100 hours a week? What job do you do?
Sales engineer for a national security firm. Looked after Rolls Royce military, RAF camps, Nuclear facilities.
We had a design team, but the jobs I worked on were too important so I'd often spend just as long checking and changing their work that it was quicker to design it all up myself from scratch, especially as i was the one who surveyed the place.
I couldn't afford any time to remedy mishaps or design mistakes once the installation team began on site. Often I would end up project managing the job too, telling engineers how it should be done, chairing site meetings and even chasing outstanding monies from customers and then ensuring subcontractors and suppliers were paid on time.
Unfortunately national companies have a lot of useless twats, who dont help and just use red tape and company politics to avoid doing any work.
One morning I rang a project engineer from site for a quick answer to a query, left a voice mail. Then I rang his secretary who said he was "outside the office at the sandwich van" then I left another missed called 15 minutes later. I needed him to source me an answer from our estimating software.
I rang again and again. Then called his secretary again and she told him I needed to speak to him. He shouted back "It's nearly noon so Im on my lunch hour." I told her that I needed one simple question answering - he said "Too busy, ring at 1pm"
I apologised to the client, said I'd be back in about an hour.
I jumped into my car, drove the 20 miles from Derby back to the office, handbraked right outside the front door - walked into the engineering office and shouted at the top of my voice "Your a fat useless lazy f***ing prick and if you want to step outside after 5pm I will knock you the eff out" - the whole office gasped lol.
"You cant talk to me like that!! Im ringing HR" - i replied "your on your effing break you useless tw*t , which I add the company does not pay you for."
The General manager came in, who to be honest always sided with me and took me outside to cool off. I told him that it was getting too much, that im normally professional - but these jokers roll in at 8.30am and I'd been in the office since 6.30am and weren't leaving until 6.30pm without a lunch break - and going home and working, even had my own key to play catch-up on a Saturday and then I'd be taking clients to football or paintballing on a Sunday and effectively was working round the clock 7 days a week.
I think if i was doing the same hours but stacking shelves, i'd have not been too far behind from earning what I did.
Behind every workaholic, there are a string of broken marriages, kids who hate their father - and maybe a big 7-series BMW driven by a guy who looks much older than his true age.
Simply not worth it if the home/work balance is swung the wrong way.
PS- all the useless tw*ts are still there, doing the bare minimum, taking their breaks and letting everyone else take the workload. They get away with it because it's a national company.
