In general, it’s more than brutal, in times when terms like “Quiet Quitting” prove that the concept of “Hussle Culture” should be reconsidered long ago, when burnout has long since become a widespread disease, when concepts like the Four-day or the 30-hour week is being considered, to use a slogan with the tenor “Achievement must be worth it again”, which so brutally shoots the zeitgeist in the foot. Especially when “rewarding” in this context means receiving benefits that others are denied. Kocher has now qualified his statement and put it in context. But what remains is definitely an unpleasant aftertaste.
Because some of us have been or are in this situation ourselves and in solidarity with all part-time workers out there, we thought of a few things that you probably know if you have worked part-time before.
“One day you will not get a pension”
Quote from a grandmother, but thrown at many part-time workers in an inflationary way when they reveal their weekly hours. And yes, the problem of the part-time trap is certainly not negligible, but in many cases there are good reasons why someone has accepted or applied for a part-time job. And if a part-time job is carried out alongside full-time studies, for example, then you are already doing a lot to counteract the problem of a missing pension. If you are dependent on part-time because you have to do unpaid care work at the same time, the situation is of course very different.
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“Now it’s about time you REALLY work”
This is also a quote that can actually only cause incomprehension. Because what is really real work? Pushing overtime in the social sector because there is a shortage of staff? Do you also hack away at the construction site on Sundays because the skilled workers are absent? Pushing overtime because some project has some kind of deadline that stands without ifs and buts? Or does that work have its justification if it is done within 20 or 30 hours a week? What makes an article better, a wall more stable, a kindergarten group better looked after when the person who is professionally responsible for it can do their work in 40 or even more hours? Working “really” doesn’t depend on how much you work.
“So what do you do when you have the whole day off?”
Writing a master’s thesis, picking up the kids from school, looking after the grandmother, cooking food, running the house, taking a nap or two, going to a lecture, another job, doing yourself good, sports, shopping, official channels, doing the laundry, Art, just nothing, physiotherapy, psychotherapy, personal hygiene, going for a walk, retraining, magic tricks, driving grandpa to the doctor, driving the children to the doctor, driving your partner to the doctor. It is also called care work – in many of these cases. Thank you for your concern.
“You weren’t there yesterday”
Accusations are never good, especially unjustified ones. In everyday work, they also contribute anything but to well-being. If someone only works in the morning and the next day receives the minutes of a meeting with the comment: “Because you weren’t there yesterday”, then it has a very bitter aftertaste. If attendance at a meeting is necessary and one of the participants is not working in the afternoon, then it would either make sense to schedule the meeting in the morning or to refrain from making subliminal judgmental comments. Open communication is the be-all and end-all, preferably in advance to prevent such situations.
The premature farewell
But enough of nagging fellow human beings, even part-time workers themselves are not immune to crimes. For example, it is not particularly good for the atmosphere in the college if you wish everyone a nice weekend at lunchtime on Thursday. Oops! And just because you say goodbye to the weekend a day earlier doesn’t mean that you’ll put your feet up and do nothing from Thursday afternoon. No, it just means that you just saw the collegial faces for the last time before the weekend – not bad either.
The bad conscience
Not only when you say goodbye to the weekend on Thursdays, but otherwise you can have a guilty conscience. And that clearly shows what mentality is lived in the working world. It’s not unusual to quickly check emails, Slack messages or the WhatsApp group with colleagues on the day off, because it could be something urgent. However, free still means free and part-time employees should write this behind their ears.
The calendar trap
When it comes to working, part-time jobs also pose a number of stumbling blocks on the way to the end of the day. Not only when colleagues announce themselves with a message, only to say: “Excuse me, I forgot, you don’t work today.” It can also happen in your own planning – or the one given by public holidays – that you slipping into a mode where a part-time job feels like full-time very quickly. Pentecost, Easter, weekend days and any Ascension Day – as soon as one day of the week is fixed, part-time employees quickly get into trouble, because suddenly you are there almost as often and for as long as everyone else.
What do we learn from these quotes, statements, behaviors and habits? Part-time jobs are already exposed to many prejudices and are often smiled at. It remains questionable whether political decisions such as cuts in social benefits are the right way to go. However, it is certainly not a polemical debate. One thing is certain: It’s good when something happens in the working world, but it would be nice if it also benefited those who don’t (can’t) (and don’t want to) work 40 hours.
We are happy to give our two cents on certain topics. If you want to read more about it, just click through our list in which we have collected all our mustard articles. And because a change of location can often help to increase the work-life balance, we are also happy to recommend cool hotels for workation in Austria.