for me at least, 8 hours any other time of the day is less bad than the constant awful grind of 9-5
you’re always commuting right when everyone else is commuting, you have to be up early every morning (and it always FEELS early – if you’re naturally waking up at noon but have work at 1 that doesn’t feel as much like a boot stamping on your face forever), many things are only open during those hours so there’s always a time crunch if you have errands
and it just feels worse. you feel like a depressed office worker in a movie. by 5pm the day’s already over, the sun is setting in winter. and the most insufferable of all, imo: once it’s evening, you start feeling dread for tomorrow. so it’s like you’re never truly off work because you know you have to go to bed early to be up early to go right back.
somehow these standard hours are the most offensive possible to personal autonomy and mood.
i’m extremely lucky to have a WFH at the moment where i can make my own hours; when i work approx 9-5 like that, i just feel so trapped. i don’t want to go to the store before work because i just woke up and can’t be bothered, i can’t go after because traffic is a nightmare and i’m exhausted by then. it just sucks. there’s no mystery or magic to it. working food service until 2am felt cool, it felt cool getting paid to stay up late and make pizza and have a ‘good reason’ to have a weird sleep schedule and be out super late. 9-5 makes me feel like jim from the office except less charismatic
I work in a tech-field and for most jobs I’ve been on there’s been core business hours that you’re expected to be in your office which gives all the workers a little bit of flexibility. Core business hours are usually around 10am to 1pm. How it works is you do your 8 hours however you want, so long as the building is open, and you are in the office during core hours. We have a good-sized early morning group, also a smaller group (usually younger) that comes in later in the morning and hang out til 6 and then go out for drinks afterwards. Most of the jobs also allow people to flex their hours within reason. So you can work a 8+ hour day to work a shorter day later.
This little bit of flexibility is so great - allows parents more time with their kids, going to appointments, avoiding traffic, etc. Literally saves you so much in PTO and $$, as well as other residual benefits to your health and wellbeing.
EDIT - For clarity, they usually don’t show semi-flexible/flexible work schedules in job postings, but definitely ask during interviews. Let’s be real, a 4-day, 8-hour/day schedule won’t manifest in this lifetime, so this and WFH are the next best things.
That’s how my job is. No one cares what hours I work as long as I show up to meetings and answer outage phone calls.