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Standard minutes of breaks for an 8-hour day?
Thread poster: Stephanie Lindqvist
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:01
French to English
Leading the employer in the right direction Jan 11, 2018

Once your working hours have been defined, then I think the only way you can direct the employer is to indicate what volume you can do in an average working day. If you once managed to do 2 million words in 8 hours (*), don't tell them that. Think of a comfortable and realistic volume and explain that productivity will vary - as it does for any employee - but in the case of translation additionally due to a number of factors beyond your control (type of text, presentation, how well it is written... See more
Once your working hours have been defined, then I think the only way you can direct the employer is to indicate what volume you can do in an average working day. If you once managed to do 2 million words in 8 hours (*), don't tell them that. Think of a comfortable and realistic volume and explain that productivity will vary - as it does for any employee - but in the case of translation additionally due to a number of factors beyond your control (type of text, presentation, how well it is written (be diplomatic on that one!), accessibility of sources, etc).

* I deliberately wrote a ridiculous volume to avoid divergence into a keep-up-with-the-Joneses type of exchange along the lines of "What?! You only do 15 thousand words a day?!").
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Arne Krueger
Arne Krueger
Germany
Local time: 17:01
German to English
+ ...
Wow 40 hours ... Jan 11, 2018

... thats about the work on Mondays ...

 
Georgie Scott
Georgie Scott  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 17:01
French to English
+ ...
As above Jan 12, 2018

Something like 15 minutes in the morning and afternoon and an hour for lunch.

Nonetheless, a recent study in France showed that, on average, employees are only productive for 47 minutes in every working hour.


 
Arne Krueger
Arne Krueger
Germany
Local time: 17:01
German to English
+ ...
A recent study ... Jan 12, 2018

... also showed, that monkeys that drink Coca Cola during the day have a 36,97637484% higher probability of reaching the next tree while jumping from one to the other, compared to those that drink lemon juice AND wear the pants of their owners.

Seriously ... nothing better to do?? Jesus, just take the god damn break. If your master has issues with it, its the wrong place ... .

Happy day! (P.s.: this is not meant to be offensive, I just could hold it ......
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... also showed, that monkeys that drink Coca Cola during the day have a 36,97637484% higher probability of reaching the next tree while jumping from one to the other, compared to those that drink lemon juice AND wear the pants of their owners.

Seriously ... nothing better to do?? Jesus, just take the god damn break. If your master has issues with it, its the wrong place ... .

Happy day! (P.s.: this is not meant to be offensive, I just could hold it ....)
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Stephanie Lindqvist
Stephanie Lindqvist  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 17:01
Swedish to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you all for the sound advice. Jan 15, 2018

Sorry it took me a few days to respond to all your excellent suggestions, but they are very much appreciated. It's fantastic to be able to tap into all this expertise.

To answer some of your questions, I was mostly looking for guidelines specifically for translation, since it's rather different work from just a regular office job. Interpreters for example get built-in breaks - from compliant customers - and are ideally changed out after half an hour, and as translation is only sligh
... See more
Sorry it took me a few days to respond to all your excellent suggestions, but they are very much appreciated. It's fantastic to be able to tap into all this expertise.

To answer some of your questions, I was mostly looking for guidelines specifically for translation, since it's rather different work from just a regular office job. Interpreters for example get built-in breaks - from compliant customers - and are ideally changed out after half an hour, and as translation is only slightly less intellectually intense I was wondering if there was some industry standard for translation as well. I've worked mainly from home and never had anyone looking over my shoulder at how much I produce before, so I want to make sure it's all good right from the beginning.

The consensus seems to be that there is no hard and fast rule but that 15-20 minutes in the morning and afternoon is reasonable. Sweden has excellent worker protection laws - and a well-established coffee break tradition - so I don't think anyone will be trying to push me to inhuman levels, but it's always good to guide them into this new, for them, arena.

Your answers were all very helpful. Thank you so much.
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Arne Krueger
Arne Krueger
Germany
Local time: 17:01
German to English
+ ...
Yes ... Jan 16, 2018

... ,you should talk about that with your employer in advance. You are going to spend most of your time with him/her, so you better take care of that! Asking such question may not be appropriate during an initial interview, BUT the reaction may tell you a lot about the person(s) you confront ... . And you certainly dont want to wake up one day, knowing you made the wrong decision!

All the best!

Arne


 
Stephanie Lindqvist
Stephanie Lindqvist  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 17:01
Swedish to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks! Jan 17, 2018

[quote]Arne Krüger wrote:

BUT the reaction may tell you a lot about the person(s) you confront ... . And you certainly dont want to wake up one day, knowing you made the wrong decision!

Yes, that is very true! So far they seem quite reasonable. Thanks for your good wishes


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 17:01
French to English
Flexibility Jan 18, 2018

Once you've got an idea of what Swedish employees are entitled to, I think a degree of flexibillity can work wonders for both employer and employee.

I used to work part-time in-house, taking Friday off.
Mostly, projects needed handing in by the end of the week, then Monday morning was a drag, nothing ever came in, the whole of France including all our clients and the PMs were in their weekly meeting. Work would start trickling in on Monday afternoon, then things hotted up co
... See more
Once you've got an idea of what Swedish employees are entitled to, I think a degree of flexibillity can work wonders for both employer and employee.

I used to work part-time in-house, taking Friday off.
Mostly, projects needed handing in by the end of the week, then Monday morning was a drag, nothing ever came in, the whole of France including all our clients and the PMs were in their weekly meeting. Work would start trickling in on Monday afternoon, then things hotted up considerably on Tuesday. Come Thursday, I was having trouble finishing everything up (and I was out of sync with the PMs who still had another day to get stuff wrapped up and would always forget I wasn't there).

Noticing this pattern, I suggested to the boss that we could switch my days with me taking Monday off instead of Friday. The boss said no. He wanted me to switch to full time and wouldn't consider any other changes to my schedule. I refused to increase my hours unless my hourly rate was also increased (in France, part-time workers don't have to be paid the same rate).

Shortly after that, I was told I hadn't been meeting my productivity goals. I told them it was because I never had very much to do on Mondays. Nothing changed.

We were then told that our office would close and we were to work from home. My colleague agreed, and asked to move her hours forward 30 minutes to fit her children's school hours, they said no. I had been thinking I could negotiate different hours, but given their lack of flexibility for my colleague, I took the opportunity to get myself made redundant instead.

So if they had only been a little flexible, I would have achieved greater productivity and it would have been better all round. That's their funeral.
I have noticed the same trend work-wise as a freelancer, and Mondays are spent doing shopping (the stores are empty, no queueing!) admin, cleaning the house if we've had a busy weekend. Even when I have been given something one week to be handed in the next, I usually try to get stuff done at the weekend rather than having to work on Mondays, I've got used to my work-free Mondays now (and rather enjoy getting the house back to myself after the weekend!)
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Stephanie Lindqvist
Stephanie Lindqvist  Identity Verified
Belgium
Local time: 17:01
Swedish to English
TOPIC STARTER
Really good to think about this issue Jan 19, 2018

Texte Style wrote:

Once you've got an idea of what Swedish employees are entitled to, I think a degree of flexibillity can work wonders for both employer and employee.

I used to work part-time in-house, taking Friday off.
Mostly, projects needed handing in by the end of the week, then Monday morning was a drag, nothing ever came in, the whole of France including all our clients and the PMs were in their weekly meeting. Work would start trickling in on Monday afternoon, then things hotted up considerably on Tuesday. Come Thursday, I was having trouble finishing everything up (and I was out of sync with the PMs who still had another day to get stuff wrapped up and would always forget I wasn't there).

Noticing this pattern, I suggested to the boss that we could switch my days with me taking Monday off instead of Friday. The boss said no. He wanted me to switch to full time and wouldn't consider any other changes to my schedule. I refused to increase my hours unless my hourly rate was also increased (in France, part-time workers don't have to be paid the same rate).

Shortly after that, I was told I hadn't been meeting my productivity goals. I told them it was because I never had very much to do on Mondays. Nothing changed.

We were then told that our office would close and we were to work from home. My colleague agreed, and asked to move her hours forward 30 minutes to fit her children's school hours, they said no. I had been thinking I could negotiate different hours, but given their lack of flexibility for my colleague, I took the opportunity to get myself made redundant instead.

So if they had only been a little flexible, I would have achieved greater productivity and it would have been better all round. That's their funeral.
I have noticed the same trend work-wise as a freelancer, and Mondays are spent doing shopping (the stores are empty, no queueing!) admin, cleaning the house if we've had a busy weekend. Even when I have been given something one week to be handed in the next, I usually try to get stuff done at the weekend rather than having to work on Mondays, I've got used to my work-free Mondays now (and rather enjoy getting the house back to myself after the weekend!)


Thanks for pointing this out - I can see it becoming an issue here too. Great to have a heads up.


 
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Standard minutes of breaks for an 8-hour day?







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