Working week of a Surveyor (The Working Week: Do We Work Too Many Hours?)

Member Name: Ghumphrey

Product:	The Working Week: Do We Work Too Many Hours?
Date:	17/06/09 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Flexi time, get out of office at least one day a week

Disadvantages: Pay is not as competitive as private sector

My working week

In the past I have had numerous jobs ranging from bar man, to an engineering officer on a ship. All jobs have there pluses and minuses for instance the job on the ship involved loads of travel but I often had to work in excess of 80 hours a week. I got sick of the sea and decided to retrain and now work as a Chartered Surveyor.

What is a Chartered Surveyor?

I get asked this quite a lot when people ask me what I do. A surveyor's role is wide and varied and can be anything from a building surveyor to an environmental surveyor. I am a Valuation Surveyor. Basically I work for the government and if they need any properties or land valued then I receive instructions to provide a valuation for them. This can be anything from large factories to small houses and can be for a whole multitude of purposes such as buying and selling, compensation and benefits. The Chartered part of the title relates to the fact that I have sat a very very tough exam set by a regulatory body. My passing the exam I am now able to put the letters MRICS after my name and it's a recognised symbol for customers who like to have reassurance that they are dealing with someone who is regulated to high standard.

My working week

Overall I have it pretty good. I work for the Government and they positively encourage a healthy work/home life balance. We also have the added benefit of being able to work flexible working time. Ultimately I have to work 37.5 hours every week. I can work any hours with the flexi time to make this target. Generally I tend to work from 830 to 1630 every day with about 30 mins for lunch which I normally take at my desk. However, over the past few weeks I have been working extra say to five most days. This gives me 30 mins per day which I can then build up and take off at my own leisure. This is one of the biggest perks of my jobs as I can often save up days for long weekends of special occasions. We are allowed to build up a maximum of three days a month but it would take a massive amount of self discipline to do this. We can work up 7.5 hours any time between 8 and 6. I have to be in work in core times which are 10-12 and 2-4. So in theory if you felt rough you could work 10-12 take a two hour lunch break and then 2-4. This would mean you only worked 4 hours so you would then owe the company 3.5 hours which you could work back at another time.

As part of my role I am usually out in the field inspecting properties or land at least once a week. This is my favourite part as I enjoy getting out and meeting people and hopefully trying to get things sorted for them so that both side are happy.

The holidays with the government are very good. I get 25 days a year plus all bank holidays and in my role I can apply for holidays at pretty short notice and normally always get them.

In summary my job is very interesting. Its quite complex in times, I get to use my degree and the work/life balance is very good indeed. On the downside wages in public sector are not as good as colleagues working in private sector and with it being Government that can at times be a lot of bureaucracy which can be soul destroying. However that being said I would recommend this job and it can produce a high level of job satisfaction.

Summary: Interesting job and I get to meet lots of people and time normally flies in.