How Many Work Hours Per Week?

How many hours per week do people in the science, technology, and engineering fields work?

• I'm interested in knowing more about how much people in STEM (including software engineers) work around different parts of the world - specifically USA, Canada and Western Europe. I expect there is a large degree of variability, so I would appreciate specific examples. Please specify your location (country) and specifics if possible. Pretty much any kind of information that paints a realistic picture of a daily life. Grad students' comments are also welcome. Long version What kind of schedules do those of you who work in scientific research (either in academia or industry) and  technology/engineering have? How does your typical day look? I often get the impression (from various web sources) that - especially in the US - people are expected to clock 10+ hours of work a day as a norm and pretty much live for their career. How accurate is this idea and what are the main variables affecting it (academia vs industry, non-profits, highly competitive research environments etc.)? Some questions in no particular order, to demonstrate what kind of info I'd be grateful for: what time do you typically get into office, what time do you leave? how often are you expected to work overtime and/or weekends? do you get any paid leave that you can use? How much? What about unpaid leave? Can you, say, decide to go travelling for 2-3 weeks in the summer (either paid or unpaid)? If you get sick, what happens? I assume most people have some kind of insurance, but let's say you catch pneumonia, can't go to work for 2 weeks and have to spend some time in the hospital. What happens? Do you feel you have enough room to grow as a person outside the boundaries of your career? Do you have time to pursue your hobbies (be it rock climbing or reading literature, or roughly following another academic field you're interested in), socialize, spend time with family, get educated about things that are not related to your work etc. In other words, do you feel like a relatively free human being who can pursue secondary interests that do not necessarily lead to career success or monetary gain? I'm aware some of these questions are very broad, but any insight is appreciated.

• Answer:

  I'm a sixth year grad student in physical chemistry in the US, so I've been in contact with the academic side of STEM work for awhile. Academic work is often very flexible, but it tends to be demanding. I work on average something like 50 hours per week but with large variability. There have been lulls where various other things (for instance, job searching lately) have taken a lot of time and I was working only 20-30 hours a week. I have also worked 90-hour weeks here and there when there was a big push to, e.g., produce figures for a boss's conference talk or ship a grant proposal. On campus, I often get errands done in the morning and thus don't come in until late (10 or 11 am) but am often working until 7-9 pm. I eat lunch at my desk almost without exception. This schedule, usually with a shift to earlier hours (9-6 is most typical), is typical of a grad student or postdoc in my lab. On Wednesdays, I work a square 8:30 am - 5 pm day at a national lab with 45 minutes off for lunch but with a long commute on a shuttle service. I currently try to take weekends completely. It can vary a lot. In my old lab, the pressure was higher, and 50 hours a week was at the low end of the envelope. More typical was 60-70 hours a week, including at least one weekend day per week. My abusive boss would sometimes go around and harass everyone if he thought we weren't putting in enough hours, e.g. if he came in one night at 11 pm and found the lab empty or similarly if he came in some morning at 8 am and found the place similarly deserted. He'd also pressure us to work at the transmission electron microscope between 10 pm and 4 am because that was when it was billed at the lowest rates. My labmates put in quite a few hours on the TEM in the wee hours. I put some in too. I've heard of labs, particularly in labor-intensive fields like organic chemistry, electrical engineering, and applied physics, that keep regular, brutal hours. 8 am until late evening, Sunday through Friday, were the official hours of one organic synthesis lab I know of. That's over 70 hours a week of required face time. One of my current bosses, a tenured professor, comes in very late, often past noon, to avoid traffic on his very long commute. But he often works until 11 pm or midnight and will get into email conversations over weekends. My other boss, at the national lab, comes in around 9 am and works until after I leave on the shuttle, around 5-6 pm I think. But he works very, very quickly. He can hack out a Fortran physics code in about a tenth of the time it takes me, though my code quality is a lot higher. My dad is toward the end of his career as an R&D engineer/simulation developer in the oil and gas sector. Back when he was still employed full-time, he worked typically 10-7, Monday through Friday. These hours, as a Ph.D. corporate STEM person, always struck me as rather nicer than my mom's non-STEM corporate hours. Her days typically started at 8 am and often would still go into the evening. In the US, workers typically get 2-3 weeks off per year (almost uniformly 2 weeks for junior private sector people). Grad students can often get away taking significantly more vacation, say 4-5 weeks, especially since visa issues (e.g. for Chinese students, who can get stuck out of country for over a month at a time) skew the expectations. As a long sleeper and lover of tranquil routines and hobbies, I limit myself to two weeks per year to try and offset a slightly more leisurely routine. Also, it helps your boss feel more understanding when you do need extra time off. I shattered my shoulder socket this past summer, requiring major surgery to correct, and was pretty useless for at least 3-4 weeks afterwards. While my bosses got a bit impatient, they did give me enough leeway to heal and get back up to speed. Hobbies are what you make of your free time. There are all sorts of things that I love doing and have meaningfully engaged with - playing violin in an orchestra, birdwatching, building bicycles, long bike rides, home improvement, the list goes on. Even in my old lab. You just can't do it all at the same time. It is only in the most grindingly slavedriving STEM jobs that you literally won't be able to do things to thrive as a person. But social activity, family time, and hobby time will all compete for your hours off, and you'll have to prioritize. It can be a good life. Hope this helps.