Working Hours

[sooms]

Gents.

I would be interested to hear views on working hours on Sqns whilst in the UK. I work on a FJ Sqn in a non flying role where 10-12 Hr days are not uncommon, there is even a culture encouraged by some within the Sqn management that anyone who is not doing at least 10 hours a day is letting the side down. I accept that on Ops we work till the job gets done but I sometimes think we are running ourselves down for little reason other to achieve CFT while back in UK.
I am no stranger to hard work and do my 'bit' to the best of my ability and I am not advocating a 37.5 Hr working week, however several times I have nearly ditched the car driving home at 2am after a 60hr week. Has anyone else done the same?
It seems the worse off are often the Flt Cdrs who I have often heard commenting about not seeing their famillies at all during the week however in the 'fear culture' in which we exist in the modern RAF I suppose they daren't question it.

Basically- what will it take to change?- a couple of aircraft accidents, a few fatal car accidents, a kiddie run over on MQ's?

I would be interested to hear other peoples views

Please-sensible views only- No 'You're paid to work 24 Hrs a day so stop moaning' merchants as they are usually the ones who aren't doing 60hrs a week.

[Whirlygig]

Sadly, the "long hours" culture appears to be endemic amonst private industry as well - most companies in The City expect their employees to put in similar hours with the expectation that you "live to work, not work to live".

There are a few companies that are starting to realise that these long hours do not benefit the business in the ling run duw to staff stress, illness, tiredness and morale and are trying to change the culture.

This may filter down to the Forces in time since the "long hours" ethic seemed to have reached there later!

Cheers

Whirls

[vecvechookattack]

At the most South - westerly airfield we work a core working week. Effectively we have to work 34 Hours a week. We must work from Midday Monday until midday thursday and the times we work are entirelly upto us. Generally, with night flying etc I can achieve my CWW (core working week) by wednesday lunchtime. I.E. I normally start at 0800 on a monday and will work through until completion of night flying about 10.30pm at this time of year. Same goes for Tuesday - 0800-2230 which means that if I start again at 0800 on wednesday then Im all done my lunchtime. Sadly, it doesnt quite work out like that but it does mean that I can bigger off early on a wednesday and thursday so I will finish by 5 or 6 pm on those days. And of course, everyone knows that the FAA always finish at 1200 non a friday. In general, although the CWW is for 34 hours we generally end up doing ITRO 50 ish. As for seeing my family....well, The kids are in bed when I go to work on Monday but by Thursday evening I have generally done enough hours to get home to put them to bed so thats ok.

I know that our maintainers have a good system. they do a week of mornings, a week of afternoons and a week of slips (nights). So week 1 will be 0700 - 1300 each day. week 2 will be 1300 - O/C night flying week 3 will be 1900 - 0600.


Still, at least its better than being at sea. Being at 45 minutes notice for 6 months gets a bit wiery

[Ali Barber]

Midday Monday to Midday Thursday. 3 day working week! No wonder you're so happy with your lot!!

[FormerFlake]

From the DTI website:

The basic rights and protections that the Regulations provide are:

a limit of an average of 48 hours a week which a worker can be required to work (though workers can choose to work more if they want to).
a limit of an average of 8 hours work in 24 which nightworkers can be required to work.
a right for night workers to receive free health assessments.
a right to 11 hours rest a day.
a right to a day off each week.
a right to an in-work rest break if the working day is longer than 6 hours.
a right to 4 weeks paid leave per year.
The RAF is not exempt from these rules except during training and operations. Even then they are supposed to make up for any time off missed by training and ops etc. I don't see that happening!

If things continue I would not be suprised if people take legal action against the RAF/MOD. The government can only keep pushing so much. It's Armed Forces are giving over and above the call of duty yet all they get in return is a kick in the face.

[ShyTorque]

It can be bad outside, too. Finally quit my last civvy job due to 14, 15, & even 16 hr days occurring on an increasingly common basis, with less than 10 hrs between flying duty periods not being out of the question.

[Melchett01]

Sooms,

Unfortunately, I think this problem is something that we are all facing at the moment. I am in a similar position to yourself, namely 10-12 hr days whilst in the UK are not uncommon. Having totalled up what I did last week, it seems I had a quiet week only putting in around 48 hrs - although that was pretty rare.

Like you, I would not dream of doing the whole union-hours thing. I have a job to do and I will work as long as it takes to get it done. But you know that something has gone spectacularly wrong when you find that you do less work and find it generally less stressful being away on ops than being at home. That is a sentiment that was echoed by many of the engineers here to the new Staish when he arrived - apparently he was somewhat shocked that things had been allowed to get to the current state of affairs.

Unfortunately, this all boils down to having an ego-maniac for PM and a chancellor so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his arse, in 2 weeks you would have a diamond.

Sorry mate, it aint going to get any better any time soon. Unfortunately I haven't got the foggiest what it will take to change it as I think it has become too engrained in our culture. And as long as there are those thrusting types running the place, we will all have to suffer for their ambition. Anyway, don't know what you're complaining about - having a life is over rated. Or so I've been told :sad:

[Brown Job]

Only in the RAF could there be a thread about working hours!

Try sitting in a sangar or a town house in Helmand and bring up a conversation about the working time directive!

edited for too many hours on stag spelling, what a cnut!

[Maple 01]

So when your Herc crew or Chinook ride stoofs in because they are knackered and f*** up you won't worry, will you - after all, it's all the same thing isn't it, flying isn't exhausting, you don't need regular sleep to maintain concentration etc:rolleyes: Why don't the softies live in tents like real men bla bla bla soldiers first bla bla bla, make men of them.......

Perhaps we could knock up some sort of template for these kind of counter-winges?

[Melchett01]

Try sitting in a sangar or a town house in Helmand and bring up a conversation about the working time directive

Trust the Army to turn a reasonable question into a pissing contest.

But if you really want to, that's fine by me. Having done tours in Baghdad, Basrah and Helmand, I stand by what I originally said that I and many others find they do longer hours at home than on ops. If you have a problem with the hours the Air Force works, may I suggest you find somewhere else to whinge about it -maybe the NAFFI or the Mess on one of your religious 10:00 coffee breaks. We're too busy to listen to it.

[DaveyBoy]

The RAF is not exempt from these rules except during training and operations.

That's all the aircrew and engineers screwed then!

[Blacksheep]

10 hour days? 60 hour weeks? Good gracious me, I never realised you chaps had it so easy these days. I never signed on for a pension in '77 because I was fed up of 12 on/2 off 12 hour day rotating shifts. To save you bothering with the arithmetic, thats a 72 hour week with one weekend in two off. On a VVIP Squadron. I don't know what the sharp end were doing.

Upon joining 'Big Airways' at Heathrow I found myself working 60 hour weeks, but actually getting paid for the extra 20 was something of a novelty. ;)

[the goon]

Ha!

The discussion of working hours always makes me smile, especially when people moan about having to work a 60 hour week. 10 years back when I used to spend my time as an arable farm manager, 100 hours a week was the norm during the summer, stretching to 120 hours on some occasions. Time off? Try four months of those hours with a total of 2 days off - spend in bed! Ah the good ole days..:zzz:

[airborne_artist]

Working hours issues are a classic management problem. The Boss(es) should monitor the issue, and deal with it, or send it up the line if they don't have the resources/scope to do so.

Any organisation, civil or military, that routinely expects staff to work 50% over their hours has problems that need addressing.

Testosterone-riddled organisations such as HM Forces can't see the problem half the time, and the other half say one of: it'll go away (it won't), it goes with the territory (historically, yes, perhaps, but no excuse) or otherwise brush it under the carpet.

What they won't do is look into the long-term problems caused by over-long hours. Staff retention is the first one, followed by staff morale - depression is common amongst people working long hours. Do you want a depressed colleague in a key, safety-critical role?

A good organisation will measure hours worked as a KPI, and follow up on departments/teams that are having to exceed limits.

LEAN, defence budget cuts, exped warfare, long hours, go figure.

[oldbeefer]

Always made it to Happy Hour at 5 when I wuz in - mandatory on 33 in those days!

[ShyTorque]

You lot sound like these four:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEDucFVveFY&mode=related&search=

[Wyler]

A friend of mine worked for a very career minded boss about 8 years ago. He was of the opinion that if you worked less than 70 hours a week, you were not worthy. My mate arrived home for a well earned Xmas break to find a document waiting for him. I saw it and it was 4 X A4 pages long with 12 Font print on both sides of every page. It was colour coded, Blue/Green and Red. Blue was a reading list which was to be completed by the first day back at work. This involved going back into work (20 miles away) over the grant. Green was work that needed drafting for a meeting on day one back at work. Red was work that had to be completed by day one back at work. All in all there was sufficient for 8 to 10 hours per day. Included in the text was his bosses private Fax number. He required a point brief every third day as a progress check.

There was no war, no threat. He was a low level staff officer and the work he needed to do was not earth shattering.

My mate threw it in the bin.

I have always been suspicious of people like his boss. What else do they have to give when the sh!t hits the fan? I think they are a liability.

(My mate is now 2 ranks higher than that boss)

[TryHarder]

Our flying rules used to say that 16 hours was the limit, but that for brief periods a 24h day was permissible with a partially augmented crew. In fact they still say that, but are comprehensively bent to acheive that operational task, with 16h days the new normal minimum and 24h days quite common. Ever tried sleeping in an airline seat? No bunks for us! And guess who's crew position is not augmented?

Cumulative fatigue is taken seriously in the RAF, right up to the point that it gets in the way of something else. How long before someone makes a critical error due to fatigue?

[BEagle]

Back in the late '70s, a mate in his Hunter was killed in an accident out at sea flying from RAF Brawdy. He was on the first wave and was flying a jet with long range fuel. For some reason he didn't come back from a basic GH and aeros trip. We'd seen him earlier, called no threat and carried on with some doggers-over-the-oggers.

The rest of his course said that they'd never been told that, if flying a low speed loop with 23 flap, you cannot recover from a dive if you pork it up and exceed M0.9 unless you retract the flap.... It seems that this vital information hadn't been passed on to them; it was a time when the RAF was pushing FJ pilots through as they were very short - and corners had clearly been cut.

So, for a brief few weeks, people were required to stack no later than 8 hours after Met Brief...... Turn up at 0800, stack at 1600. Fantastic!

Until the infamous Brawdy weather delayed the programme yet again. Then it was back to flying until whatever time was needed.......

[wotsit]

Chutley,

amen brother!

[3 bladed beast]

I've got a great idea. Why don't we reduce the number of people in the armed forces and then deploy them around the world, making sure that we are 'stretched, but not over-stretched'.

Then just keep asking the guys to do more and more, and simply 'cope'.

[Kitbag]

3BB

Don't be so silly. No sane government would do that.

[MadAxeMan]

Everything these days is about the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
Uncle Gordon's bean-counters demand a cut!
We complain that we will not cope if they do.
They do it anyway.
We work the extra hours, and still get the job done, because that's just what Servicemen do, and we cope.
This new working arrangement becomes the norm.
And repeat...(several times):ugh:
If we keep doing it, we are not helping the Service, especially when the catastrophic failure happens, we are just letting them get away with it.
It MUST STOP, and NOW!
MadAxeMan
P.S. BrownJob, go back to being smug in your sangar, and hope that a Herc with a knakered crew does not crash on you. All the while thinking of how those sniffling bean counters are taking the pi$$, and YOU are helping them do it.:=

[Gnd]

I think the old clipboard up and down past the bosses office works well. Do it when you 1st get in and a couple of times in the next few hours, then go home.

Works for me, 10hrs per week max (unless in Sand pit, not so effective there!!):8 :O

[engineer(retard)]

I had a boss with no life who believed that unless you did 60 hrs a week as the norm you were slacking. My view was that if you could not get the job done, you were under resourced, so do some of that management stuff (your job) and apply for an establishment variation, or you were incompetent and should not be there. Poor bit of manager management on my part telling him that though.

Before you jump down my throat the beancounters were not ruling the roost then and establishment variations could be filled if you could be arsed to submit the paperwork. Perhaps it is still worth trying just to show how short you are of manpower even though you know it is a waste of time.

regards

retard

[JamesA]

Back in another life i.e RAF time. During one Morning Prayers, a SNCO ventured he was working a lot of over time. Smart Alec officer retorted 'You obviously cannot manage your resources properly, I suggest you learn how to do so.' Everybody very surprised, but the man had spoken, time was remanaged and everybody went home at normal time and the aeroplanes waited.
Now I read it is back to the very 'old days''- you do not have a private life, work till you drop, we have always managed, etc. Sad days.

Davey Boy,
I don't know if the services are affected by the EU work regulations regarding hours directive. But, beware the airline industry has neatly circumvented the hours limitation. Everybody has been promoted to 'Manager', no extra pay or benefits except you will now work longer hours.
In the US of A, the FAA has a very nicely worded regulation (for employers, that is). Aircraft maintenance workers may work seven days continously with one rest period of 24 hours, or the equivalent rest perion over a four week period. No limitation on the working day.
I am now old and wise enough to call it a day after twelve hours and walk off the job, with hanbdover naturally. But, I can imagine a serviceman doing likewise and some inexperienced, ladder climbing junior officer taking understanding action against said individual. Not the same outcome, I think. Long days are not the special preserve of the military, unfortunately.

Try Harder,
Post-RAF, I have spent many days 'sleeping' in airline seats, not recommended when there is work after landing. In my RAF flying days - God's Aeroplanes had bunks.
Regarding fatigue being the cause behind an accident, it has happened already, more times than you and I together have had hot dinners. It would be hidden under 'an accumulation of events' clause, and that makes it all right then.

The solution - give Uncle Gordon time. He is busy putting all training out to a PFI, when that is up and running to his satisfaction, i.e costing more than a full military budget, he will civilianise the whole armed forces and screw the whole shooting match (sorry, no pun intended). Then you will be able to work as you please, lots of overtime pay, whatever, it only costs money and it doesn't show on the books because it is a PFI and the voters will never know.

Sleep well, Fly safe, Walk in the house.

James A

[Union Jack]

What only 24 hours in a day - Get a longer candle

It can be done - a fellow I used to know was the proud possessor of a certificate confirming that he had completed 48 hours of work in one day.

This was onboard a patrol submarine which broke down in the Pacific and then, in the middle of non stop work right round the clock to repair the defect, drifted over the International Date Line, so that the engineers concerned achieved in effect 48 hours work in one day ..... almost certainly for no extra pay!

Jack

[Snow Dog]

Through the banter, it is easy to see that no-one is afraid of hard work. If extra hours are required, I've always seen guys step up to the mark. The frustrations arise, particularly in Ops/HQ set-ups, when you're waiting for the what-ifs; and if your Boss is waiting for the what-ifs, he wants his entire team available. Thus you end up, not working long hours, but seeing time pass.

The problem is, there's only one of you making the decisions. Unfortunately, the Warfighting aspect of 24hr Ops has been watered down by Commercial means testing of 'predicting the customer requirement!' In the old days, manpower redundancy meant something else. Our military ethos of 'be there and cope' had the advantage that at the end of your shift, someone else would 'be there...' Now it's 'stay there and cope', and the 'bucket of cope' is very thin with very little support.

[3 bladed beast]

the prior...

''The USAF have a core value - Service Before Self. ''

SO DO WE!!! Have you not read AP1?? Surely you must have. It is my waking read, and also, if I feel a little dispondant I simply read it to boost my morale. Let me enlighten you to just a touch more of it...

THE CORE VALUES OF THE RAF

RESPECT-Mutual and self respect
INTEGRITY-Integrity always
SERVICE - Service before self
EXCELLENCE - Striving for excellence

I only hope that I have helped you through this morning, and no doubt your future RAF career. Should you forget any of the above, you can simply remember it as RISE.

3BB :ok: