johninnit

Unfortunately I don’t have enough clear space on my messy desk for yoga, but otherwise happy to know that I work in a state of 80% Zen as regards my employer’s attitude to work / life balance (albeit with a 20% tendency to working 8 days a week).

You can find out your own workplace style at the Work Your Proper Hours Day site (and put yourself on a neat-o google map mashup for a prize). Yes – it’s that time of year again. If you add up all the unpaid overtime people do in the UK, the average long hours worker works for free until this Friday – 22nd February. (more…)

Woke up with a cold this morning, and thought “wouldn’t it be nice to have a bank holiday today and get up a bit later?”. Fat chance though with our miserly quota of public days off, and a dreary 16 week run without hols between August and Xmas.

The Bank of England used to recognise more than 30 holidays and saints’ days, which were whittled back to a miserly four in 1834 (a bad thing). These were then increased to six (in practice) in 1871, when the cricket-mad Liberal MP John Lubbock introduced the Bank Holidays Act to include two traditional village cricketing days, but we then had to wait over 100 years for another day off, with the last two coming in the 70’s as a result of union campaigning.

But that’s still nearly 20 years ago, I reckon another couple are very much deserved. Especially so as in the Euro holiday league tables, we’re right at the bottom, and probably about to be relegated – The average European enjoys three more public holidays. (more…)

Ah.. it all makes sense now:

Of the 27 members of David Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet, 12 have outside jobs with 32 directorships between them. The 120 members of the shadow government team hold 115 paid directorships or other outside posts between them. This means they rake in thousands on top of their £60,675-a-year MP salaries. Daily Mirror 15/08/07

This must be why John Redwood and George Osborne are so keen to bin the Working Time Directive. Poor things, they need all the hours they can get in the day to hold down all their other jobs.

An interesting argument I’d not considered before. Maybe the millions who would lose holidays under Redwood’s plans (down from already the shortest statutory paid holidays in Europe) should just stop worrying and get a few directorships instead?

Okay. 5.48pm, so only a few minutes late, I can live with that in terms of working my proper hours.

If you’re still in the office, what are you up to, you fool? Knock it on the head now – Flee whilst you still can!

**With the important caveat that if you’re just reading blogs in the office, you’re hardly working**

Anyway, now it’s time for that pint…

I’m normally very good at minding my hours, so shall make a point of being down the pub on time this Friday for Work Your Proper Hours Day.

I tried this quiz for myself as I am now, and again as I was in my last job, where I did do some silly hours (and ended up giving myself RSI, which wasn’t very clever). I’m currently a “Chaos Theorist” (in other words, when I do unpaid overtime it’s often my own fault for being disorganised), but that’s a big improvement on my previous life as a wretched “Desk Junkie”.

Have a go, and see who you are and what problems you need to fix. It gives you some quite good advice on where you’re going wrong and what you need to tackle about it.

There are loads of different reasons for overworking, which combine to make a pretty whopping £23bn of free overtime done in the UK every year. Don’t make yourself one of the thousands who suffer every year from stress, broken relationships, work related illnesses, or even just a miserable social life. Even the best job in the world shouldn’t take up your life to the exclusion of everything else. See you in the pub 5:30 sharp on Friday!

Yet more union puppies. A very nice game for Work Your Proper Hours Day by the extremely clever WillFlashForCash.com – can you beat my score of 8:04?

Yes, it’s that time of year again! Now I have a very understanding employer and though I do have to put in a lot of hours at some points in the year, I manage to manage them pretty well overall (still committed to what I do, but not the workaholic I used to be!), but I’m still going to be using Work Your Proper Hours Day (Friday 24 Feb 2006) to try and persuade my boss to come down the pub at 5.30 and buy us all a pint – Good luck getting yours to do the same!

More doggy nonsense from the very talented Eclectech and Doghorse. This one isn’t at all suitable if you’re sensitive to bad puns!

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A cute new flash animation from Doghorse and Eclectech – No puppies were harmed in the making of this piece (I hope). It’s a cruel world where even the Andrex puppy can’t go to the loo!

Update 29 Sep 05: And another, this one for the bookies’ union, Community. Probably not very relevant if you don’t work at Ladbrookes, but funny nonetheless.

Fancy a new holiday?

Labour MP Claire Ward has a 10 minute rule bill lined up for debate on Friday (18 March). She’s proposing an extra bank holiday (in the middle of the 16 week no-holiday slog between summer & Xmas).

Let’s drum up a bit of support for it. Please take a moment to ask your MP to vote for the bill. You can do it online now at the excellent www.writetothem.com

10 min rule bills are an odd bit of parliamentese private member nonsense, which hardly ever make it all the way, but it might do it, and if not and it gets a good showing, it will be seen as an indication of the popularity for another holiday or 2, and this would make it more likely to come back again in official Government legislation.

more info and hassle your MP at: http://www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/tuc-9546-f0.cfm