Sunlover

Very astute observation Herman

It's a case of "work must be seen to be done" rather than actually being done.

Ergo - you can mess around all day chatting to your mates on the phone, popping out to the shops, going to the pub etc. etc. but if you are in the office until 9pm you're a real champ.

It is pretty infuriating if you genuinely do work hard, particularly since you land up picking up the slack for all your colleagues who are the doing the opposite.

WBB

if you cant beat em join em.

Sunlover

Not if you want some job satisfaction and believe in earning your salary.

WBB

i agree with you, but i would not carry any lazy co workers, there are no medals given out!

:lecture:

scutterUK

i must admit it's getting a lot like that where i work now. Everyone keeps looking at websites or making plans to emmigrate to australia..... no ... hang on... that's just me. It looks like everyone else is working hard. guess i'm getting in to the aus way of working early!!

Herman

In my role it was not a matter of 'carrying' others, it was more a matter of trying to get my colleagues to work between the hours of 10am and 4 pm rather than at 7.30am and 9.30pm just to impress the bosses. Also it gets quite annoying when routinely your true blue Aussie boss is at long lunches with his 'mates' at the "gentlemens' club" until 6pm and comes in half pissed and starts making demands, listing what we need to achieve by the morning etc etc. Dont get me wrong, you get used to it, its often a laugh and some of sporting jollies are excellent, but it was quite a shock coming back to my team in London. Where were all the loud social chit chats, where was the rugby ball smacking me in the back of the head every half hour, where was all the noise and laughter, joke telling and ball games, what were all these quiet British people doing. Oh, I see, working, how very odd......

Kentish Man

What's wrong with a bit of slacking at work? Let the suckers work long and hard before giving themselves a heart attack at 50. I reckon more slacking, less stress and let's get away from this god-awful live to work rather than work to live culture. There are more important things in life than working your arse off!

jandjuk

I think it's more of a case of the job you're in rather than the country.

I can't speak of Australia, but in my experience the reverse of what you say is true when comparing UK and NZ. In NZ people worked hard all day and if it required you to stay a bit later then so be it...

In UK (from my experience) results in the workplace happen more slowly because everyone's off for lunch at 12.30 and out the door at 5pm - even if they're in the middle of something. Wouldn't it just be more efficient to finish what you're doing first?

Like I say, it's possibly more to do with workplace - but just showing the other side....

markeh

Welshboybilly,
I'm with you on this one.

Bye
Markeh

WBB

your round then

Pollyana

I agree with jandjuk - I am fed up with working with a crowd of people who drop everything cos its "home time". and some of them start packing up 2 hours before the end of the shift - "oh, its not worth starting that now...."We all do it sometimes, I'm sure, but this is a daily thing. I sometimes wonder if I am the only one with a conscience. Sometimes my job involves life/death situations (not medical) - yet people want money to work the extra half hour.
Plus, I think my colleagues have shares in a rubber band factory. I am so SICK of getting hit on the ear by stray ammunition.

Pollyana

dracupg

I can only speak from my limited experience of the one job I have had in Sydney since April this year working in IT for a financial company, but my observations are as follows:-

1. Job very geared to delivery. Pay/bonuses etc strictly tied to objectives met. No excuses accepted for not delivering.
2. Pay review and promotions are very tightly coupled to delivery, and non delivery results in poor performance reviews and eventually to retrenchment.
3. 10 hour working day is the accepted norm, even though contract of employment 37.5. In general it is necessary to work longer hours in order to meet targets and deadlines.
4. Absence from work dues to sickness/personal emergencies etc is closely monitored against an acceptable benchmark. Poor attendance will directly affect pay, bonuses and promotion prospects.

The weekends are good though!

dlendl

And pay can't compare to the EU, sick leave, annual leave, etc.
Yes, u can stay on work longer once, twice, but after that number of us will try to find better working conditions, new employer...

jandjuk

I think working longer probably stems from the relatively recent colonial days of NZ/Aus.

It wasn't as if the early settlers could knock off at 5 - they had to keep going and finish building that school/chopping wood/fighting the natives.

It's a different lifestyle to that of the UK where the amount of leisure time you have directly relates to your status in life. People do not make that connection in Aus/NZ.

Plus antipodeans have to work that bit harder to make up for their disadvantages (isolation) and to compete with those in Europe and America. Aus/Nz are also more part of East Asia, where longer working hours are the norm.

Still got quite a long way to match the Japanese however!

Sunlover

The thing is, they DON'T actually work harder here - they just STAY in the office longer, as Herman has said, "to impress the boss."

If you leave earlier, even though you have worked your butt off all day and they haven't, you are branded a slacker. I have always worked long hours when I've needed to and have NEVER been the type to leave just because it's 5.30pm, but now because of being on a 457 visa and being dependent on my job until we get our PR visas, I feel that I have to conform to the office culture and am usually here late into the evening.

I remember the boss turning up after a client dinner one night at about 10pm and hanging around until 2am. Do you know every last one of us sat there until 2am ?

It's pathetic really - Aussies have such a great need for approval from authority figures and absolutely no inclination to challenge the system.