How the extra hour of work crept in and why it matters

"Working nine to six, what a way to make a living..." was not the lyric Dolly Parton went for when she penned her famous anti-rat-race anthem back in 1980.

- Helen Coffey, The Independent

And not just because “five” has more rhyming opportunities. No, Parton was referencing the commonplace, standardized workday, consisting, for most humble employees, of a seven-hour shift with an hour's lunch break in the middle — equating to 35 hours a week. This, she concluded, was a bit of a drag: lining a boss’s pockets for little reward or recognition, all while being passed over for promotion and having your best ideas nicked. Today, however, many of us would be thrilled to find ourselves confined to a straightforward 9-5. Google co-founder Sergey Brin raised eyebrows at the beginning of March after writing in a leaked internal memo that “60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity” — and that anyone working less than that was doing “the bare minimum”. Even for those working in less highly strung environments, the stealthy creep of the “9 to 6” in many workers’ contracts, requiring an extra five hours of work per week for seemingly no extra pay, is making the 9-5 feel like a distant dream from a golden age.