When I worked at the college of arts and sciences, I worked 9:00 - 5:00 with a hour unpaid lunch. 35 was considered full-time. It was lovely (except I didn't make much money.

When I moved to the school of nursing, the standard was 8:00 - 4:30 with a half hour unpaid lunch, and now anything under 40 hours- even as salaried, is considered part-time for benefits (but not for paying for parking).

You may have just gained a classmate.

It looks like it'll be fun, right? It's a partnership with University of Alberta.

I'm trying Duolingo, myself, for French.

Oh, nice. I am bookmarking that, because one day I intend to be fluent in Portuguese again... like I was 15 years ago.

Oh, man, I want very badly to take that Science and Cooking class, but I don't think I can.

There's an option to audit the class without making a commitment to complete the course materials, btw.

It's been well over a decade since I worked anywhere that 40 hours wasn't the full-time work-week. One place I worked, before college, the work-week was 37.5 hours in order to avoid paying full-time benefits to the staff. The guy who owned that company was a hard-core right-wing guy, who tried to run for Senate against Ted Kennedy a couple of times. Heh.

Mass residents will know who I'm talking about: he owned a small medical-equipment company in Foxboro or Walpole or something, and I think he even tried to pay Kennedy to debate him.

As my work situation was explained to me by the now-retired company pres (who is a relentlessly organized morning person), we must be in the office by no later than 9 a.m. and work 8 hours before leaving, barring the use of PTO or unofficial comp time from earlier in the two-week pay period. (Originally salaried employees were supposed to work things out so we only worked a total of 80 hours in any two weeks. A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...)

At any rate, this generally results in me being paid for the first 90 minutes or so at work where answering email and brewing coffee are the most productive things I can manage, and going home in the late afternoon/early evening when I still have a couple hours of clear-headed high speed work left in me. Flex time actually maximized my productivity, but apparently made the company look too loosey-goosey and unprofessional to the executives and clients that almost never actually show up at this location anyway.

I suspect that many hourly 9 to 5 workers are held to that schedule to prevent them from working a 40 hour week and being full-time.

I rather appreciate my line of work where due to the 24-7ish nature of it, it is difficult to come up with a schedule wherein most people have exactly 40 hours. Here, if you are regularly scheduled for 30 per week, you are considered full-time and given benefits as such. Part-timers get full benefits when they have worked 1000 hours.

Jilli, you know a number of good tattoo artists, don't you?

Yes. All in Seattle, but yes. And I can get recommendations for tattoo artist in other cities, if you need.

I just signed up for that science and cooking class! Fun!

Jilli, I need one in the Pasadena area. I need to clean up my tattoo and add something to it.

Give him a sock.

You do realise this has retroactive nude visuals, right?

Give him a sock.

You do realise this has retroactive nude visuals, right?

I realized it as soon as I typed it. But then I left it because I thought it was apropos.