't have paid the kind of salary she was paying, though, which was well above what the market pays, much less the bonuses. You try to do good and debt is what you get.     

[Icarus]

^ Are you saying that when you have to fire an employee they are legally entitled to some sort of severance pay?  We do have some intricacies here that may cost an employer some money. We have Unemployment Compensation  funds that an employer must contribute to. The amount that the employer pays is in some proportion to his record of employee turnover. The amount assessed is very modest in any case.

Employers are also required to pay into a fund, usually state administered, that is called Workers Compensation fund. That fund is to help with medical expenses if an employee is injured as a direct result of his particular job. The UC fund cost to the employer is tied to the relative hazards of the job. An office employee might get a paper cut or something like that. A roofer or Steeplejack is in a hellish dangerous work environment and his UC cost to the employer can be very significant. Another cost to the employer is his Social Security contribution.  The employee pays 7.65 percent of his salary to the SS fund. The employer is required to match that amount and must deposit both the employees part and the employers part in a federal reserve bank where it is ultimately delivered to the federal social security administration. I have long been amazed and sometimes frustrated when my  employee does not understand these real world costs to the employer. I have had employees that flat out did not believe that my company was paying the same amount into their social security fund as they do. 

There are employers who try to avoid these costs by hook or crook. It is a matter of fact that the employer can land in deep doo doo if he is ever caught cheating. It happens. One of the things that happen here is that an employer who hires illegals does not pay any of those costs and the illegal is not about to rat him out for fear of being exposed him or herself.  One of our currently illustrious national leaders has been guilty of using the illegal employee route to escape some of those cost obligations.  Shhhhh, don't tell, His name is D.J. Trump. 

[xSilverPhinx]

^ Are you saying that when you have to fire an employee they are legally entitled to some sort of severance pay?

Yes, employees get a severance pay unless they are fired with justified cause, such as in the case of any misconduct. This is proportional to the amount of time the employee has been working in the company.

- If you don't give the employee 30 days prior notice you must pay one month's salary.
- After being dismissed, an employee can withdraw their unemployment compensation fund plus an extra 40% of the total. The longer you have an employee working for you, the more you pay.
- Employees also have the right to receive a proportional vacation pay.
- Employees have the right to a proportional 13th salary.

I think that's about it.

We do have some intricacies here that may cost an employer some money. We have Unemployment Compensation  funds that an employer must contribute to. The amount that the employer pays is in some proportion to his record of employee turnover. The amount assessed is very modest in any case.

Yep, have those here too, except it isn't the employee who pays but the employer, and it can't be discounted from the employee's salary. The amount is 8% of the worker's remuneration.

Employers are also required to pay into a fund, usually state administered, that is called Workers Compensation fund. That fund is to help with medical expenses if an employee is injured as a direct result of his particular job. The UC fund cost to the employer is tied to the relative hazards of the job. An office employee might get a paper cut or something like that. A roofer or Steeplejack is in a hellish dangerous work environment and his UC cost to the employer can be very significant. Another cost to the employer is his Social Security contribution.  The employee pays 7.65 percent of his salary to the SS fund. The employer is required to match that amount and must deposit both the employees part and the employers part in a federal reserve bank where it is ultimately delivered to the federal social security administration.

Yes, same here. It can go from 1 to 3 percent of the worker's remuneration depending on the degree of risk.

We also have a fund paid to a government social security institution that not only goes to the worker if he or she suffers a work-related accident, but any reason for temporary invalidity. This also contributes to the worker's retirement fund. A whopping 20% of each employee's remuneration goes to this fund. 

I have long been amazed and sometimes frustrated when my  employee does not understand these real world costs to the employer. I have had employees that flat out did not believe that my company was paying the same amount into their social security fund as they do. 

Employees can be a pain in the ass. If you don't do everything according to the law there's a high chance they'll sue you for damages too. In Brazil labour laws are rigid and are not in the employer's favour. 

There are employers who try to avoid these costs by hook or crook. It is a matter of fact that the employer can land in deep doo doo if he is ever caught cheating. It happens. One of the things that happen here is that an employer who hires illegals does not pay any of those costs and the illegal is not about to rat him out for fear of being exposed him or herself.  One of our currently illustrious national leaders has been guilty of using the illegal employee route to escape some of those cost obligations.  Shhhhh, don't tell, His name is D.J. Trump. 

Yes, I had imagined he does, working construction and all.

[Dave]

If an employee is made redundant for any reason not of their making in the Uk they are entitled to compensation. I got £10 000 on being made redundant after about 20 years in 2004. Plus one month's salary in lieu of notice.

Almost cleared my mortgage. Took an early pension from the company fund 6 months later and opted for the max lump sum of £20 000 up front. That cleared the rest if the mortgage and left some to invest whilst I lived on half my previous income in terms of the pension itself.

I pity the kids with the current schemes. That's why I helped a close friend's son out a bit because I knew he was struggling. Not looking look for it back - that can be his share of my estate, I have forgiven the debt in my will.