Most of Us Don’t Work More Than 40 Hours a Week

Back when I worked in an office, it seemed like standard practice to claim long working hours. I was always pretty skeptical about that. When I came into the office an hour early, it was a morgue. If I left an hour late, it was a morgue. There just weren’t many people working substantially more than eight hours a day.

Today I ran across an old article on Quartz that confirmed my skepticism. Apparently people routinely exaggerate the number of hours they work:

So if someone says they work 50 hours a week, it’s probably more like 45. And that makes sense to me. I rarely saw people working an extra two hours per day for a full week, but an extra hour? Sure, maybe.

So are people just mistaken about their work hours, or are they lying? My guess is that it’s mostly just misperception. If you’re tired and eager to get home, even an extra half hour can feel like you’re really putting your shoulder to the grindstone. Half an hour at both ends—especially if it means fussing around with childcare and eating schedules—can seem like an ordeal. So it feels like a lot of hours, even if it’s really not that much.

Now, I’m not talking here about the freaks in Silicon Valley or Wall Street with cots in their offices. I just mean ordinary folks. Most of us probably don’t work as much as we think.

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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