I sympathize with the problems of school teachers as articulated in
other posts. Certainly the lack of "down time" or break time is a major
problem; there is virtually no opportunity to deal with important
personal business during the work day, creating many kinds of headaches.
I know this because a friend of mine is an elementary school teacher, a
widow with a physically handicapped son, and she has had horrible
problems trying to manage his care during the work day--sometimes I've
had to make phone calls on her behalf because my museum work day is more
flexible! Also, she has severe problems with unruly kids and a principal
and school board who will do nothing to support her or other teachers.
There's definitely a blackboard jungle out there. On the other hand, she
does NOT have to put in extra time ordinarily. She seldom puts in more
than a 40-hour week, and rarely takes any work home. By contrast, her
husband, a high school physics teacher in an affluent neighborhood, had
little stress because there were virtually no discipline problems, but
he HAD to bring work home every night and undoubtedly exceeded a 60-hour
work week. As far as museum work is concerned, I know a few people in my
museum who regularly put in extra time, others who do it only on rare
occasions such as an exhibit opening or special project deadline. In my
unit, basically only my boss and I regularly put in extra hours, a few
others do occasionally, but at least 5 or 6 people think I'm a
workaholic freak and wouldn't dream of devoting extra time to their
job--not even for general professional advancement, such as reading a
book or journal. They say their personal life comes first and their
museum job will never be allowed to interfere with it. My conclusion? Be
careful about generalizations. There are two kinds of people in this
world--those who generalize and those who don't!