What constitutes 'long' work hours?

Junior_BentsPlatformShoes

Junior_BentsPlatformShoes

Well-known member
I see Elon Musk has told staff they have to sign up to long work hours with high intensity. When I read the article, he said he expects staff to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week.
Now maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's 8 hours a day in a working week. That certainly isn't long working hours to me!
My average working day is getting up at 6, arrive at work by 7.45am, then work through until on average 5.4opm. I then do several hours on the laptop over the weekends, so my average working week is probably 50-55 hours, which I would class as reasonably long hours.

What do you class as long, high intensity work hours?

www.bbc.co.uk

Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

Elon Musk says workers at the social media firm must be "hardcore" if they want to stay, reports say.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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Working hours are those agreed within your Contract of Employment. Any hours worked over and above your basic working week are normally subject to agreed overtime rates. An employer cannot unilaterally change your hours without agreement or subject to a consultation period.
Elon Musk is a numpty if he thinks any employees of Twitter in the UK will simply accept his edicts. He will be working even harder than currently defending cases at an Employment Tribunal.
 
I wouldn't describe a 40 hour a week as hardcore personally but I've done some silly hours in the past, I wouldn't choose to do it these days. Personally I'd say 42ish is getting into long hours territory, it might not seem like a huge increase in 37.5 but the extra hour a day is significant. I wouldn't want to do over 50 for any length of time, I've done it before but always seemed to slip into unhealthy habits.
 
Like many on here, there were times when I worked what I would call long hours, 50-60 per week every week, couldn't hack that now. I work 40 hours now, that seems pretty normal to me.

I had to smile at the comment above about being paid overtime for hours worked over contract. Ermm, not in my experience, with one honourable exception.
 
Musk runs his own business, on a micro level so did I, and when you do that you work very long hours, you don’t switch off when you leave the office, so I get his feelings. However, he can’t expect his employees to suddenly change their contracts, some will of course because they need the job, some will take the three months pay and go work for another tech company. If lots go, especially key workers, he’ll find it difficult to replace them and that could be very dangerous.
 
This is a bit of a thing of mine in that i think a whole host of social, and economic issues might be resolved by having a shorter working week. In the office for 40 hours per week, if hes meaning actual working time that means probably with breaks 9 and a half hours per day at the office. Does he then expect like many companies for staff to work at home after the forty hours, plus weekends plus doing stuff during holidays.

In madrid about five years there was a report that showed professional workers were doing on average an extra 2 to 3 hours per day over and above contracted hours. The local authority insisted that companies install clock-in systems, as a means of measuring overwork. My brother in law is a dept director at a very large bank. They have a HQ campus where about 6000 people work. After the clock-in system came in, at 18.30 every day they shut the office environmental systems down: lighting, heating, cooling whatever staff were motivated to leave the office at 6. However my brother in law was expected to carry at home which he was doing anyway, and this work isn't monitored.

Another thing in Madrid was that there is an area where a dozen or more companies have large office complexes / campuses. In total something like a hundred thousand work there. There are because of planning laws developed around green issues just a couple of thousand parking spaces. the idea is they travel by metro or bus, there is one metro and a couple of bus routes, but these being big conservative companies want all their starting at pretty much the same time so every day about 100,000 people are expected to converge on an area about the size of south shore from Harrowside to Squires gate, with one metro line and a couple of buses.

The metro runs about one train every ten minutes from the city centre so it very quickly gets overrun coming out of town, But none of the companies generally want regular staff doing flexi hours. The Northern and eastern suburbs where a lot of these staff live are served by metro and tram services but you have to go into the centre of town and come back out again. typical commute is about an hour and a quarter and unless you worked for one particular company a walk of at least twenty minutes to the office. by the time you take into consideration the time form home to your local station you are talking nearly two hours commuting 4 per day. With breaks we are talking 13 and a half hours. Staff are expected to be answering calls before and after they arrive at the office which is very difficult on packed commuter trains and buses. and the walk at either end will during the summer months be in temperatures of anything around 45 degrees maybe higher.

Most people drive.

On top of the people working for these institutions many of them are having meetings with vendors suppliers consultants etc, that probaby equates to another 40-50k people every day. Two of the companies ive worked with in this locality do not allow staff to take meetings at suppliers hence they are all forced into the area.

What researchers were finding (i was given the reports because we were asked to do some work for a developer in the area) was in order to get a parking space somewhere reasonably close to their workplace, many people were arriving at 5 or 6 in the morning, parking their car, sleeping in their car for a couple of hours, going to the office for about 8ish- an hour early. Working through the day, not really taking a lunch break because in the whole area there are two small shit cafes, and then often waiting to leave the office when the traffic had died down at around 9pm. Although officially the staff are working 8 hours a day, their work day with commuting is 14-15. get home, stuff some food down, go to bed, because in 5 or 6 hours you have to do it again. At the same time as this was being reported spain was shown to have the lowest productivity figures in the whole of europe.

My understanding is that sickness and days off were particularly bad at the two companies we were doing work for, i dont think that was un-connected.

One of my points of view is that with technology taking away many jobs, it makes some sense to reduce the working hours, and possibly the number of working days. i would say aim for thirtyish hours per week 4 days per week, but getting to that gradually over a period.

When you consider that many professionals are expected to do 45, 50, 55 hours per week they are obviously understaffed. or they are creating bullshit work, work that doesnt need to be done. by reducing the official hours then either the bullshit or a majority of disappears and staff are more efficient or more jobs get created. The issue of course is profits are affected.

Finland is running a large test for a standard 30 or 32 hour week with three days off every week to see what the effets are, on a range of issues productivity, health, to economic performance but it wont be finished until the end of 2024 i think.

My gut reaction is reducing the working week in general as a beneficial thing to society. But talking to a friend of mine whos daughter has just qualified as a lawyer and works for a big uk bank shes doing a standard 60 hour week, and it seems to be the norm.
 
Junior_BentsPlatformShoes said:
I see Elon Musk has told staff they have to sign up to long work hours with high intensity. When I read the article, he said he expects staff to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week.
Now maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's 8 hours a day in a working week. That certainly isn't long working hours to me!
My average working day is getting up at 6, arrive at work by 7.45am, then work through until on average 5.4opm. I then do several hours on the laptop over the weekends, so my average working week is probably 50-55 hours, which I would class as reasonably long hours.

What do you class as long, high intensity work hours?

www.bbc.co.uk

Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

Elon Musk says workers at the social media firm must be "hardcore" if they want to stay, reports say.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
Luckily we've got out of Europe so don't have to abide by their Working Hours Directives preventing you working more than 48 hours.

This is yet another reason why Brexit is shit and not in the favour of the average working man. Who benefits most from this deregulation?
 
As a student I used to work 88 hours a week, 7 days a week. Did that for near enough for 4 months a year for 3 years. Remember this was late 70's and I used to come out with £196 a week. Uni was good though.
 
My experience of long hours -

I worked on the Channel Tunnel build. 12 hour shifts, but work really started an hour before start of shift with kitting up, shift planning and getting down the hole to relieve previous shift. Shift finished after relief, then getting out of the hole which was often delayed by train blockages or derailment. Usually 14 hour shifts, for six days before 3 days off. That’s 84 hours before a break. Loved every minute.

I worke for a cable comms company responsible for the exchange and network maintenance. One week in four was on call and got called out at least once a night ( had to drive to East Lancs to fix!).
The Government introduced Working Time Directive, and within weeks it became apparent that when we were on call we never got the statutory 12 hour break or the once a week. We were supposed to get that time off in lieu, but would end up us having about 3 days extra off. The government exempted us almost immediately.
 
I had one job on the prom which was more or less midday - 5am 5 days per week, a little less on one of the others.

Utterly ridiculous but it meant I paid my own way through uni, including a six month exchange to the USA

Meanwhile, back in the land of the being nearly 50 - work can peak at times with out of hours activities but generally 40hrs is enough - and when I do work way over I'll just take the time back.

One of the other organisations I work with are currently doing that 4 day per week experiment; the bloke I work with says it means you are more efficient in the 4 days, so you keep your 5th day completely off. It's working for him for now

As for Musk, I think he may not quite understand employment laws are much stronger just about everywhere in the developed world outside of the States - he may choose to repatriate all the work to a country where he can manage the organisation in a way which suits his style in the long term.

If not, as someone says, he's going to be tied up in legal issues as the time.
 
I worked a crazy shift system at the MOD communications centre, 16 hour shift (1600-0800) alternate days over a fortnight with a 2 hour break between midnight and 0600, followed by a five day week covering the period 0800-1600.
Mid 1970's
 
Wizaard said:
Luckily we've got out of Europe so don't have to abide by their Working Hours Directives preventing you working more than 48 hours.

This is yet another reason why Brexit is shit and not in the favour of the average working man. Who benefits most from this deregulation?
Click to expand...


This is about Elon Musk addressing his global workforce, many of whom are based in the USA.
Forgive me then for wondering why your only response to 'what constitutes long working hours?' is to launch into another load of anti-Brexit rhetoric.

You should hopefully be aware that both prior, and subsequent, to Brexit we have many people in the UK working long hours, and over 48 hours. Many people do this by choice because they want the overtime.

When I was in the civil service in the (90s or 00s) I was working at an admin grade. Every now and again there would be the need for overtime. My colleagues and I gleefully volunteered. But we had to sign a waiver to the EU Working Time Directive so the employer wouldn't be in breach of EU law. The Trade Union, of which we were members didn't baulk at this, but if they had we would have told them to take a hike.

Anyways, I can't wait to see your post on the missile strike in Poland and how you'll link that to Brexit too.
 
I think Elon Musk has come into his new organisation and determined there's too many staff. That's what happens on takeovers - it's commonplace.
So he wants a leaner organisation. To make that work he will have to get more out of the staff he retains.
In my opinion, he isn't being well advised or handling it sensibly. There's ways and means of doing things. It's much better to take the staff with you on the journey, rather than threatening them to work harder, or else.

Many business leaders and entrepreneurs work incredibly long hours. But that's their choice. They can't expect or demand their workers to do the same. In this case, it's fine for him to ask them to work harder. But when you ally that request to working longer, it can stray into employment legislation territory and land him in hot water.

With regards to what constitutes long hours, I'd say we should look at what is reasonable hours first. For me, that's up to 40. SO anything beyond that starts to get into long-hours territory. Longer hours worked over a protracted period are not a good idea as the worker will end up jaded, less productive, disillusioned and will ultimately go off sick or look elsewhere for work.
 
40 hours would be around the normal average for full time I would say. Not long hours.

Maybe he’s making a point re ‘in the office’ because many of us don’t do anywhere near 40 hours in the office since the pandemic I guess.
 
Matesrates said:
Musk runs his own business, on a micro level so did I, and when you do that you work very long hours, you don’t switch off when you leave the office, so I get his feelings. However, he can’t expect his employees to suddenly change their contracts, some will of course because they need the job, some will take the three months pay and go work for another tech company. If lots go, especially key workers, he’ll find it difficult to replace them and that could be very dangerous.
Click to expand...
Also, it's not the fault of the employees that he's saddled the company with huge debt simply by buying it in what appears to be a fit of pique.
 
Junior_BentsPlatformShoes said:
I see Elon Musk has told staff they have to sign up to long work hours with high intensity. When I read the article, he said he expects staff to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week.
Now maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's 8 hours a day in a working week. That certainly isn't long working hours to me!
My average working day is getting up at 6, arrive at work by 7.45am, then work through until on average 5.4opm. I then do several hours on the laptop over the weekends, so my average working week is probably 50-55 hours, which I would class as reasonably long hours.

What do you class as long, high intensity work hours?

www.bbc.co.uk

Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

Elon Musk says workers at the social media firm must be "hardcore" if they want to stay, reports say.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
Life is too short get another career
 
Johnno said:
My experience of long hours -

I worked on the Channel Tunnel build. 12 hour shifts, but work really started an hour before start of shift with kitting up, shift planning and getting down the hole to relieve previous shift. Shift finished after relief, then getting out of the hole which was often delayed by train blockages or derailment. Usually 14 hour shifts, for six days before 3 days off. That’s 84 hours before a break. Loved every minute.

I worke for a cable comms company responsible for the exchange and network maintenance. One week in four was on call and got called out at least once a night ( had to drive to East Lancs to fix!).
The Government introduced Working Time Directive, and within weeks it became apparent that when we were on call we never got the statutory 12 hour break or the once a week. We were supposed to get that time off in lieu, but would end up us having about 3 days extra off. The government exempted us almost immediately.
Click to expand...
It is a hell of an achievement to look back on though, not sure we will see such an engineering marvel again
 
To finish Funny Girls on Queen St we went in at 7am Thursday and finished at 5pm Friday, that night was VIP opening and some of the older lot went as we were all invited, they must of been on drugs I had two beers and crashed. Used to do regular ghosters around the UK finishing jobs, we would work away 7 days a week at least 12 hours a day for 6 weeks at a time. Nobody wanted to work away and be finishing at 5pm or Sundays off, what was the point as you would only piss the money up!
 
Malced said:
This is about Elon Musk addressing his global workforce, many of whom are based in the USA.
Forgive me then for wondering why your only response to 'what constitutes long working hours?' is to launch into another load of anti-Brexit rhetoric.

You should hopefully be aware that both prior, and subsequent, to Brexit we have many people in the UK working long hours, and over 48 hours. Many people do this by choice because they want the overtime.

When I was in the civil service in the (90s or 00s) I was working at an admin grade. Every now and again there would be the need for overtime. My colleagues and I gleefully volunteered. But we had to sign a waiver to the EU Working Time Directive so the employer wouldn't be in breach of EU law. The Trade Union, of which we were members didn't baulk at this, but if they had we would have told them to take a hike.

Anyways, I can't wait to see your post on the missile strike in Poland and how you'll link that to Brexit too.
Click to expand...
Just because people work well over the legal limit doesn't mean its right. Probably because they're not in a union.

And for what it's worth I used to work 77 hours a week in a summer job at Coral Island back in the 70s.

Long term madness.
 
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Malced said:
This is about Elon Musk addressing his global workforce, many of whom are based in the USA.
Forgive me then for wondering why your only response to 'what constitutes long working hours?' is to launch into another load of anti-Brexit rhetoric.

You should hopefully be aware that both prior, and subsequent, to Brexit we have many people in the UK working long hours, and over 48 hours. Many people do this by choice because they want the overtime.

When I was in the civil service in the (90s or 00s) I was working at an admin grade. Every now and again there would be the need for overtime. My colleagues and I gleefully volunteered. But we had to sign a waiver to the EU Working Time Directive so the employer wouldn't be in breach of EU law. The Trade Union, of which we were members didn't baulk at this, but if they had we would have told them to take a hike.

Anyways, I can't wait to see your post on the missile strike in Poland and how you'll link that to Brexit too.
Click to expand...
Looks like the missile strike was a Ukrainian air defence one gone wrong. Possibly one provided by the EU. Does that count?
 
Junior_BentsPlatformShoes said:
I see Elon Musk has told staff they have to sign up to long work hours with high intensity. When I read the article, he said he expects staff to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week.
Now maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's 8 hours a day in a working week. That certainly isn't long working hours to me!
My average working day is getting up at 6, arrive at work by 7.45am, then work through until on average 5.4opm. I then do several hours on the laptop over the weekends, so my average working week is probably 50-55 hours, which I would class as reasonably long hours.

What do you class as long, high intensity work hours?

www.bbc.co.uk

Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

Elon Musk says workers at the social media firm must be "hardcore" if they want to stay, reports say.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
12 hours shifts. That’s without travel time to and from work.
 
tangysider said:
It is a hell of an achievement to look back on though, not sure we will see such an engineering marvel again
Click to expand...
Yeah, agreed, one of my proudest moments tbh, if only that it’s there for posterity now.
What was really amazing to me , at the time, was that we used some of the old works started by engineers during the Napoleonic Wars, God only knows how they thought they could dig it!
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
Any employee claiming long working hours as some kind of badge of honour is being screwed over.
Click to expand...
If you ever go on the utter tripe "linkedin" it's full of weapons telling everyone they get up at 5am to go for a run, which sets them up for their 15 hour working day. Then preaches about "seize the day"
I always thought Facebook was shite but LinkedIn is on a different level of wankerish bullshit.
 
Shandypants said:
If you ever go on the utter tripe "linkedin" it's full of weapons telling everyone they get up at 5am to go for a run, which sets them up for their 15 hour working day. Then preaches about "seize the day"
I always thought Facebook was shite but LinkedIn is on a different level of wankerish bullshit.
Click to expand...

I don't think there is anything wrong with a good work ethic Shandy but can't argue with you re LinkedIn.

Some of the chite I've read on there and that's only from the folk I know.
 
Some good replies. I’ll add that I don’t want to do the hours I do but if I don’t the job doesn’t get done. If I was going to strike, it wouldn’t be about pay, it would be about the ridiculous levels of paperwork and accountability that we’re subjected to that detracts from the job of educating children.
 
Junior_BentsPlatformShoes said:
Some good replies. I’ll add that I don’t want to do the hours I do but if I don’t the job doesn’t get done. If I was going to strike, it wouldn’t be about pay, it would be about the ridiculous levels of paperwork and accountability that we’re subjected to that detracts from the job of educating children.
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You guys do a fantastic job 👍
 
I do a 24 hour shift every day 3 days. Albeit, I sit and scroll through AVFTT & social media while watching TV a lot of the time on shift, I’d class it as long days. 🤣
 
Being a parent 24/7. Most of it unpaid and much harder than 'work' especially when they are little. "Bringing home the bacon" seemed like a holiday.
 
People are just getting lazy

Generally a normal working week was around 39 hours a week, more in certain industries

But as long as people get paid for what they do it isn't really a problem

I've done a few 70 hour weeks recently with days and night shifts and they are a killer, I would say that's long hours
 
Malced said:
This is about Elon Musk addressing his global workforce, many of whom are based in the USA.
Forgive me then for wondering why your only response to 'what constitutes long working hours?' is to launch into another load of anti-Brexit rhetoric.

You should hopefully be aware that both prior, and subsequent, to Brexit we have many people in the UK working long hours, and over 48 hours. Many people do this by choice because they want the overtime.

When I was in the civil service in the (90s or 00s) I was working at an admin grade. Every now and again there would be the need for overtime. My colleagues and I gleefully volunteered. But we had to sign a waiver to the EU Working Time Directive so the employer wouldn't be in breach of EU law. The Trade Union, of which we were members didn't baulk at this, but if they had we would have told them to take a hike.

Anyways, I can't wait to see your post on the missile strike in Poland and how you'll link that to Brexit too.
Click to expand...
He can twist anything round to include his total obsession with Brexit. He needs counselling
 
Wizaard said:
Just because people work well over the legal limit doesn't mean its right. Probably because they're not in a union.

And for what it's worth I used to work 77 hours a week in a summer job at Coral Island back in the 70s.

Long term madness.
Click to expand...

Wizz did you get paid overtime or from the “Penny Falls” ? 😉😎
 
Everyone has their own circumstances and for some there is no option but the obsession in society (not every country) for working ourselves to death is so unhealthy. I’m by no means well off or from a privileged family but the thought of working 10 hour days from 18 to 65 to pay for a house I barely live in and to support a family I never see, to enjoy maybe 10 years of retirement, is just ridiculous.

There is more to life than money and as a society that is a mentality we need to change.

The best thing I ever did was move from a full time 35 hour week over 5 days to the same hours over 4 days. Even better now half of that is WFH.
 
I can put in 50 plus hours work during a week when on call, but would be available for 72 hours, that's long hours (9am- 9pm is the operating hours, never have to work for all of them.)
 
my longest ever shift was when I was Assistant Manager with Crest Hotels circa 1971. I was on the early shift starting at 7 am, and due to a staff shortage had to work through the afternoon shift in reception, which was until 11 pm. To finish me off the night porter didn't turn in and muggins had to cover it. The manager was on a course for a couple of days so I finally finished at 3 pm the following day, 32 hours in all. 90 to 100 hours a week was quite normal.
 
There must be some on here like me who worked in Cooksons Bakery in Lytham in the late 70s. It was where Jubilee House is now, right at the east end of Lytham Green. I used to work summer holidays when at college and also did a 6 month stint after graduating. It was one of the biggest bakery factories in the NW and produced all the bread for Blackpool and around.

It was always 12 hour shifts, 0600 to 1800, 5 days a week including Sunday (but never Saturday since fresh bread was not delivered out to the shops on a Sunday), but the killer was that each week alternated as day shift and night shift, so then 1800 to 0600. The other day off you got each week slipped forward 1 day for each week that passed. So there was a broken routine. But 60 hours every single week.

Every 14 weeks or so you might get the Friday day shift off and also the following Sunday night shift off so you were free from Thursday evening until Monday night shift - the famous long weekend off. But the flip side was having a day off midweek, and having to work the Friday night shift until 0600 Saturday morning, sleep most of the day and then come in again at 0600 on Sunday morning. At least we got paid a night shift allowance and double-time for the Sunday but that stopped at 00:01 on the Monday morning during a night shift.

The work was physically quite tough in temperatures of up to 80 deg F in summer because of the huge ovens.

Spooner 2 (oven made in Bradford) was the biggest making large square white for slicing. The ovens were a conveyor system with dough being mixed in enormous “Kenwood Mixers” which could create 200 lbs of dough in 3 minutes flat, which was then chopped up and rolled on the cone and went into the Prover to rise before entering the oven, in a row of about 20 baking tins each with 4 loaves. The oven had about 30 to 40 rows in at a time and the conveyor took about 25 minutes to go through to bake them. So becoming oven controller was a responsible job, with about 3000 loaves you could burn if you got it wrong.

But Spooner 3 was the toughest job because it made all the small loaves such as Farmhouse, Hovis, Wholegrain Granary and Small White. Each type of bread had its own particular 4-loaf tins (yes, the Hovis tins were deeply stamped “Hovis” on the side and the bastard things used to stick together when stacked) and each batch ran for an hour or two at the most. Then you had to do a complete tin change on the gantry in the top of the factory - at least 40 minutes non-stop in taking about 1000 very hot tins off the conveyor (two at a time with glove bags on) and stacking them, while simultaneously putting on the tins for a different loaf.

That happened about 4 or 5 times a shift and was an extreme work out, harder than any gym routine because you could not stop until the job was done. And you could not slow down or stop the conveyors unless there was extreme tin jam further upstream that had to be unjammed. So I was as fit and toned as anything.

In those days, the student grant did not count as taxable income, so I was earning tax-free until I reached my annual allowance. Then most of us used to resign ready to come back next summer. The managers were quite happy with that since bread production was at its maximum for the busy summer holiday season with all the B&B guests. You could earn quite a lot fairly quickly.

The older guys, who were career bakers, got the easier and more responsible jobs mixing the dough while us youngsters did the labour intensive hard work. So there was quite a high turnover of workers. I do remember a lad I worked with called Stuart Rimmer who was a mad-keen Seasider and came in one Sunday shift with a massive black eye, after a fairly combative away trip on the Saturday.
 
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Archibald Knox said:
There must be some on here like me who worked in Cooksons Bakery in Lytham in the late 70s. It was where Jubilee House is now, right at the east end of Lytham Green. I used to work summer holidays when at college and also did a 6 month stint after graduating. It was one of the biggest bakery factories in the NW and produced all the bread for Blackpool and around.

It was always 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week including Sunday (but never Saturday since fresh bread was not needed on a Sunday), but the killer was that each week alternated as day shift and night shift. The one day off you got each week slipped forward 1 day for each week that passed. So there was a broken routine. But 72 hours every single week.

Every 7 weeks or so you might get the Friday day shift off and also the following Sunday night shift off so you were free from Thursday night until Monday night shift - the famous long weekend off. But the flip side was having a day off midweek, and having to work the Friday night shift until 0600 Saturday morning, sleep most of the day and then come in again at 0600 on Sunday morning. At least we got paid a night shift allowance and double-time for the Sunday but that stopped at 00:01 on the Monday morning.

The work was physically quite tough in temperatures of up to 80 deg F in summer because of the huge ovens.

Spooner 2 (oven made in Bradford) was the biggest making large square white for slicing. The ovens were a conveyor system with dough being mixed in enormous “Kenwood Mixers” which could create 200 lbs of dough in 3 minutes flat, which was then rolled on the cone and went into the Prover to rise before entering the oven, in a row of about 20 baking tins each with 4 loaves. The oven had about 30 to 40 rows in at a time and the conveyor took about 25 minutes to go through to bake them. So becoming oven controller was a responsible job, with about 3000 loaves you could burn if you got it wrong.

But Spooner 3 was the toughest job because it made all the small loaves such as Farmhouse, Hovis, Wholegrain Granary and Small White. Each type of bread had its own particular 4-loaf tins (yes, the Hovis tins were deeply stamped “Hovis” on the side and the bastard things used to stick together when stacked) and each batch ran for an hour or two at the most. Then you had to do a complete tin change on the gantry in the top of the factory - at least 40 minutes non-stop in taking about 1000 very hot tins off the conveyor (two at a time with glove bags on) and putting on the tins for a different loaf. That happened about 4 or 5 times a shift and was an extreme work out, harder than any gym routine. So I was as fit as anything.

In those days, the student grant did not count as taxable income, so I was earning tax-free until I reached my annual allowance. Then most of us used to resign ready to come back next summer. You could earn quite a lot fairly quickly. The older guys, who were career bakers, got the easier and more responsible jobs mixing the dough while us youngsters did the labour intensive hard work. So there was quite a high turnover of workers. I do remember a lad I worked with called Stuart Rimmer who was a mad-keen Seasider and came in one Sunday shift with a massive black eye, after a fairly combative away trip on the Saturday.
Click to expand...
I did a summer at Cooksons I think 1968 , working mostly on the cake production line . Loved it . The next year was at the Lantern Bakery in Ansdell , another great summer .
 
ansdellmafia said:
I did a summer at Cooksons I think 1968 , working mostly on the cake production line . Loved it . The next year was at the Lantern Bakery in Ansdell , another great summer .
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That was Spooner 1, making the cherry bakewell tarts, iced buns, apple and blackcurrant pies, malt loaves and baps/buns/stotties etc. Yes, we did make Mr Kipling’s products. Probably one of the easiest, low intensity jobs on the main factory floor. And where all the ladies worked. 😉. When I was there they only seemed to fire it up for about 8 hours of a shift to achieve production targets.

The bread-slicing and wrapping machines were awesome frightening bits of kit though, totally enclosed for safety. I too enjoyed my time at Cooksons in an odd masochistic sort of way. The shift supervisors were quite decent chaps despite their whip-cracking ways in keeping production going.
 
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