I should actually be working 8h a day, but most of it is spend not working. If I'm honest I'm probably working more like 3h a day even though I enjoy my job.
Well as long as you enjoy it. If it were me, I might consider cutting down my hours in some years so I could enjoy the finer things in life with my brain surgeon salary.
Brain surgeon salary here isn't that high. :D. Just the same salary like any other attending doctor. We have something called tariff here in Germany. And as long as someone's paid according to the tariff there is no big discrepancy between specialists.
I was about task how a person can even work that much forgetting I used to do air traffic control and had very similar hours. Glad I don't have to work like that anymore. Although I'm sure your work is more rewarding.
The surgery and patient contact (speaking hours, visits) are really rewarding like you've said. But almost 30 percent or more of yoIur time (it really depends how high is your position) you're doing (not so rewarding) paperwork.. I hate paperwork. :D. It's a necessary evil, but I still hate it. I work in Germany and we have soooo many paperwork. Paperwork is the only work we can delay, so in the end of the long day (after 8-10 hours of "real" work), your exhausted body still have to finish the paperwork. I very often have to bring the work home because I just don't have the energy left to finish it in my hospital. And working at home is not "counted" as working hour...... If you don't like the work, it's really stupid to pick this line of work ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ.
I have heard that air traffic controller (the one in the tower, at least) works like pilot on the ground. Is that true? :D
Sounds very exhausting and sometimes I complain because once or twice a year we have to work a little extra on Friday night's, haha. Nice to have some perspective sometimes.
I wouldn't say being an air traffic controller is really anything like being a pilot to be honest. Pilots have to have very technical knowledge of aeronautics and focus their one single job of safely managing / landing their plane. An air traffic controller has to coordinate airspace for (possibly) many aircraft in a safe way. It can get very chaotic when things go awry but 90% of the time it's fairly straight forward procedure.