sounds like a good gig, esp the day off with pay ever 4 weeks

I'm a lowly civil servant

as long as you (semi?) enjoy what you do (as opposed to hating it), have good hours, paid OT and a day off every 4 weeks life seems ok... hoping so!

I do really enjoy my job. It's interesting, there are a great bunch of people I work with and my employers are really supportive of my wanting to learn new stuff. I'm really lucky.

sounds like a dream, can't ask for more than that! what do you do exactly?

I'm a medical secretary at Royal Perth Hospital. I work for he HOD and 3 other consultants as well as taking care of the junior doctors. We're getting a new professor next week - just in time for me to go on 5 weeks leave - so I'll be dumping 1 of my consultants when I get back so I can take on the Prof's work. I'm looking forward to working with him, as he's really into research.

My consultants are really varied in their work. 1 is an electrophysiologist (pacemakers and implantable devices and the electrical workings of the heart) and he others are interventionalists (angiogram/plasty, closure of "holes in hearts", etc). They're great teachers, and really encourage me to learn as much as I can from them.

It's really different to what I did before we came to Australia. Back home I was an ophthalmic technician working in private practice. Here I have very little patient contact and don't do anything even remotely medical. It's kind of nice to have a different kind of responsibility And seeing how my skills are not recognised here I guess doing something I knew how to do anyway was a good place to go. What do you do?

I work international FIFO and also spend a chunk of the year in the Perth office. When on site i do 5 weeks on working from about 5:30am to 5:30 pm seven days a week followed by 3 weeks off. When based in Perth i do 8am to 4 or 5 pm

I did 8-4 (more like 8-6) for a year recently, couldn't wait to get back to my "real" job. I can't cope with the regular hours thing, just doesn't suit me. So now I'm back on three 12 hour shifts a week, more sometimes when we have a disaster running, or when there is sick leave to cover. 24/7 shift pattern so all shifts are 6.30-18.30 or 18.30-6.30 and its just heavenly, especially if I get a whole run of night shifts. I really struggle to sleep at night so day shifts are agony, but put me on a few nights, when I can sleep through the nasty daylight period and I'm a happy old witch

Why anyone would prefer a standard 5 day week beats me - the way this works its not unusual to get a week off every 2 months without using up any actual leave at all. Admittedly when the world is ending and there's a Cat 5 cyclone heading for north Queensland things get a little fraught and the world outside the office ceases to exist for weeks at a time, but that's part of the "fun"

I vaguely recall 8.30 - 4.51 being the prescribed hours for my one time "proper" job but I doubt there ever was a week where only those hours were worked! After that in my "retirement" job a certain number of hours ow were specified but it was agreed that they could be worked at any time to meet the needs of the organisation and me with total flexibility (really lucky!)

Dorothy sounds interesting. I did a short stint, nearly a year, of working as an EA to a Director of Haematology in a hospital in Perth. It was interesting but oh those words!!! I'm currently still an Executive Assistant plus a bit more responsible for work allocation of admin staff. Just a contract job but I do love a good exit door and that one is leading to Perth!

Quoll sounds brilliant role

MP I have done shift work before however being a control freak I and an EA I have to have structure and planning.... I know, sad!

I do 930 to 5.

My OH has 40 hours per week plus whatever hours extra he needs to get the job done. Last night he got home at 11pm, having left at 7.30 am. This is not unusual- he has to go in at weekends quite often, and sometimes take conference calls at 2am!!! That is one of the problems of working with an international company run by Americans.

Any job I have ever had that was worth a pinch generally involved doing whatever it took to do the job and I was payed from well to very well and mostly were well to high in the satisfaction stakes. , the ones where hours were regulated 9-5 etc (and I never had many of those) were often ordinary in job satisfaction--and pay.

Spot on

Yes, but when the extra demands, (sometimes for overnight work at a weekend,) get in the way of family life, even though the pay is good, you do get a little fed up.

At least the office pays for a meal if he has to stay past 8pm, and a taxi home if it is past midnight.