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What's the most you've ever worked in one day/week ?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by schiezainc, May 7, 2008.

  1. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I try not to keep track, as I fill in my time sheet.
    I think I can work one hour tomorrow, yippee
     
  2. mike311gd

    mike311gd Active Member

    I just did 17 on Monday, which is my typical Monday schedule. I work six to seven days a week now, probably averaging 10-12 hours a day. And that's not counting the solid hours devoted to you guys after work.

    When I was in high school, I worked 168 hours in two weeks at a nursing home, and did 27 days in a row -- all at least eight hours and eight of them, I think, at 15.
     
  3. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    When I briefly worked two jobs, I was logging 18-hour days on Mondays. The one day I didn't have a huge workload was Wednesday, and that still wasn't a day off.

    Eighty hour workweeks weren't uncommon. I went on a month-and-a-half stretch in which I didn't even take a day off.
     
  4. OnTheRiver

    OnTheRiver Active Member

    I thought you went on to sell computers with your dad.
     
  5. NatureBoy

    NatureBoy Member

    While some of you folks got me beat, I remember a day one December where I started at about 8 a.m. to cover the first four games or so of our local high school boys basketball holiday tournament. Might have been more, I can't exactly remember.

    Well, I get back to the office after that and finish up the weekly prep page that was going in the paper the next day. With that and taking the prep calls, I probably walked out of there around 11 p.m.

    The next day, I get to the tournament. The copy editors condensed the tournament coverage from what's usually at least one page (sometimes more) to about three-quarters of a page with one-paragraph recaps of the out-of-town teams and one postage-stamp picture in the middle. Had to get all that national wire copy in, ya know. So the tournament directors are giving me crap (in a half-good natured way) for most of the morning.

    That my 15 hours of work had been whittled down so much wasn't the worst part. Our paper was the title sponsor of the tournament.

    I didn't blow up on the copy editor. He hadn't been there too long. But I did say, "Dude, we can't do that again," and bring up the fact I had worked 15 hours the day before. He apologized and all was well.
     
  6. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    I had an 84-hour week when I worked for the state legislature. I actually felt intoxicated by the time it was all over.
     
  7. SCEditor

    SCEditor Active Member

    Back when I was at a 45K circ paper, our SE quit, so I was one of two people on the seven-person staff who could design pages. The other one also covered one of our more important beats. In one week, I worked 120 hours (got paid for 80 overtime, which was unbelievably sweet) designing the section all seven days, plus planning (including setting up photo shoots at 30-35 schools), editing and designing a 48-page, broadsheet basketball preview. That was also the same paper where I designed the section like 60-something straight days.

    At my previous job before this one, I worked 44 hours in a 48-hour stretch the last two days of our football section. When I finally left, a co-worker and I went to a bar and grill and I fell asleep at my table.

    This year's football section, I worked 28 consecutive hours to wrap up the football edition. Compared to the other examples I gave you, it seemed like a piece of cake.
     
  8. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Alas, I was at sea level and drenched in humidity during that week (and many other long ones).
     
  9. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    I remember a couple of football-tab weeks when I worked 90-95 hours.

    At one of my stops, I regularly worked 70-75 hours a week, routinely including a 6 a.m. - 2 a.m. shift on Fridays.

    This was also the joint that used to routinely assign me to cover shit at 8 a.m. Saturdays. Fucking grip-and-grin pictures, pancake breakfasts, and midget league T-ball. Bullshit.
     
  10. Midnight to 6 p.m. (18 hours) last August to finish a football section.

    I made it worse on myself by getting off work at 11 p.m. on a Saturday and going to the casino with a co-worker. We got to his house at 5 a.m., crashed until 11 a.m., went to a fantasy football draft and stayed and played poker until just before midnight, when I went to work.

    I logged about 70 hours that week, but I gave the ME a preliminary warning so I wouldn't get trounced for having 30 hours of overtime.
     
  11. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    I worked 23.5 hours straight to help finish the final edition from Seoul at the 1988 Olympics and I remember being aggravated that we ran out of anything to do and I couldn't make it a round 24.
     
  12. CarlSpackler

    CarlSpackler Active Member

    I once worked a 28-hour day when I had to finish our football tab two years ago because we were down a man due to a death in his family. It was every bit as awesome as the mathematical improbability of a 28-hour day sounds, especially since I was the SE and on salary rather than hourly pay. I remember taking a short nap on the floor, and the managing editor yelling at me.
     
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