Writing your hours correctly is essential for transparency, trust, and proper planning within the team. In this quiz, you will be presented with everyday situations. Your task is simple: decide whether the time spent should be written as working hours or not.
Keep in mind that short interruptions that are part of a normal workday are included, while longer breaks or time not directly related to work are not. Think carefully about each scenario and choose the answer that best reflects our agreements.
Working hours at government projects
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Informatie
Working in a government project, or any structured professional environment, introduces you to the discipline of writing hours and submitting timesheets. While the mechanics of entering hours are usually straightforward, questions often arise around what exactly should be written: how many hours per day, when your working day starts and ends, and how to handle situations like sick leave, holidays, or time off.
In a typical government project, a full-time contract is based on 36 hours per week. These hours are distributed across the working week. The standard pattern is four days of 8 hours and one day of 4 hours, resulting in a total of 36 hours. In most teams, this is organized as Monday through Thursday being full 8-hour days, and Friday being a shorter 4-hour day. This structure helps ensure maximum overlap between team members, which is essential for collaboration.
Some contracts allow alternative distributions, such as four days of 9 hours, but these are exceptions rather than the rule. Regardless of the distribution, timesheets are typically submitted at the end of the working week.
In practice, not every week follows the standard pattern. Situations may arise where completing 36 hours is not possible, for example:
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You are sick for more than half a day during the week
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You take more than half a day off
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There is a public or mandatory holiday
In these cases, your total written hours will be lower than 36.
However, there are also situations where you can adjust your schedule. If you are sick for part of a day or take a few hours off, you must compensate by working additional hours on Friday. A common example is extending Friday from a 4-hour day to an 8-hour day to make up missed time. In some cases, your employer may expect you to do so. Friday becomes flexible only when hours were missed earlier in the week.
This leads to an important consideration: writing hours is not just about reaching a number. It is about accurately reflecting the work you have performed within agreed working patterns and maintaining alignment with your team. Simply “filling up” a timesheet to reach 36 hours without having worked those hours is not acceptable.
Working at the office comes with a few additional expectations. On office days, team members are expected to work a full 8-hour day. This includes a mandatory 30-minute lunch break, which is not counted as working time. The office is accessible between 07:00 and 18:00, so your working hours must fit within this window. This means you need to plan your start time accordingly. For example, arriving at 10:00 makes it impossible to complete 8 working hours plus the required lunch break before closing time. In such cases, you will not reach 8 working hours for that day, and these hours cannot be compensated on other days in the same week. It is therefore your responsibility to ensure you start on time. Please also note that travel time to and from the office is not considered working time and should not be written as hours.
To help clarify these situations and ensure a shared understanding, the following quiz presents a number of realistic scenarios. For each situation, consider how many hours should be written and whether any adjustments are appropriate.
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- Beantwoord
- Beoordeling
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Vraag 1 van 13
1. Vraag
You take a 10-minute coffee break during your workday and then continue working.
Correct
Correct. Short breaks like coffee breaks are considered part of your normal working day.
Incorrect
Not quite. Short breaks are included in your working hours and do not need to be deducted.
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Vraag 2 van 13
2. Vraag
You take a 30-minute lunch break away from your desk.
Correct
Correct. Lunch breaks are not considered working time and should not be written.
Incorrect
Not quite. A 30 minutes lunch is a mandatory break and is not part of your working hours.
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Vraag 3 van 13
3. Vraag
You take a 15-minute phone call during your workday, for example with your partner or family.
Correct
Correct. Short personal interruptions like a quick phone call are part of a normal workday.
Incorrect
Not quite. Short interruptions are considered part of your working time.
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Vraag 4 van 13
4. Vraag
You take a few short sanitary breaks during the day.
Correct
Correct. These are normal and expected parts of a working day.
Incorrect
Not quite. Sanitary breaks are always included in your working hours.
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Vraag 5 van 13
5. Vraag
You take a 30-minute walk outside during your workday to clear your head.
Correct
Correct. A walk is considered a break and should not be written as working time.
Incorrect
Not quite. Longer breaks like a walk are not part of your working hours.
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Vraag 6 van 13
6. Vraag
You travel 45 minutes from your home to the office in the morning.
Correct
Correct. Travel time to and from the office is not considered working time.
Incorrect
Not quite. Travel time is not counted as working hours.
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Vraag 7 van 13
7. Vraag
You arrive at the office at 10:00. The office closes at 18:00 and you take a 30-minute lunch break.
Correct
Correct. It is not possible to reach 8 working hours in this timeframe, so you cannot write 8 hours.
Incorrect
Not quite. Given the office hours and lunch break, you cannot reach 8 working hours.
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Vraag 8 van 13
8. Vraag
You stay at your desk and continue working while eating your lunch.
Correct
Correct. Lunch is a mandatory break and is not counted, even if you choose to keep working.
Incorrect
Not quite. Lunch time is not counted as working hours, regardless of what you do.
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Vraag 9 van 13
9. Vraag
You worked 6 hours on Monday and decide to work 10 hours on Tuesday to still reach 36 hours for the week.
Correct
Correct. Hours are not meant to be compensated across days in this way.
Incorrect
Not quite. You cannot compensate missed hours by overworking another day.
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Vraag 10 van 13
10. Vraag
During your day, you take two coffee breaks, a few sanitary breaks, and one short personal phone call.
Correct
Correct. These are all normal short interruptions and part of your working day.
Incorrect
Not quite. These types of short breaks are included in your working hours.
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Vraag 11 van 13
11. Vraag
You were sick for a full day on Tuesday. The rest of the week you are working as usual. What applies to your Friday?
Correct
Correct. If you have sick leave during the week, you must extend Friday to a full 8-hour workday.
Incorrect
Not quite. When part of the week is missed due to sickness, Friday must be used as a full workday.
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Vraag 12 van 13
12. Vraag
You have a doctor’s appointment on Monday that takes half a day. What is the correct way to handle the rest of the week?
Correct
Correct. If you miss part of a day, you must extend Friday to a full 8-hour workday.
Incorrect
Not quite. You should not redistribute hours unevenly across multiple days. Friday must be used to make up time.
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Vraag 13 van 13
13. Vraag
You missed a train and are late at the office and cannot work 8 hours that day. How can you compensate?
Correct
Correct. Missed hours on office days cannot be compensated, not even on Fridays.
Incorrect
Not quite so. Missed hours on office days cannot be compensated on other days.
De pyramide van Martin Fowler, auteur van het boek