I work as a scientist at a an academic research institute.
I have the most interesting job, in many way I love it.
Colleagues are great. Pay is great too (my colleagues keep saying we are underpaid but my wife and I feel I am paid very much).
Problem is, the workload is way too much. I hate it.
Easy week is 50hr.
Average week is 60hr.
Experiment week is 100hr. I have done strings of 20hr/day few days in a row, and I witnessed colleagues doing shifts of 27consecutive hours. Directors know this. If we did not do this our "business" would not survive.
I am not exaggerating. Of course there is no way to track working time.
1) Difficult to change job because I am highly specialized in an academic field that is both extremely small and very rapidly shrinking, there is no more than a dozen placein the world where I could be a decent much, and workload there is same as here so no thanks. I already changed country (yes country, not town) 5 times and I feel it's enough.
2) I could make a career change, but at 41 it's less easy. Plus, I live in Germany and would like to stay here (my child is in the local school) but although I do speak German my German is not good enough to work in German, and won't be for a few more years (English is the only language at work). And we use Zero German at home because we parents do not speak it properly yet. Language-wise Germany is very conservative so getting a "normal" Job in Germany without speaking German is hard.
3) I know that for the same job in other countries (been there, done that) workload would be the same.
4) My colleagues appear not to suffer too much. Perhaps they just pretend, or they have stamina or adrenaline or they are full of drugs or they will pass away early.
5) I 18yr in this career I met NOBODY which has a time consuming hobby, like say amateour sport (not elite of course) or allottment or else. Just no time for it.
6) I know of cases of people that work themselves to death. Literally. Other get a stroke and are forced to stop work early. Dunno how this compares to other field
We are finishing the last experiment. This means another week of 100hr work nearing ist end. Fine, I get the adrenaline and the buzz and I like it. Just it's too bloody hard, and my family and my health are suffering.
I asked my boss for an extra bonus of 7days off. I knew there was a company rule but did not bother to check it. He replied the rule is that for every 1day of experiment I get an extra half day off. WTF: In one day I work 16hr, whereas normal people do 8, and I get 4hr off.
Hard to argue, since I have a temporary contract (like 90% people in this career) and they keep telling me in 2yr time they will *perhaps* turn it permanent.
I am depressed and frustrated.
Not sure what to ask here. Just some simpathy would be appreciated.