How many hours in a normal day do you work?

[Kjelt]

I was wondering what a normal working day in different countries looks like.
In the past I heard "wild" stories about South Korean working hours and also about other countries like the US and Australia.
Now to be honest please fill in a normal working day, not the exemption days.
We all are proffesionalls and have long hour days when a customer is waiting (or the boss is yelling) but what
do the 80% of your working days look like?
Do not count the travel time! Just the time you spent in the office on a normal day.
Time for coffee break and/or lunch are in hours where 30 minutes = 0.50 hours and 45 minutes = 0.75 hours

The template I came up with you can copy/paste, suggestions/additions are welcome:

Location (country or continent): 

Employed or own business*

Normal start of work time: x.xx  AM
Normal end of work   time: x.xx  PM 

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid or paid*)
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid or paid*)

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above):
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract):

* delete which is not appropriate so is this time paid or on your own time?

Thanks, I am looking forward to see how this differs in reality among countries/continents/companies.

[Kjelt]

Let me start with my normal working day.

Location: The Netherlands
Employed. 

Normal start of work time:  8.15  AM 
Normal end of work   time:  6.00  PM

Estimation of time of small (coffee breaks) (paid): 0.5 hours
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid ): 0.5 hours

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 9 hours
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8 hours

[sleemanj]

I work for myself, from home. 

On the one hand, I'm always at home.
On the other hand, I'm always at work.

[Excavatoree]

Location: <Dave's USA voice>  The United States of America
Employed.

Normal start of work time:  7.30  AM
Normal end of work   time:  5.30  PM

Estimation of time of small (coffee breaks) (paid): 0.5 hours
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid ): 1 hour
Additional time (unpaid, difference between arrival and start of work, and stop of work and leaving)0-1 hour (varies)

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 8-9 hours
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8 hours (EDIT:  Richard Crowley is correct.  I'm salary, so the correct answer is "N/A" or, as some people look at it, I'm paid to work 24/7 and am lucky they let me go home at all.)

I get 13 paid holidays per year, and I have four weeks (20 days) of vacation.  (Fourth week was after 15 years with the company.)
I worked one place that required 3 years before you got the traditional (in US) two weeks.


My co-worker spent a year in Japan.  They generally work 9-6, with an hour lunch, but often spend much longer. (staying late)
Most importantly, they have to make up holidays by working on Saturday.   When they take a week long holiday, they work a month and a day of Saturdays.  So, actually, they get no holidays at all.

[Richard Crowley]

Location: USA
Employment: large, multi-national high-tech company

Normal start:  ~8:30 am
Normal end:  7:00 ~ 8:00 pm

Paid breaks: probably, but I don't take them except maybe randomly and informally
Meal break: 1 hour

Average working time: 9~10 hours/day
Paid time: n/a (exempt, salaried worker)

It is quite common at my company for people to come in early and leave late.
A combination of: driven employees, lots of work to do, corporate climate and peer expectations.
Along with the fact that we operate 7x24/365 so we have to interface with people both locally
and around the planet at various time around the clock.

Vacation time: 3 weeks/year, but I rarely take all of it
Holidays: 10/year, but many people work over holidays, especially since they don't align across countries.

[Richard Crowley]

Interesting point by Excavatoree.  While we get proper paid holidays and vacation, the workload doesn't take holidays or vacation, so many people feel penalized for taking time off because of the work that piled up while you were gone.   

[ctz]

Location: UK
Employed

Normal start of work time: 9.00  AM
Normal end of work  time: 5.30  PM 

Estimation of time of small (coffee breaks) (paid): 0.5 hours
Lunch or dinner time (paid): 0.5 hours

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 8.5 hours
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8 hours

27 paid days off per year

[con-f-use]

Location: Austria
Employed

Normal start of work time: 9.00  AM
Normal end of work  time: 5.30  PM

Estimation of time of small (coffee breaks) (paid): 0 hours
Lunch or dinner time (paid): 1 hours

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 7.5 hours
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 6 hours

30 paid days off per year plus a load of national holidays plus some strange extra days that you need to turn in documents for (2 days per year if you moved, additional 2 days per year for funerals in the family, additional 2 days per year for doctor appointmens and similar), sick days are fully payed up to 6 weeks a year, after that your health ensurance pays (usually less)

Even compared to Germany that is very good.

[retrolefty]

Retired now, but when I left:

Location: USA
Employment: large, multi-national oil company

Normal start:  6 am
Normal end:  4:30 PM

Paid breaks: informal for salaried workers.
Meal break: 1/2 hour

Average working time: 10 hours/day four days a week, so three day weekend
Paid time: n/a (exempt, salaried worker)


Vacation time: Up to 5 weeks/year, start with 2 weeks, determined by years of service
Holidays: 13/year, one of which was a 'floating holiday' to take as one wishes.

 Plant operators (union pay scale) worked a rotating shift as plants run 7/24/365. They had 12 hour shifts and a staggered schedule that resulting in one 7 day a month off shift. It was a confusing schedule but what the union bargained for. Maintenance people (also union) worked the same 4 day/ 10 hour shift as salaried exempt people.

 One nice thing that the refinery had was a local policy of time off for working extra hours worked for exempt people, although scheduling of such time off was subject to group needs.

[Terabyte2007]

Location (country or continent):  USA

Employed or own business* - Employed

Normal start of work time: 9:00  AM
Normal end of work   time: 6:00  PM 

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid or paid*) 30 mins
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid or paid*) 1 Hr

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): Work from Home, Rarely in the corporate office.
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8

* delete which is not appropriate so is this time paid or on your own time? Salary, paid 8 Hrs a day, 5 days a week.

Thanks, I am looking forward to see how this differs in reality among countries/continents/companies.

[Radio Tech]

Location (country or continent):  USA

Employed or own business* - Employed

Normal start of work time: 5:00  AM
Normal end of work   time: 3:30  PM 

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid or paid*) 55 mins
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid* or paid) 30 min
Normally 4 10 hour days

[1xrtt]

Location (country or continent):  Brazil

Employed or own business*: Employed

Normal start of work time: 08:30 AM
Normal end of work   time: 5:30 PM  ("Official", but hardly "normal" - It's 8:15 PM now and I'm siting on a customer waiting for authorization to do some off-hour work)

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid or paid*) No control here
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid or paid*) 1 hour

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): Doesn't work in the office, either at home or customer's
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8 hours

Vacation: 30 days, but I can exchange up to 10 days for money (seems good, but not really worth)

[1xrtt]

Interesting point by Excavatoree.  While we get proper paid holidays and vacation, the workload doesn't take holidays or vacation, so many people feel penalized for taking time off because of the work that piled up while you were gone.   

Work will pile up whether I take vacation or not, so I don't feel sorry/penalized at all. "Vacation on -> Cell phone off"

[EEVblog]

so many people feel penalized for taking time off because of the work that piled up while you were gone.   

I never cared about that, because that's what managers are hired to manage.

[dr.diesel]

First 15 years of my life

Location (country or continent):  USA
Employed or own business: Employed, major electronics, utility
Normal start of work time: 5:30AM
Normal end of work   time: 5PM
Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid or paid*) < 30 min, salary
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid or paid*) Included in the above

Currently

Location (country or continent):  USA
Employed or own business: self employed
Normal work week, ~10 hours

[Rerouter]

Location : Australia NSW
Employed or own business: Employed In a small niche electronics repair workshop

Normal start of work time: 8:00  AM
Normal end of work   time: 4:16  PM (It makes it perfectly line up for a  5 day, 38 hour week with lunch brakes)

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks: 10 minutes paid
Lunch or dinner time: 40 minutes unpaid

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 7:50
Paid working time in hours a day: 7:36

Vacations: 4 Weeks per year + Public holidays + 2 Sick Days + 2 Compassionate Leave Days,

Like a large number of businesses we do have a constant work flow, and there is the stigma that things will pile up, but it never actually happens, the other workers start extending turn around times in the week leading up which in general means things are turned over faster per worker as there is less pressure for any particular job, (An irony as i see it)

[miguelvp]

Location : Chicago IL
Salary work.

Start time: 10:00  AM
End time: 6:00 PM

Breaks (paid): 0.5 hour/day probably less but i like to stretch my legs around the office. Maybe the average it's more like 15 minutes per day, not sure.
Lunch: 0 (bring food to work and eat while working)

Time at work per day: ~8 hours
Paid work time per week: ~40 hours

Vacation: unsure since the company keeps throwing a couple of extra weeks off per year. But without that it's about 40 days a year including sick time, paid vacation and time off. I'm really not sure because it varies.

We do have crunch time when the company pays for dinner and then I work around 10 hours a day, but I'm there just for support to my peers, since I've never been late on my estimates, but that only happens about one month per year or 2 years average.

I do love my job so it doesn't matter if I work extra just for a free meal, but even that doesn't come to play often, once or twice a year depending on the project.

BTW I do love my job and company

[con-f-use]

We work too long in general I think. 35 hours/week is more than enough, and we should be looking to move down to 30.

I agree. If nothing else technology is supposed to do work for us.

[tszaboo]

Location (country or continent): Belgium 

Employed

Normal start of work time: 9  AM
Normal end of work   time: 6  PM 

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks  paid: 0-8 Hours
Lunch or dinner time unpaid: 1 Hour

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): 1 Hour
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8 Hours
The law said: Work 38 hours a week, or get 12 days off a year if you work 40.
I get to work 40 and get no 12 days off.
Vacation: 20 day + If a holiday is on weekend. Double salary for vacations.
Holidays: 12ish a year

[KJDS]

Location UK

Self employed

Normal start time 9am
Normal finish time 5pm, except that I'll respond to emails up until bedtime.

An hour for lunch, and slightly more coffee than I should.

Working time is very flexible, I usually do more on a Sunday afternoon than on a Friday afternoon. It also depends on what shifts the girlfriend is working, so if she's on night shifts then I'll often work late into an evening.

When contracting, as many hours as I can stay awake and interested for. I've averaged 10 hours a day at most places, and about 6 a day at the worst place I worked, but there i had nothing to do and got very  very bored for 7 months.

[Maxlor]

 Bob: You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?

Peter: Yeah.

Bob: Great.

Peter: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

Bob: Da-uh? Space out?

Peter: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.

[GreyWoolfe]

Location: USA

Employed as a remote field service technician for a large multinational company.

Normal start/finish time:  nothing really normal here

Our customers are open typically from 8-5 or 8:30-5:30.  I typically monitor my company phone from 7:30 to 6:00.  Sometimes I have to do after hours remote fixes. I get paid for 8 hours of work.  Electronic timesheets account only for hours worked not start/end times, etc.

How much do I actually work?  Again, that's a loaded question.  Our regional manager says we don't get paid to work, we get paid to hit the ground running.  The morning administrivia (emails and such) typically takes a few minutes or up to several hours if we have any type of company compliance testing to complete.  Remote/phone fixes are usually quick, rarely taking more than a 1/2 hour.  If I actually have to leave the house to run a service call, round trip travel in my area only can be a significant part of the day if I have multiple calls plus the repair time on site.  I would say that a typical "real" work week is about 20 hours or so.  There are days I have had 5-6 onsite service calls and then there are days like yesterday, where I did my few minutes of morning administrivia and some additional time looking at emails throughout the day, no services calls at all.  Real work time- about 10 minutes, hanging out on the internet and enjoying time with my dogs-7 hours 50 minutes.  That's what I like about my job.  I never know what the day is going to bring, sometimes it's exciting, sometimes it's boring.  I have a comfortable home office where I have other distractions, like my ham "shack" if I get bored waiting to do real work.

Four weeks PTO-personal time off-to cover vacations/sick days.  As I almost never get sick. it's all vacation.  I also get the standard state paid holidays off as the gov't offices are closed then I have nothing to do.

[IanJ]

Location: Scotland
Contractor (using own Ltd. company)

Normal start of work time:  6.45  AM
Normal end of work   time:  4.00  PM

Estimation of time of small (coffee breaks) (paid): 0.25 hours
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid ): 0.5 hours

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 9 hours 15mins
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8 hours 45mins

Am paid a daily rate, I just have to do my hours for the week. Usually means I can leave early on a Friday.

Just had first 2 weeks off in one stretch for over 15 years......I usually just take a week twice a year.

[Phaedrus]

Location: Southern California

Employed

Normal start of work time: 8:30  AM
Normal end of work   time: 5:30  PM

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (paid): 30m
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid): 1hr

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): 8-9hr
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8hr

Rarely I'll get 1-2hrs of overtime paid at 1.5x the normal rate.

[nctnico]

We work too long in general I think. 35 hours/week is more than enough, and we should be looking to move down to 30.

And you want to move to Japan? 

On topic: When employed: usually 8:30 to 17:00 with 24 to 30 days of paid holidays.
Nowadays I'm self employed and I work when I have projects. Otherwise I'd be tinkering with electronics anyway...

[hans]

Location (country or continent):  Netherlands / North region

Employed or own business: Employed; small firm with large market share in their sector; acquired by international firm

Normal start of work time: 8.00  AM
Normal end of work   time: 5.30  PM

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid): 1hour
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid) 0.5hour

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): 9.5
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8

This is about average where I work. We take long (coffee) breaks; 2x 0,5 hour a day. By tradition we have a coffee break gathering in the canteen, which is quite unusual for offices I guess.
I will often skip breaks in terms of sitting still, unless there is an interesting discussion going on.

We do have some large variation and also a large degree of part-timers IMO. Some have a bachelor/masters study, some have their own private business to worry about and some people have so many vacation hours left from peak seasons they are working 1 day/week less in low seasons (extended periods).

The office is also open on saturdays for support/service, and some minor works. I am usually not in at saturdays; unless I want to get some stuff done and don't want to be interrupted that much (I would typically trade a day in that case)

[ablacon64]

Location: Brazil

Business: Electronic repair

Self-employed

Work Days: Sunday to Sunday (yep, sort of...)

Normal start of work time: ~ 09:00 AM
Normal end of work time: N/A (I usually go until my eyes and head get tired)

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks: 15 minutes 2 times a day  (unpaid)
Lunch time: 15 minutes to half an hour (also unpaid, of course)

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day: I work at home, so I'm always in.
Paid working time in hours a day: Depends on demand.

Vacations: what's that? Does it hurt?

The law here says:
- you don't work, you don't eat.
- 4 hours off between work end and work start time is enough if the wallet is empty.

I'm always doing something.  Sometimes I spend a whole week without new equipments to fix, when that happens I fix old equipment  or salvage components from old boards for selling.

[Strada916]

Location: Western Australia.
Employed. By multinational company in mining.
Job title: underground Geological technician. FIFO 8 day on 6 days off alternating day/night shift.

Normal start time: 05:30
Normal end of work 18:00 vise versa on night shift.
1hour total break time paid (on salary) (enforce by law but not everyone takes it.)
18.75 rostered days on. holidays(paid)
8 days sick leave (paid)
Plus any government allowed days off for things like bereavement.
No public holidays (bank days)ie Christmas, Easter. New years. Yes the mine doesn't stop for those.
FIFO = fly in fly out, paid for by employer.

If you want to know more feel free to message me.

[MasterBuilder]

Location (country or continent):  Ireland
Automation
Controls Engineering

Employed
Salary

Normal start of work time: 8 AM
Normal end of work   time: 5  PM 

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (or paid) 15 mins
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid) 30 mins

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): 8.75
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8
average productive working time per day  5 or 6

Holidays: Western European norm.
Occasionally work some longer days about once or twice a month to finish projects, etc. average working week winds up about 42Hrs

Others work longer hours in an effort to make a good impression, this is what Id call "a mugs game".
Cant understand why any salaried employee works more than 45 hours per week, every week.  I would seriously be questioning my chosen employment and profession if this was me.

[VK3DRB]

Location: Australia
Employed. 

Normal start of work time:  8.30  AM 
Normal end of work   time:  7.30  PM

Estimation of time of small (coffee breaks) (paid): 0 hours
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid ): 1.0 hours

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day : 11.0 hours
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 7.5 hours

Weekend work: Occasionally (unpaid, but time off in lieu sometimes)

Long hours is not unusual for Australian electronics engineers, especially by those addicted to electronics. Few, if any electronics engineers in Australia are in unions. I know a large company where the technicians are unionised and as a result they earn a lot more income than the engineers who are not unionised.

In Australia, we typically get 4 weeks annual leave per year. I once worked for a place that did not honour the annual leave entitlements. They were even paying out engineers and programmers cash in lieu of them taking leave. I could only get about 6 weeks leave total in the 5 years I was there. The root cause was the PRIVATE EQUITY company who bought the place and incurred a $250 million debt the employees in effect had to repay.

[marshallh]

All of them

[RobertHolcombe]

Location: Australia

Employed

Normal start of work time: 8.00  AM
Normal end of work time: 4.30  PM

Lunch or dinner time (unpaid) 0.5 hours

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): 8.5
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8

[nihilism]

Location (country or continent): Australia (not Austria)

Employed

Normal start of work time: 7.30  AM
Normal end of work   time: 4.30  PM

Estimation of time of small coffee breaks (unpaid or paid*)
Lunch or dinner time (unpaid) 30 min

Total working time spent in the office in hours a day (this includes the paid time above): 8.5
Paid working time in hours a day (hours in your contract): 8