Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for January 22nd, 2007

In Canada if you live in Alberta you are working LONG hours

An interesting point that is made is:

Working hours were fairly high in Ontario because a substantial proportion of workers had standard full-year and full-time schedules in that province. An estimated 57% of all workers, and more than two-thirds of working men, had a standard full-time, full-year schedule of 1,900 to 2,300 hours.

So that is a good point. The more full time employees you have the more hours that are worked as well, hadn’t thought of it that way, but that is interesting.

The article at the end of it doesn’t really have a good explanation as to why there are such disparate hours worked from region to region. Is it that Quebecers enjoy their home lives more? We in Ontario have a more stern work ethic? Don’t know, but that is a whole lot of work being done, I feel tired just reading about it.

What is your time worth to you? I started thinking about this, coming home from a hospital visit with my daughter (she got body slammed in a basketball game, so we got an x-ray in case). We went to the hospital in Carleton Place, and were in and out in about 1.5 hours, which is fantastic, given there was an x-ray in there too. My daughter barely had time to look at all of the pictures in the National Geographic. I was very impressed.

The last time I visited a hospital in Ottawa, it was at least 5 hours for the “visit”. Now I think I was lucky, but I do compliment the Carleton Place folks for their alacrity in getting us in and out.

What is your time worth to you? In this instance, I was with my daughter so I don’t view the time as “lost” we got to talk about stuff, but my interpretation of the question of “what is your time worth to you?”, is more of a question, what do you view as wasted time? To me I am wasting my time when:

• I am doing something I don’t care about, or has nothing to do with me. You rarely catch me doing this, I usually bail out on those activities quickly.
• Anything involving my kids is NOT wasting time, even sitting in a hospital waiting room.
• Standing in lines waiting to be told to go wait in another line, is a waste of time. If you are the person who tells me to go stand in another line, I apologize now for the look of death that I will give you.
• Arguing with people who’s only response is, “I can’t help you sir, that is our policy”, when we both know the policy is WRONG.

My time isn’t really worth that much per se, however, I relish the time I feel I am spending my time well! Time may be money, but spending it well is a very rewarding experience (just like money).

My article on Financial Resumes is mentioned by Barganeering on the 84th Carnival of Personal Finance .