What is it like working a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 office job?

N918KT

N918KT

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I will admit that I only worked in an office of a cargo terminal at a major airport when I was in college. After that, my job is mostly shift work with a mix of night shifts and day shifts during the week. But I always wondered what is it like to work in an office building, in a cubicle, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday being an average Joe.

Is working in an office by any means interesting or boring? What is the experience like? Would you work in an office job again if given the chance?
 
Old Geek said:
It sucks and that's why most of us don't.
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That describes me. I had a job in an office building with a cubicle for several years. Of course, I never spent much time in the cubicle. Fortunately, I had a support job and I was able to do a lot of my work by walking around to see who I could help. And I spent a lot of time at the coffee pot.

But it still sucked and was a huge part of why I decided to start my own business.
 
I have an office in a building where many people work 9-5. Meanwhile, I'm flitting about to airports around the world working my particular brand of consulting voodoo. I love it. Occasionally I am there for a week or so at a time, and I like being around my colleagues. We have challenging problems to solve, and I like being in a room with 5 of the smartest people I know solving the hardest problem I know.

That said, after a week or so I'm itching to get back on the road.
 
It's like being a human hourglass.

Every peek out of the window, or around the corner of th cubicle, you can feel another grain of sand drop into the pit of your stomach. *plink*

Every conference call, every meeting, every banal joke exchanged at the water cooler that you laugh the precisely mandated and accepted length at. *plink*

It is like being stranded on a desert island. Nothing but an endless stretch of hours before you to ponder all of the dreams that have passed you by. *plink*

15 years and counting for me since my last 9-5. I ran away screaming and hope to never return. Pity the rubes in their abercrombie, driving their C-classes, habitually checking their 401k balances, hoping to live to age 65, cash out, and "start living" some watered-down dream.
 
N918KT said:
I will admit that I only worked in an office of a cargo terminal at a major airport when I was in college. After that, my job is mostly shift work with a mix of night shifts and day shifts during the week. But I always wondered what is it like to work in an office building, in a cubicle, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday being an average Joe.

Is working in an office by any means interesting or boring? What is the experience like? Would you work in an office job again if given the chance?
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I do work in an office job. One that gives me the flexibility to vary my day, visit different sites, and get my nose into things that are of interest to me, rather than necessarily being assigned by the guy I work for.

Ain't bad. Given that I have a wife, a kid, and a couple of dogs, the fact that I don't travel out of town on a frequent basis is a plus.
 
kyleb said:
I do work in an office job. One that gives me the flexibility to vary my day, visit different sites, and get my nose into things that are of interest to me, rather than necessarily being assigned by the guy I work for.

Ain't bad. Given that I have a wife, a kid, and a couple of dogs, the fact that I don't travel out of town on a frequent basis is a plus.
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I guess somebody has to do it. Thank you for being one of those guys.
 
N918KT said:
I will admit that I only worked in an office of a cargo terminal at a major airport when I was in college. After that, my job is mostly shift work with a mix of night shifts and day shifts during the week. But I always wondered what is it like to work in an office building, in a cubicle, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday being an average Joe.

Is working in an office by any means interesting or boring? What is the experience like? Would you work in an office job again if given the chance?
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As a 9 to 5 office worker (even though we don't have set shifts) I'll say it depends on the work. If I hated what I was doing it would be miserable. I have a job I enjoy creating softtware and simulations for spacecraft and aircraft and look forward to work most of the time. There are a few long meetings and pointless corporate things but it's not overwhelming.
 
It's what you make of it. And it pays well and consistently.
I don't love it but I don't dislike either
 
JOhnH said:
I guess somebody has to do it. Thank you for being one of those guys.
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Glad you approve. Somehow, designing the facilities and equipment that help put thousands of people to work is pretty rewarding...
 
I prefer the 8-5 M-F. I know where I have to be and for how long. I always know my night and weekends are free barring an emergency, which is rare.

I haven't worked a night or weekend shift since 1993 and I am glad for that.
 
"Naga ... nagadaaa... not going to work here anymore!"


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I tend to work 6-6 but wouldn't trade it for the world. I set my day as I desire as long as work is done on time and go in the office once or twice a month. Not too shabby.
 
When I did my internship at the local major airport I enjoyed the 8-5 work. I spent most of my time on projects and/or going to meetings. I guess I'm a odd in the fact that I enjoyed the meetings and often tried to contribute.
 
EdFred said:
I prefer the 8-5 M-F. I know where I have to be and for how long. I always know my night and weekends are free barring an emergency, which is rare.

I haven't worked a night or weekend shift since 1993 and I am glad for that.
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Standard work day is eight hours plus lunch, so like Ed said, more like 8 to 5. I typically work 8 - 5:30, plus the occasional evening software release or Sunday morning server update. It's monotonous being in the same place all the time, but if you have a family, it's very helpful to have a schedule. I take one daughter to the bus stop in the morning, and pick one or both up from their activities in the evenings. Guys with travel jobs leave all that to their wives, and miss out on a lot of child rearing,
 
What's this 9-5 nonsense?
I work 9-6. That's 8 hours of work with 1 hour off for lunch. No, they don't pay me for lunch hour. At least I've got a private office... no windows since it's in the center of a building where the first 2 floors are semi underground... would be a safe location if a tornado hits.
 
The grass is greener I guess; wouldn't I love (after working all day long) to have nights, weekends, holidays free!!!!!!!
Attend family birthdays, anniversaries, dinners, parties, events withOUT constantly having to check messages (no pager service no answering service here) or worry about what happens if I have one beer, or if I am more than 20 minutes away from being needed in a 'crisis'! Give Me That 8 to 5! Give me a cubicle! Tidy clean clothes and no fear of being disgustingly filthy at any moment. Or grievously injured. I could do paperwork! I could take conference calls! YES YES YES!!! Clear cold water from the water cooler! Pastries every morning and someone making fresh coffee every morning, ahh. Pull outta that parking lot at 5 and you are a Free Man! Your time is Yours! Turn the damned phone OFF!

hmm I think I need a holiday.
 
The nature of your work might be interesting, or not. Whether or not you do that work from a cubicle or some other location is not necessarily relevant.

Kevin (and I mean this in the nicest way) you spend far too much time thinking and worrying about inane things.
 
Boo hoo.

When the planters or the combines are running we work 5 to 9

5a.m to 9p.m. that is .... :crazy:
 
After selling my first business, I worked a predictable office job from 1994 to 1997. Weekends and holidays off. It was wonderful, in that regard -- but I almost went insane from boredom. I then opened my second business.

I'm now on my fourth business. Right now, I'm still working. It's 10:30 PM. I started at noon, cutting down a cluster of 12' tall spanish daggers that were threatening to kill our guests. I will be on duty until 2 AM here at the hotel. It's a long day, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.
:)
 
The alarm goes off at 5:30
Hit snooz until about 6:00
Shower
Grab a nutri grain bar
Hug my sleeping kids
Get in my car and drive Waze tells me the best route 45 min average commute
Listen to NPR, MSNBC, Russ Martin, Slayer

I am usually the first one in a little after 7
Get to my desk, check the news, check POA
Make the coffee

Start scheduling meetings for my team
Idle chat w/ people coming in the office
Already people are talking about where we should go grab lunch

Run some financial reports
2-3 min here and there for POA facebook (probably never more than 40 min total on the internet in a given day.)

Start leading meetings with developers.
Get the technical teams in with the business and discuss how we can build a project that I am actually pretty passionate about. They have trusted me w/. a 6 million dollar project after only 2 months of being here and I am loving it. My team kicks major butt

In the meetings, I leave with a list of action items (problems to solve)
This means going around and talking to a LOT of different people and learning what their strengths are and helping them and getting information from them. I enjoy that part.

Lunch! Las Colinas is a Mecca for restaurants.

Return, Status update for the boss, She loves me and smiles a lot and laughs at my dumb jokes and says "keep doin what you are doin and let me know if you get stuck"

Back to my desk to send out any communications to the team and find out what information they have gotten.

Compile all of that informaiton into an agenda for tomorrow's technical meeting

Couple more meetings here and there

Back to my desk to wrap up for the day

Commute home is about an hour.
I tend to leave around 4 and get home around 5

Every evening is something. BBQ, Fly, Visit my parents, Take the kids to dinner, karate, basketball, swim, etc

Put the kids in bed

Log on from home before bed (now) make sure things are running, and make sure any emails are answered and make sure I am prepared for tomorrow.

That is a day in the life. Sounds boring. On paper it is but I interact daily with such a vast array of characters that it is fun. I like my project, I like most of the people I work with and the ones I don't like are so weird and quirky that the people watching / train wreck factor is fun too.

I dont love it but it is not bad at all.
 
I guess it depends on the person. I tried it. It didn't work for me.

In my opinion, the most annoying thing about it is office politics. I so studiously avoided office politics that I usually wasn't even aware of it, which made for more than a few gaffs -- such as storming into the boss's office to complain about the "moron" he just hired, without knowing that he was the boss's son. You know. That sort of thing.

Eventually I worked my way out of the office and into the field, which made everyone involved a lot happier.

Rich
 
8 to 5 when I was in the office. On the road? All depends on where I am and what the meetings are doing. Now that I'm retired from the 8 to 5 job it's whatever I feel like. At least when I'm not working for a client. Then it's up to whatever is needed to get the job done. Understanding that anything in excess of 8 hours in a day is double time. Saturdays and Sundays are double time, as well.

Anybody need some EMC consulting? Not until after July 8, we're off to Hawaii for a couple weeks early Wednesday morning. :D
 
Making a career out of the Air Force would be awesome....if I didn't have to do a non-aviation related desk job along with flying.

N918KT said:
Is working in an office by any means interesting or boring? What is the experience like? Would you work in an office job again if given the chance?
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Interesting? No not at all so you could say it is boring. It's kind of mindless work so it isn't at all hard but it keeps me busy so the day goes by pretty quick. Office is with a bunch of other pilots so we still get to talk airplanes while we work. Would I work in an office again? If it had something to do with airplanes/airports/aviation in general, yes.

The flying portion of the job is amazing and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
 
kyleb said:
Glad you approve. Somehow, designing the facilities and equipment that help put thousands of people to work is pretty rewarding...
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That. It depends on what you do. My day is typically 7-4:30, and we manufacture hermetic packaging for high reliability electronic applications.

I've designed and held in my hands parts that have flown on the shuttle, parts in the Hubble, parts on every Worldview and Geoeye bird, parts in other birds, vision systems in 130s, BUFFs, JSF, F-22, radar system TR parts in F-15, F-22, JSF, F/A-18, every SPY shipboard system, THAAD, supercooled camera parts in all of the Pan-STARRS and LSST telescope systems, parts in ARGUS-IS and Gorgon Stare, lots of other cool stuff over the years.

Most of our customers are tier 1 & 2 defense companies and medical companies.
 
It's not the physical environment, but the business culture, that makes or breaks an office job. I've worked here for 25 years and the tide ebbs and flows. It's the small things that will drive you up the wall. I'm 100% serious when I say that every employee once received an email that we (the company) were using too many staples. We'll have meetings about how we waste too much time. I haven't read Dilbert comics in more than a decade, but the early ones were spot-on. The last 10 years or so I come in at 7 a.m. and do what needs done and leave at 3:30. No one cares if you're a few minutes late or your lunch runs long. I've worked places where no one was treated like an adult, and that's not the case here.

Yesterday morning I needed a few hours off to help dad with something so I shot my boss a text and never gave it another thought. It's that flexibility that's worth more than anything to me.

There's not enough $ to get me to change jobs.

With that said, very few people hang around here past 60. Our 401 matches vary from 300%-500% annually, which is good because our pension plan bites. But the 401(k) lets almost everyone bail early with no worries at all.
 
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It sucks. I currently work in an office cubicle farm that is literally Office Space in real life. We even have TPS reports (a reporting system that we constantly pinged on called TPS...no kidding).

One of these days I going to bring a drill in to work and disassemble the cubicle wall so I can look out the window.
 
Depends on if you enjoy your job or not. If you don't, then you look forward to Friday and you dread coming back on Monday. Also, some like the planning aspect of having a set schedule.

I'll take my 7 on and 7 off any day over a Mon-Fri 9-5. A week off gives a perfect reset. Not that I really need one.
 
I work 8 to 5ish but my office is a sunroom off the back of the house. I come and go as needed but I do have to cover golives on weekends sometimes and I spend about 50% of my work day on the phone with customers so it has it's ups and downs. Like ost jobs it's what you do that matters.
 
I left the cube farm about 18 years ago and never looked back. I'm still a corporate slave, but working in outside sales. I work from home, set my own schedules, and get paid for performance. In an average year, I'll earn 50% more than the company planned on paying me. No way I could go back to the office.

Of course, there is a very fine line between "Working from Home" and "Living at the Office".
 
I ostensibly have a 9-5 job but I can pretty much come and go as I please, so it ends up being more like 6-4 unless something comes up. During a critical deadline, or overseas, it's whatever it takes, whenever it's due.
 
I've worked in the IT field, sitting in cubes, and staring at a computer all day, for 25 years and I hate it.

Tried to get out of it 10 years ago by quitting IT and becoming a real estate agent so I could run my own show, but the market crashed and I had to get back into IT.

I recently quit my last job, and went to work for another pre-IPO startup, but my plan is to only stay for one year and get over the vesting cliff. After that, and providing that my previous company's stock has appreciated a little more, I'm quitting IT and being a cube rat for good, and never looking back.

There is nothing about my career or past jobs I will look back on fondly. They were just jobs and paychecks...nothing more.
 
IT is quite a bit different than other fields. It tends to be more of a toxic environment regardless of the company you're at. There are a few companies where you enjoy yourself and the job is fun. But at most places you're simply a replaceable cog and treated as such. It wouldn't matter if you were working from home, from an awesome suite, or in a cube.

The U.S. government couldn't print enough money to get me to go back to IT.

It probably shouldn't surprise me much that the field of project management has exploded in the last 15 years or so. It tends to pay more than the hands-on programmers and analysts, which is odd considering that many PMs have never written a line of code. I've always thought the pay range should be about half of what it is.
 
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