Feedback: Hard at Work, or Hardly Working?

I just read your article and found it to be quite interesting. I will take issue with the number of hours reported to be worked by women versus men in the business world. One thing I have taken note of during my 27+ years of experience, is that men tend to consider their two-hour lunches and extended coffee breaks as "work" time.

I've worked with men for my entire career, and this has been a common thread among the majority. And I've heard the conversations taking place. Trust me, they are not work-related conversations. They consider the time they spend doing personal email and surfing the web as work time since they do it during the day using the resources in the office.

On the other hand, it's common practice for women (and I admit I'm one of them) to eat lunch at their desks, skip coffee breaks, and save the personal email/Internet for home. So I guess number of work hours is open to interpretation. If it simply means hours spent in the office environment, then maybe they do spend more time. However, where do you count the time spent taking laptops home and dialing in to the office in the evening and on weekends?

Anonymous

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