Respect to Everyone Who Works

Previously, I have never worked long hours until university forced us to get working experience through internships with various companies. Now, it is compulsory for us to do a minimum 24 weeks industrial attachment in order to graduate from NUS. Initially, I thought that work will not be that bad. I will get used to it. What is more, I will be able to earn some money and use that money to invest for my future retirement (or even bring forward my retirement). However, after going through it, I realised that the working hours are too long. It might seem like I am just another one from the strawberry generation that is unable to take hardship (might be true), but I feel that with the long hours, it is really hard to find time after work to do something meaningful such as learning new skills or even to read a book. My mind is usually quite dead and I will be too tired to do anything once I reach home. Given such long working hours, it is close to impossible to upgrade ourselves with new skills other than using weekends. Hence, I salute those people who are able to either work 2 jobs or learn new skills like coding and so on while they are doing full time work.

Now I wonder, if in the future I am able to find a job and work comfortably, isn't it easy to be retrenched when we are not needed and we do not have new skills? Those thoughts will be able to keep me on my toes for a while but I feel that too many work have to be done in the office. If only there will be more work-life balance or even more work from home sessions.

Time spent on a typical work day:
Sleep: 8h
Travelling: 3h (To and fro, depends on MRT CONDITION ALSO)
Work: 8h + 1h lunch

Time left: 4h (What lies)

These calculations do not include the time needed to prepare for work, breakfast, dinner and so on. Also, it assumes that you arrive and leave on the dot.

Wake up: 7am
Leave House: 7.30am
Work: 9am - 6pm
Lunch: 12.30pm - 1.30pm
Reach home: 7.30pm
Finish dinner: 8pm
Slack time: 8pm - 11pm (seems a lot right? 3h worth, assuming no overtime work)

What I thought is, if there is more flexible arrangement where more work can be done at home, the travelling time can be cut short and we will be freer by an average of 3h everyday! Now that is the idealistic case to work towards to. If only work can be brought home... However, it does has its demerits such as unconsciously doing work past office hours. However, aren't we all guilty of that, but I think we should take small steps and flexible working hours is the way to go, especially working from home.