[HN Gopher] Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?
___________________________________________________________________
Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?
Author : prostoalex
Score : 188 points
Date : 2021-12-01 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| simonsquiff wrote:
| As of January I'm moving to 50% of full time - generally 2.5 days
| a week, I expect there will be certain months where I do a couple
| of weeks in a row and little else rest of the month. After 20+
| years working full time am incredibly excited about the change
| and what I can do with the extra space in my life. Due to how tax
| rates work I get about 58% of previous pay for 50% of the work.
|
| I expect to deliver about 80% of the value I do today - by having
| a good excuse to jettison the low value stuff, feel more
| motivated and engaged in the time I do have, feel more refreshed
| with more mental energy
|
| Time will show if that proves the case...
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| I can't reply to the "https://archive.md/PVjCZ" comment by
| stuff4ben, the reply link is missing.
|
| But first I got a "DNS Probe Possbile" in Brave, and after 4
| refreshes I just got a Privacy error with
| "NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID".
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| I always found this quote from The Wealth of Nations to be quite
| insightful and was one of those surprising moments reading the
| actual text:
|
| "It will be found, I believe, in every sort of trade, that the
| man who works so moderately, as to be able to work constantly,
| not only preserves his health the longest, but, in the course of
| the year, executes the greatest quantity of work."
| missedthecue wrote:
| I think that is just saying to work smarter, not harder. I
| don't think it's saying put in fewer hours. The "as to be able
| to work constantly" seems to be vital here.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| I don't think so; it says "moderately". As in, this is a
| marathon, not a sprint. If you run too fast, you won't get to
| the end of the race.
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| I provided the quote which I thought most concisely
| communicated his thesis in this passage. The immediately
| proceeding lines I believe clarify it:
|
| "Great labour, either of mind or body, continued for several
| days together is, in most men, naturally followed by a great
| desire of relaxation, which, if not restrained by force, or
| by some strong necessity, is almost irresistible. It is the
| call of nature, which requires to be relieved by some
| indulgence, sometimes of ease only, but sometimes too of
| dissipation and diversion. If it is not complied with, the
| consequences are often dangerous and sometimes fatal, and
| such as almost always, sooner or later, bring on the peculiar
| infirmity of the trade. If masters would always listen to the
| dictates of reason and humanity, they have frequently
| occasion rather to moderate, than to animate the application
| of many of their workmen."
|
| This is all from Chapter VIII: Of The Wages Of Labour.
| pkrotich wrote:
| I'm close to doing 4-day workweek for my team. For now we do 4.5
| (half a day on Friday).
|
| That said, had to subscribe to answering services to cover off
| hours including Friday afternoon.
|
| You'll be surprised how many people call at 5pm on Friday.
| irrational wrote:
| My company typically gives everyone half days on Fridays from
| Memorial Day to Labor Day (and most people only put in a token
| amount of work - if that - on those Fridays - no meetings are
| allowed to be scheduled on any Friday of the year). This year, in
| addition to that, they gave everyone every Friday off for the
| month of July. And... the company still functioned just fine. We
| run on sprints and we finished just as many story points during
| those sprints as during sprints when we work full Fridays. I'm
| pretty sure we could all stop working every Friday and things
| would go perfectly well.
|
| Also, we aren't allowed to make any code changes from
| Thanksgiving to New Years. So nothing really happens from
| Thanksgiving to mid-December and then the entire company stops
| working the last two weeks of December - we don't even submit
| time off for it, you just don't show up. That is essentially
| 10-20 business days where no real work happens. That is almost
| the equivalent of a year's worth of Fridays.
| EastSmith wrote:
| Similar thing - half of the year now with no meeting Fridays &
| 4hrs Fridays.
|
| This gets extended month to month based on performance, so it
| could stop, but if they stop it I will really try to find a job
| where they do a similar thing.
|
| No meetings on Friday means that in four hours you can do as
| much as with normal Friday but with meetings (given the
| meetings produce 0 value, which is not the case of course, but
| also sometimes the meetings could have been an email, a tweet,
| or a joke).
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I would actually love a 4.5 day workweek, where the half-day is
| up to the employee to take.
| [deleted]
| macinjosh wrote:
| My company started 1/2 day Fridays a few months ago in what was
| billed as a temporary experiment. Today it was announced that
| we'd be keeping them permanently. From my point of view it has
| been a big improvement for everyone there. Having some time to
| play with my daughter during the day time is great, especially
| during winter while the days are short and the sun is already
| down by the time I am done working.
| seiferteric wrote:
| We had something like that at my work. From June-Aug we had
| "Summer Hours" where we would not have any meetings after 2pm
| and could stop working if then if there was nothing vital. Not
| exactly half day but still nice, though not sure why it's just
| for summer time...
| ghaff wrote:
| The thinking is probably that more people are likely to be
| heading somewhere for the weekend in the summer or at least
| doing some Friday evening activity.
|
| In general though I observe that I'm seeing a lot fewer
| scheduled Friday meetings than on other days and, while
| things sometimes need to get handled on Friday afternoon,
| people are often pretty apologetic is they schedule a Friday
| PM meeting.
| mlyle wrote:
| Better to do 9 days in 10 or really make it to 4 (longer) days,
| IMO. Because then you're saving some commuter trips for people
| who have to be on site.
|
| I think 4x9 as a nominal workweek makes a whole lot of sense.
| (9 days x 8 hours) / (2 weeks) is almost as good.
| penjelly wrote:
| wasnt there a post about this recently and the comments pointed
| out how 50 years ago articles like this existed? iirc then we
| havent made a lot of progress
| stuff4ben wrote:
| https://archive.md/PVjCZ
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I'm currently working for a company that forces office staff to
| work a half day on christmas eve with the additional stipulation,
| of course, that you must burn a full day of vacation to skip it.
| This despite the fact that no one in the company can ever
| remember a customer calling on christmas eve.
|
| So I'm very skeptical that this trend will grow. It took the IWW
| to get us the concepts of The Weekend and Sick Days, and I expect
| it will take nothing less extreme to claw back any more of our
| time from the corporate slave-driving overlords. Absent a few
| easily-dismissed outliers, of course.
| missedthecue wrote:
| According to The Atlantic, religion started the weekend/5 day
| workweek, not the IWW.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-t...
|
| In fact, I cannot find any source at all that says the IWW
| caused the weekend.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Sure would be a shame if the employees collectively bargained
| with the company for more reasonable policies...
| azinman2 wrote:
| Yup... because their jobs may then go abroad as has been the
| trend for the past 20 years...
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| Some of my best (ie: most profitable per hour jobs) were
| rescuing projects that were sent abroad.
| nickff wrote:
| This seems like it could be survivor-ship bias; i.e. your
| highest margin jobs weren't those that had been sent
| abroad, they were the ones that failed after having been
| sent abroad.
| yupper32 wrote:
| If they could they would.
|
| I remember being told over 10 years ago as I was entering
| the field of software that I shouldn't bother: my job is
| going to be outsourced soon enough.
|
| This is just a scare tactic with little teeth. Not to say
| it doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen enough for it to
| be a consideration.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| An ultimately the company will suffer in quality, be bought
| by private equity and gutted in the next twenty years.
| RexM wrote:
| Unfortunately, most companies aren't looking past the
| next few quarters.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| You can't ship pretty much any service industry job abroad.
| klipklop wrote:
| That's why they are working so hard on AI, drones and
| robots.
| yardie wrote:
| They are perpetually 3-5 years away. This is why there is
| a shortage now. We've told an entire generation not to
| take those jobs, they're going to be automated anyway.
| 2021 arrives and still no FSD trucks, no robotized fast
| food, and no last mile drone delivery. Not only did these
| companies convince investors labor wasn't necessary, they
| also managed to convince labor labor wasn't necessary.
| willheis wrote:
| This happened to everything it could at least 10 years ago.
| It turns out that if you want software that works (at all),
| you need to pay people well, regardless of where they are
| in the world. Stop reenforcing this notion that leads to
| massive overwork and burnout in the US (+ Canada). Germany,
| the UK, Sweden, etc all have much, much better working
| conditions for software devs and their jobs aren't going
| away
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| This is not my experience. Overseas devs have only gotten
| better and more tightly aligned with the west in the past
| 10 years. The idea of throwing your work over then fence
| to the cheapest jurisidiction may have died but there are
| significant cost savings in going overseas, especially as
| westerners get more expensive and remote work grows
| Daishiman wrote:
| And good overseas devs have gotten far, far more
| expensive.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I hear that many of the European countries have lower dev
| salaries than the US. So maybe better conditions, but
| possibly lower pay.
|
| Our company just started outsourcing IT 5 years ago. It's
| still expanding that policy.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > I hear that many of the European countries have lower
| dev salaries than the US. So maybe better conditions, but
| possibly lower pay.
|
| While arguably true, it's almost definitely not better
| conditions to blame. A more likely source is the massive
| and relatively homogenous US market, a culture open to
| immigration, and the huge reserves of capital sloshing
| about the country.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| the significantly higher direct and indirect taxes are
| definitely related though
| dukeyukey wrote:
| You'd be surprised.
|
| Like, if we take taxes as a percentage of GDP as a
| figure, the US scores pretty well at about 27%. But
| Australia is at 28%, Canada at 32%, and even the UK at
| 33%. The differences aren't massive here. He'll, Ireland
| comes in at 23%.
| Manouchehri wrote:
| My _average_ personal income tax rate was well over 40%
| during my last year in Canada. (The marginal rate is /was
| 53.53%.)
|
| Even a high tax state like California would have a five
| figure amount less owed in taxes than Ontario at certain
| income levels.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not saying they are related. Just saying it can
| be a trade-off between higher pay and fewer hours and
| there are many variables to consider when comparing
| internationally.
| mlyle wrote:
| I personally believe that the government should focus on a
| shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near
| term.
|
| If we shorten the nominal workweek to 36 hours before overtime
| is required (and encourage this to be in the form of 4x9 or 9/2
| * 8):
|
| * Supply of labor will fall, increasing equilibrium pay for
| everyone
|
| * Everyone's quality of life goes up
|
| * Traffic and environmental impacts from commuting should
| improve (a little).
|
| * It's a better hedge against automation and outsourcing than
| artificially increasing the minimum price of labor.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The biggest problem is the minimum wage for salaried exempt
| workers needs to be a few hundred thousand dollars.
|
| Otherwise, businesses will continue to label employees
| managers with no actual management responsibilities with the
| sole goal of paying someone a lower hourly rate in exchange
| for a more certain periodic payment.
|
| Once you remove this loophole, hourly pay will naturally rise
| as businesses will opt to hire more hourly workers. The
| biggest reason hourly workers lack negotiating power is
| businesses can lean in the salaried "managers" to fill in at
| no extra cost.
| mlyle wrote:
| This is an interesting idea, but it seems really
| impractical to me. As you point out, people enjoy some
| benefits from certainty in compensation. Outlawing a
| compensation arrangement far in excess of minimum wage
| seems questionable.
|
| And how far does this extend? Can I not pay a contractor a
| fixed rate for a project? Or a fixed rate to handle _____
| for me for a week? It would seem to encourage arm's-length
| contracting arrangement for services and coverage, which
| isn't ideal.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You need both: A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income
| someone can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc)
| and ratcheting down the work week distributes productivity
| gains of capital to workers in aggregate. The former is,
| arguably, more tenable politically at the moment ("Fight for
| $15" and so on), the latter likely in the future as the
| electorate (and the beliefs around work and its contribution
| to someone's identity) evolves. Increasing the minimum wage
| would also lift ~20 million people out of poverty (at the
| cost of about 1.4 million jobs) per the US CBO [1] [2] [3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_
| Sta...
|
| [2] https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-02/56975-Minimum-
| Wage....
|
| [3] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965483266/-15-minimum-
| wage-wo...
| kube-system wrote:
| > A minimum wage ensures a wage of enough income someone
| can pay for basic needs (housing, food, health, etc)
|
| This isn't really a criticism of your comment, but I've
| always felt that this is a convenient supporting argument
| that obscures so much nuance that it is actually harmful to
| the broader goal of more fair wages. There are three huge
| assumptions that a statement like "an hourly wage should be
| enough income for basic needs" obscures:
|
| 1. that the person is employable (I don't think it's
| necessarily good to economically guarantee that severely
| disabled people are forced out of the workplace, even if
| they have other support systems to guarantee their needs)
|
| 2. that the person works a certain number of hours.
| ($100/hr is not livable if you work one hour per week.)
|
| 3. that a person has an assumed set of needs and an assumed
| support system (different life circumstances require
| different incomes to meet basic needs)
|
| Everyone deserves to afford their basic needs, regardless
| of any of these confounding factors. Much of our worst
| poverty is because of one of these factors, not a variable
| as simplistic as hourly wage. Wages should be fair, but
| basic needs should be for everyone regardless of their
| ability to work a 9-to-5. While I do think we need some
| upwards pressure on wages, I also think social safety nets
| are a more equitable way to ensure basic needs are met. And
| we don't need to let employers off the hook for paying the
| bill, we can tax them to do this.
| mlyle wrote:
| I agree that one needs both and that they serve
| complementary purposes.
|
| But a minimum wage is useful to the extent that there are
| jobs for your lowest skill, least desirable workers. And
| ensuring that may take reducing the work week.
| dv_dt wrote:
| We should consider thinking of those jobs not as lowest
| skill, but jobs where the workers have the lowest
| negotiating power.
| mlyle wrote:
| They go hand in hand.
|
| Why do the workers have the lowest negotiating power in
| these jobs? It's because they are the most easily
| replaced and the net benefit from employing them is
| smallest.
|
| [There are some edge cases, where a field is swamped from
| people doing the job for the _love_ of it... But this is
| not the typical case.]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of the minimum wage that the
| federal / state / local governments are the negotiator of
| last resort?
|
| I.e. people with minimum wage jobs would be paid even
| less, but for the government using its power to negotiate
| for them
| mlyle wrote:
| > Isn't the whole point of the minimum wage that the
| federal / state / local governments are the negotiator of
| last resort?
|
| Yes. And it's a necessary thing to have.
|
| On the other hand... if someone is doing work that
| returns $15.50/hour on average to the business, and is
| employed at $10/hour, raising the minimum wage to
| $15/hour doesn't get that person a raise: it gets them
| laid off.
|
| The things that IMO really help the fundamentals are:
|
| * Raising the demand for low-skill labor (e.g. economic
| growth above productivity improvements)
|
| * Raising the average skill level of the workforce,
| and/or
|
| * Reducing the supply of labor.
| vkou wrote:
| > On the other hand... if someone is doing work that
| returns $15.50/hour on average to the business, and is
| employed at $10/hour, raising the minimum wage to
| $15/hour doesn't get that person a raise: it gets them
| laid off.
|
| No, what it does is it causes prices to go up, which are
| amortized across all of society - between both people who
| are paid $15/hour, and people who are paid $150/hour.
|
| On average, it is a small wealth transfer from the
| average person to the working poor.
| mlyle wrote:
| > No, what it does is it causes prices to go up, which
| are amortized across all of society
|
| It does both of these things. Some jobs are lost and some
| prices go up.
|
| Some tasks are better off outsourced, automated, or not
| even done at all as the floor price on labor increases.
| Raising minimum wages here hurts. Shortening the work
| week helps.
|
| The demand for some tasks is inelastic but easily
| performed by many different people. The price of these
| tasks increases in proportion to minimum wage. Raising
| minimum wages here helps the employees, and shortening
| the work week is a small hurt.
|
| Some tasks already have an equilibrium price well above
| minimum wage due to a supply limitation of the capable
| labor. Raising minimum wages here is relatively neutral.
| Shortening the work week should increase compensation
| here and increase the motivation for employers to find
| ways to bring more lower skill people into the field.
|
| Most things are somewhere _between_ these extremes.
| adolph wrote:
| > No, what it does is it causes prices to go up, which
| are amortized across all of society - between both people
| who are paid $15/hour, and people who are paid $150/hour.
|
| Do people who are paid 10x necessarily consume 10x over a
| person paid minimum wage? If raising the minimum wage
| causes across the board price increases (aka inflation),
| then those whose income is lower are affected more since
| a higher percentage of their income is spent on essential
| consumption (food, water, shelter).
|
| If the operational concept is "small wealth transfer" to
| the folks earning the lowest income using inflation as a
| stealth tax then it is a highly regressive tax.
|
| _Using polling data for 31,869 households in thirty-
| eight countries and allowing for country effects, we show
| that the poor are more likely than the rich to mention
| inflation as a top national concern._
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/2673879
| vkou wrote:
| > Do people who are paid 10x necessarily consume 10x over
| a person paid minimum wage?
|
| Even if their consumption was 1x, my point would still
| stand. Most people aren't earning minimum wage, nor are
| their salaries affected by minimum wage increases. This
| means that the cost of most products does not increase as
| minimum wages increase.
|
| Minimum wage increase money comes from somewhere, and
| since ~everyone relies on minimum wage workers, that
| means that ~everyone pays for that wage increase.
|
| If you take a dollar away from 100 people, and split half
| the resulting money between the 10 poorest in that group,
| and the other half between the next 20, it's a
| _regressive_ tax, with a _progressive_ benefit that has a
| net benefit for the poorest. Minimum wage increases work
| the same way. The rich lose a little, the middle class
| lose some, the poor win.
| xupybd wrote:
| Higher minimum wage laws do hurt low skilled workers. We
| have two great big machines at work each will pay for
| it's self in under a year at current minimum wage rates.
| There is no choice but to replace the people for machines
| if we want to remain competitive.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is a win-win. They force other businesses who can't
| buy a machine to pay a higher floor. If no jobs exist at
| all those voters will bring in someone who will tax
| companies like yours and spread the wealth. Your company
| gets more productive.
|
| Paying some a lower wage because it delays another
| machine purchase is not a long term solutiom
| loonster wrote:
| > If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in
| someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the
| wealth.
|
| And those companies will calculate the ROI for moving
| into a lower tax burdensome area. After the company
| leaves the people wont have a job or the tax revenue.
| midasuni wrote:
| Which is why all companies move to Somalia rather than
| say California
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I hear Hargeisa is nice these days.
| xapata wrote:
| No one lives in California; it's too crowded.
| xupybd wrote:
| That job was not a long term position most would either
| move on or up. People are more flexible than machines.
| They're a better choice if you can afford it.
|
| Living off of redistributed hand outs sounds like a
| horrible way to live. How do you improve your life? How
| do you find meaning?
|
| I live in a country that has 3rd generation
| beneficiaries. Their lives don't appear enjoyable. Once
| in that mind set it's so hard to get out. They often turn
| to drugs and mindless entertainment.
| frickinLasers wrote:
| You're on a site full of motivated self-learners who
| would hopefully use that free time to improve their
| selves and contribute to far more interesting, useful,
| and fulfilling things than making the widgets the machine
| can make.
|
| Most of us also probably live in countries where a
| significant fraction of the population would choose
| Playstation/Netflix/heroin instead. That's their choice,
| but you're probably right that much of it is learned
| behavior. Perhaps some significant resources (government
| funded or volunteered) should be applied toward teaching
| people how to make better use of their free time, if
| that's what they want.
|
| It's certainly a better vision than making widgets 40
| hours a week for a company with dubious social impact.
| myohmy wrote:
| If the machines can replace people then they will replace
| people regardless. Its a capex vs opex decision and capex
| is almost always better in the long run. That's why that
| argument is a bit of a red herring.
|
| Self checkout came regardless of whether the state had a
| minimum wage increase or not. As soon as the technology
| was mature enough it was rolled out.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I'm on a 40 hrs one week, 32 hrs the next. That yields every
| other Friday off. If I get a pronotion / pay increase I'm
| gonba try to opt for 32 hrs every week.
|
| > Everyone's quality of life goes up
|
| Ideally, yes. But for those who struggle in various ways the
| extra free time could be dangerous. I'm definitely in favor
| of a shorter work week. But there are always unintended
| consequences.
|
| For example I live in NJ. As the pandemic lockdown kicked off
| so did the adverts for gambling via your mobile device. I'm
| not in favor of the Nanny State but I can't help but wonder
| how many ppl are nursing an addiction and associated debt
| from this intersection.
| beerandt wrote:
| Yea- if you're not making money, you're usually spending
| it. Idle time costs more than the $0/hr you make while not
| working.
| trcarney wrote:
| >I personally believe that the government should focus on a
| shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the
| near term.
|
| The government being involved is the most likely answer as to
| why a 40 hour work week is standard and why there are so many
| "minimum wage" jobs. A funny thing happens when you set
| floors or ceilings in markets, you hit them. There should be
| no minimum wage. People excepting jobs will set the minimum
| wage because people act in their own self interest. If the
| pay is too low, no one will take the job. This is how labor
| markets are set everywhere else in the economy, I don't
| understand how the bottom is different.
|
| The government shouldn't have anything to do with the work
| week, the market should decide because what works in one
| sector in one region may not work in another. The government
| isn't as smart as the entire labor market making decisions
| for themselves.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| > There should be no minimum wage.
|
| Spoken like a true capitalist! The young, dumb and
| disadvantaged should be thankful for the pennies that
| trickle their way. It's not like they're gonna sue if they
| get ripped off, they're broke. Besides, they can always
| move into high paying career ladders just as soon as they
| can afford to stop taking the bus everywhere. /s
| trcarney wrote:
| You will be paid at the highest rate you can command
| based on the value of your skills in the labor force. If
| you have no relevant skills, you don't make much money
| until you do have relevant skills. You earn shit money
| and then build your skills and then you will no longer
| earn shit money. It's pretty simple and it is what
| happens to most minimum wage workers and workers in any
| sector of the economy.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Great for those with support, safety nets, options &
| abilities. The young, the mentally challenged, the old,
| the handicapped, the convicted... they're supposed eat
| cat food and go sleep under an overpass until they get
| motivated/healthy/unconvicted/a car/____?
| beerandt wrote:
| The way to get young/unskilled people to build skills
| earlier in life is to lower the minimum wage, not
| increase it.
|
| No one is going to hire a 12 year old for a part time job
| if the minimum wage is $15. It just increases the minimum
| skill level to be hireable. But hire them for $7.50 and
| they might have skills worth $15 by the time they're 18.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| I think you overestimate how wage-sensitive most
| industries are. Most companies today have consolidated
| enough to have a lot of pricing power - if they raise
| prices, consumers will just have to buckle up and take
| it.
|
| We've already had history in the U.S. where the
| inflation-adjusted minimum wage was way higher than it is
| today and yet the labor participation rate was also
| higher than it is today.
|
| But my personal preference is for UBI coupled with a
| repeal of the minimum wage.
| mlyle wrote:
| > the mentally challenged, the old, the handicapped
|
| We have disability safety nets (that could be better).
| And FLSA and state regs all allow paying these groups
| under minimum wage (and this is a good thing).
|
| My wife's brother is severely mentally handicapped. He
| lives in a nice, well-run group home (I'm aware this is
| not universal). He also has the option of going to
| "dayhab" where there's educational content and the option
| of working making crafts for a couple of dollars per hour
| of spending money.
|
| I am not sure his labor output is worth the $2-3/hour he
| gets paid: a lot of this is probably charity, but it
| makes a difference to him to be able to earn something
| and work towards goals, and not just spend his entire day
| watching TV instead.
|
| You don't fix these things with a minimum wage and you
| possibly make them worse. They've got different
| solutions.
|
| > The young, ... the convicted
|
| These are harder problems.
|
| * How do we provide a good on-ramp to productive work and
| independent life for at-risk youth?
|
| * How do we allow those who have broken the norms of
| society in the past to rejoin in an orderly way, with
| hope and better prospects from compliance than
| reoffending?
|
| Note that I think _we should have a minimum wage_. I just
| think it 's also a band-aid at best, and often causes a
| fair degree of problems as well. It's better than
| nothing, but one would be better off addressing the
| problems it's targeted at in any other available way.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| The old - One's employment options often severely
| diminish as they approach retirement. With health
| insurance (and those costly prescriptions) tied to
| employment, how little do you think some are willing to
| work for? Would you work for free if your life depended
| on it?
| mlyle wrote:
| I feel like you avoided engaging at all with my comment.
| I explicitly commented that the safety nets and
| retirement system are not perfect and could be better,
| but that I believed minimum wage was not a solution.
| Increasing the minimum wage isn't going to get more
| people just short of retirement health insurance.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Why would I pay you more than I have to if I know you're
| desperate and have few (or none) other options? Mind if I
| pay you in scrip?
| mlyle wrote:
| I don't believe in your good faith desire to discuss.
| I've said above I believe there should be a minimum wage,
| but that it's a crappy lever for the groups that you
| describe and that there are better ones for different
| subgroups (social safety nets, reducing the supply of
| labor by shortening work week).
|
| Instead, I get a bunch of strawmen that have nothing to
| do with what I said.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| As I noted above, if we had UBI to cover bare essentials,
| we wouldn't need a minimum wage.
|
| That's basically what Walmart abuses anyways via the
| welfare system; it's almost a subsidy to make their model
| kind of glue-together in the end. Let's just make it
| explicit. Pass UBI, repeal minimum wage laws.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| How do you build your skills, if you're spending 40+
| hours a week working to make ends meet and trying to care
| for a family?
|
| You're arguing from an ideal situation, without taking
| into account that reality's average is very much less
| than ideal.
| trcarney wrote:
| You are building your skills while you are working. If
| you can find time outside of work, you are just
| accelerating things.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > You are building your skills while you are working
|
| What skills would they be? Surely the only skill you
| build while flipping burgers is that of flipping burgers.
| Is it applicable to any other job?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| You sound like someone who has never worked a minimum
| wage job. None of the skills you learn in these low end
| jobs is ever going to help you do anything but work
| similar low end jobs. I put myself through three
| associates degrees cleaning cars for a rental company.
| You know what that taught me? How to clean a car interior
| in 5-15 minutes. That's not exactly the most marketable
| of skills.
|
| Fortunately that wasn't particularly laborious, so I
| still had the energy to do school too. Many people are
| not as lucky, and these days often have to work 2 or more
| jobs to get by. Worse, the kind of schooling I took
| advantage of is increasingly turning from vocation-
| oriented education to cheap-university-transfer
| education.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Yeah horrible idea to copy countries like Denmark and
| Norway.
| jedberg wrote:
| In an ideal spherical cow world, having no minimum wage
| would work exactly as you describe. In the real world,
| that's you how get slavery. For many reasons, not everyone
| has a choice to turn down a $1/hr job.
| trcarney wrote:
| I don't understand how people hold your view. Would you
| except a $1/hr job? No, then why do you think other
| people would. If you can make more money walking through
| a parking lot picking up change, why would you work. Plus
| companies wouldn't want to hire at $1/hr because what
| kind of employee are you getting? Your competitor down
| the street paying more money would then get the better
| employees and drive you out of business. This would then
| lead to wages going up as companies compete for
| employees.
|
| This is not some ideal spherical cow world, this is how
| literally the entire labor market works except for the
| mystical bottom that the government feels they have to be
| involved in. Why else do you think FAANG's pay so much
| money? Its because they want to attract the best talent.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| We're actually seeing this with massive labour shortages
| in traditionally low paying fields. People did better off
| government hand-outs and then didn't ever go back to
| these roles at the offered wages.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| > Its because they want to attract the best talent.
|
| When we are talking about minimum wage, you need to
| consider the people with the worst talent. Think
| sweatshops in China, construction camps in Dubai,
| prostitutes in the US. Not Google or Facebook employees.
| trcarney wrote:
| Yes but you want the best of your labor pool.
|
| As for sweatshops in China, these are the growing pains
| of a developing economy. The work conditions there suck
| but I bet they are better than being bent over in a rice
| field all day. You are also rapidly seeing this change as
| the economy becomes more developed there, even in the
| face of an oppressive government.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-working-its-way-up-
| fro...
|
| The construction camps in Dubai is about government
| corruption. They lure in overseas workers then take away
| their passports so they can't leave. Not exactly a free
| labor market.
|
| Again prostitution in the US is not a free labor market
| because of government interference. If you go to places
| where prostitution is legal, the girls there make pretty
| good money.
|
| Most of the areas where you can point to the worst
| employment situations is because of government
| interference in a market place.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| You're still looking at the best case scenario (ie. a
| person willingly entering into prostitution), while blind
| to the worst. The are reason why unions, minimum wage,
| unemployment insurance, universal healthcare is so common
| around the world.
| mixedCase wrote:
| How do any of those things fix slavery? Or are you using
| a different definition for "willing" more akin to "would
| strongly prefer to".
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| People work and sleep in factory floors during periods of
| overtime in some places in China. In the most competitive
| tech companies, they worked 996 until the government
| stepped in.
|
| All of this bullshit free market fundamentalism relies on
| many nice assumptions - one being that there is plenty of
| good, high-paying work to go around. The actual fact
| spelled out in a hundred different ways, from wages to
| market conditions to books like Bullshit Jobs, is that
| the economy doesn't need nearly as many workers as we
| have people particularly in low wage jobs that don't
| require much training. There is much more supply than
| demand. Its perfectly possible that if McDonalds paid
| $1/hr, their competitors would ALSO pay $1/hr. In that
| situation someone with little skills would have a choice
| of 1. making $1/hr 2. making $0 and starving. These are
| the conditions 50-60% of the world works in. We've
| already seen collusion to keep wages low in technology,
| not to mention other industries and times in the past, no
| doubt it happens and can happen again.
|
| As is usual, every time someone points out a bad
| situation, you say its "not really a free market". So its
| not, most markets aren't ideal "free markets". Employers
| can collude, information asymmetries do exist, power
| imbalances are real. There are literally zero "free
| markets" in the world. They don't just arise naturally.
| Even with all the intervention we have, I have yet to see
| any market where there is no information asymmetry or
| imbalances. Its a fucking idealized model from Econ 101,
| not the state of reality.
|
| This kind of thinking is fundamentally un-empirical. It
| starts with a theory and insists that the world conform
| to it rather than looking at the world and examining
| which theory really does explain it best. In this world I
| would simply refuse to acknowledge the existence of non-
| spherical objects as a non-spherical boulder rolled down
| a hill and killed me.
| gaspard234 wrote:
| >this is how literally the entire labor market works
| except for the mystical bottom that the government feels
| they have to be involved in.
|
| Several replies are addressing your wrong points but I
| had to bring this up: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltec
| hconsidered/2015/01/16/37...
| datavirtue wrote:
| This is the very reason unions exist. To protect all
| workers from the bad deal that other workers will accept.
| You have little appreciation for how much people can
| undervalue themselves. It is enough to where people think
| working at an Amazon warehouse for $15 an hour is a good
| deal. Sounds like a great deal for Amazon and Walmart.
| The workers making that wage don't know that it's a bad
| deal. Same way people pull out money from thier
| retirement accounts to buy cars "because they don't want
| a payment." Dumb personal choice.
| trcarney wrote:
| I am all for unions as long as they aren't mandated.
|
| In some areas an Amazon warehouse job is an exceptionally
| good job. I grew up in a place where one of the best job
| you could get was working at a Walmart distribution
| center. Basically like an Amazon warehouse but the whole
| this is a freezer.
|
| Also the government can't and shouldn't try to govern bad
| choices away from people. This would lead to a very
| authoritarian society.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Unions are not allowed to negotiate benefits and wages
| exclusively for their members. Non-union employees are
| forced by this to become free riders.
|
| https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-
| law/em...
| mlyle wrote:
| > > I am all for unions as long as they aren't mandated.
|
| > Unions are not allowed to negotiate benefits and wages
| exclusively for their members.
|
| Parent is talking about "closed shops" where a union uses
| its bargaining power to ensure the employer will only
| employ people represented by the union. On the one hand
| this prevents the free-rider problem you mention. On the
| other, this is coercive and can erode employees' ability
| to negotiate about things important to them.
|
| It can also be inefficient-- I've been in workplaces
| where I got in trouble for moving a desk in my office a
| few feet, because moving furniture was a closed-shop
| union job, and I wasn't a member.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| I don't have a problem with no minimum wage, but I do
| have a problem with people starving and homeless. So I'm
| willing to give up on the minimum wage for any viable
| alternative. For example, UBI paid for by taxes on
| employers.
| ska wrote:
| > I don't understand how people hold your view.
|
| The usual argument for this is that while there is some
| efficiency gained in trying for a pure labor market here,
| the externalities can be brutal. So the reason that the
| government gets involved in the lower end is that
| typically they are the ones that have to deal with the
| fallout when things aren't working well. There are other
| approaches, but for whatever reasons many places find min
| wage more politically acceptable/expedient.
| jedberg wrote:
| A recent immigrant who was brought here from a foreign
| country by a "relative" and then told to work in their
| shop for $1/hr or be sent back home (or worse) would
| gladly take that $1/hr job. This actually happens in
| places that don't have labor protections.
|
| And not just immigrants. Anyone with an abusive parent or
| partner or any situation where one person holds power
| over another.
|
| Hence "this is how you get slavery".
| mlyle wrote:
| It actually happens everywhere, even in places that have
| labor protections.
| jedberg wrote:
| True, but in the US, you have to commit illegal acts to
| do it (like paying under the table), putting the employer
| at risk and lowering the chance that it happens.
|
| If there were no minimum wage, you could put the person
| on payroll and be completely legal in your actions,
| allowing the employer to exploit unknowledgeable
| employees.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Your competitor down the street paying more money would
| then get the better employees and drive you out of
| business.
|
| No, they would cooperate and set an informal maximum wage
| to replace the minimum one (or more accurately, they
| would _lower the already informally established maximum
| wage_.) This would be a win-win for both businesses.
|
| It's not a coincidence that all low-wage jobs pay between
| 0% and 25% over the minimum wage, and it has nothing to
| do with labor demand. It's because a bidding war is no
| good for anyone, and because having the _best_ low wage
| employees will not improve net revenue more than always
| paying as little as possible. The idea that the Burger
| King paying $22 /hr is going to drive the McDonald's
| paying $14/hr out of business is a libertarian fantasy
| never borne out by reality.
| mlyle wrote:
| I don't entirely disagree with you, but:
|
| > and it has nothing to do with labor demand.
|
| If not having an employee costs you $30/hour in revenue--
| your desire to avoid a bidding war won't prevent you from
| making an offer at $22/hr if it's necessary to fill the
| slot.
|
| It has everything to do with labor demand (and supply).
| Collusion (formal or informal) between loosely coupled,
| adversarial entities breaks down under pressure.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Where I am McDonalds is begging for people to work at
| $15/hr. How would they even think about paying less?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| They'd simply cut wages when the labor supply shock
| recedes and labor is in surplus again. Businesses do not
| pay the minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts;
| on the contrary, it communicates "we'd pay you less if we
| could, the law simply doesn't allow us to."
| mlyle wrote:
| Sure.
|
| But note also that there are people one might be willing
| to gamble on employing at $12/hour but that don't offer a
| positive return at capital at $15/hour.
|
| I think minimum wage laws are important, but that
| reducing the supply of labor will do more to push up the
| wages of the lowest earners.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Then pass UBI instead and drop the minimum wage laws
| (there's no need for them if UBI were a thing). Problem
| solved.
|
| Right now the problem is in the power dynamic between
| companies and employees - the dynamic is very unbalanced
| in the companies favor. In "Bullshit Jobs" Graeber
| compares the current system to a Dom-Sub relationship
| with no safeword for the "fake-competitive" industries
| that are not unionized.
|
| UBI is the safeword.
| midasuni wrote:
| Why aren't they offering $20 an hour?
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| > There should be no minimum wage. People excepting jobs
| will set the minimum wage because people act in their own
| self interest.'
|
| I'm very capitalistic and libertarian, but reality is all
| systems need to manage edge cases. Minimum wage is a part
| of that. To believe that the market can figure everything
| out requires serious tunnel vision.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > Minimum wage is a part of that.
|
| It's not the only way though. We have no legally defined
| or mandated minimum wage here in Norway (nor elsewhere in
| the Nordic region I think). But the effective minimum is
| probably higher than the mandated minimum in any other
| country.
|
| Broadly speaking the way it is done here is that the
| national association of employers and the principal
| unions negotiate a tariff for each industry and type of
| work each year. The state is involved to the extent that
| it provides an official who acts as referee in the
| negotiations and tries to chivvy the parties to an
| agreement.
|
| Employers are free to ignore the rules but risk losing
| employees to companies that pay according to the tariff.
|
| Of course the difference between here and the US is that
| solidarity is stronger here so the negotiations are less
| hostile here.
|
| It's not perfect but it seems to work quite well
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| Sure, not the only way. But unions are an example of
| circuit breaker for when a pure capitalistic system
| fails. Some countries extend the union to all citizens in
| all industries as a minimum wage. The nordic region
| (including gov't) seems to have their shit together, more
| than the rest of the world. I think less gov't is better,
| just not the anarchy the previous poster suggests.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Lol, Congress couldn't even get a minimum wage increase with
| majority Democrats, there's no way anything else about the
| workweek is changing any time soon.
| kbenson wrote:
| I'm a little worried about how that would affect the lower
| class in the short term. It's easy to say that they'll get
| more money as they'll get a day of overtime, but I think it's
| more likely that a lot of people will find that businesses
| just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and
| eventually for skilled positions), and then people have more
| time but are only making 80% of what they were previously,
| and can't afford both rent and food together in a given month
| anymore.
|
| I think the instability this would cause i the lower class
| would be _devastating_. The very people that don 't have
| savings and that can't easily weather large financial events
| would have once forced on them all at the same time.
| mlyle wrote:
| I'm not saying to abolish the minimum wage. I'm just saying
| to reduce the nominal workweek before overtime.
|
| > just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and
| eventually for skilled positions),
|
| There's not an infinite supply of bodies out there. It's
| not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"-- at
| least not without raising comp. And, of course, getting
| closer to full employment is a good thing in itself...
|
| > but are only making 80% of ...
|
| 36/40 = 90%, even in this worst case where someone has
| their hours reduced from 40 to 36 to avoid overtime pay. I
| think there's a lot more poor people that are getting 30-35
| hours from their job who would be nowhere close to the
| overtime threshold before, but now that their normal
| workweek is closer to the max get it sometimes.
|
| Any policy change will hit some people negatively, but I
| think this would be a net positive for the vast majority of
| lower earners.
| kbenson wrote:
| > It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"
|
| As another commenter noted, maybe from all those people
| that are no longer making enough to make ends meet. Now
| you have someone working two jobs, maybe at like 16-24
| hours each, and if one of those needs more hours, well,
| now you're working more than 40 hours a week overall but
| less than 32 per job and not getting overtime for any of
| it.
|
| I could easily see something like this being one of those
| well intentioned policies with major negative outcomes.
|
| > 36/40 = 90%,
|
| My mistake, I missed where you defined it as just
| dropping four hours off, and "shorter work week" sounds
| like cutting a day off to me, so I assumed the wrong
| thing.
|
| Even so, 10% is not an amount a lot of people can
| sustain. You posit that there's a lot more people getting
| 30-35 hours, but I'm not so sure of that, so would
| definitely want to see some numbers before endorsing
| anything like this. Additionally, I think a lot of people
| that are working less hours are doing so because in some
| cases employers can get around some laws about sick time
| and paid time off if employees aren't "full time".
|
| The bottom line is that if people have more money, they
| can choose to work less. Just make sure people are paid
| more and they'll choose to work less if that's actually
| important to them, and they'll seek out jobs that offer
| things they care about (such as less work hours) if
| that's important to them. Reducing the expected working
| hours is nice, but I doubt most the people that would
| actually need it (those working demanding or demeaning
| jobs) would trade that for less pay given the realities.
| The only people that can really make use of that are the
| middle and upper class, and they can already choose to
| prioritize that and look for work that allows it given
| their financial stability.
| koala_man wrote:
| >It's not clear where you'd just "find 10% more people"
|
| Well, you just gave millions of low-income workers 10%
| less money and 10% more time, so my guess is that more
| people would be forced to get a second job.
| [deleted]
| mlyle wrote:
| On the absolute margins, of people already working 2
| jobs-- sure, this policy is likely to mostly cause a
| reallocation in hours between employers at first.
|
| * Some other people will be content working less.
|
| * Other people who already get overtime every week will
| be getting more overtime.
|
| * Exempt employees are likely to slowly evolve to working
| less as the 36 hour workweek becomes the norm.
|
| * Employers faced with paying more overtime or getting
| less hours will need to pay more and work harder to train
| up lower skilled workers to fill positions.
|
| And in the end, everyone shifts up a bit from this
| reallocation.
| datavirtue wrote:
| One of the problems with low wage work is that it also
| sucks down all of your time AND you can't afford to take
| time off--unpaid. The only way to get a new job is finding
| another low paying job that can hire you on the spot. There
| is no time for personal growth...job hunting and
| interviewing. Getting out from underneath it requires a
| massive time and energy investment that a lot of people
| cannot maintain for the length of time needed.
| driverdan wrote:
| Why would you expect to get Christmas eve off? It's not a
| holiday and not everyone celebrates Christmas.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I think the question is framed such as it already assumes the
| employer perspective: you should only get off on federal
| holidays, or at least religious ones.
|
| But if you want some justifications: christmas is the biggest
| holiday in the (once?) christian-dominated west, and in the
| US in particular it is quite common for family to be
| separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles of travel.
| It is also common practice for people to celebrate christmas
| eve with one side of the family and christmas day with the
| other, if they live closely enough to each.
|
| All that aside, it is less about not getting christmas eve
| off than it is about there being absolutely no reason for us
| to be there at all. The company recognizes that there is some
| importance to the day for its employees by cutting the day in
| half in the first place, yet even though all evidence shows
| that there is no reason whatsoever to be there and it's
| costing the company more to have people there than it will
| ever make from it, they still insist that people show up.
| It's not even rational slave-driving.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I don't see where OP expected to get it off because it was a
| holiday. They expect to get it off because no work gets done,
| and they're annoyed because the company requires double the
| vacation time for those that do want it off for the holiday.
| Finally, Christmas Eve is definitely as much of a holiday as
| Christmas Day, for those who celebrate it.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Not American celebrates Christmas as a religious holiday, but
| most everyone observes it as a secular time of rest, travel,
| and/or family before the start of the new year.
|
| Schools are off during this time. And many professions take a
| break during this time as well, not just office workers, but
| factories often use this down time for maintenance, and
| trades use it as reprieve from working in the cold.
| austinl wrote:
| On the opposite end of the spectrum, the company I work for
| shuts our offices down from the 24th to the 2nd. Engineers
| submit availability for on-call schedules, and get a gift card
| for each on-call day they're responsible for. I feel very
| spoiled, but I think this is generally a trend amongst west-
| coast tech companies?
|
| I've had a similar experience at previous places, and it seemed
| like the rationale for the holiday shutdown was "we don't want
| to risk any downtime while lots of engineers are out and
| potentially unreachable if something breaks". All that is to
| say, if it's within your power to leave, the grass is
| potentially much greener elsewhere.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| As long as "elsewhere" is SV or some other big city, that
| grass will never be green enough for me.
| gumby wrote:
| SV is a big suburbs, not a city. SF (and Oakland) are
| medium sized cities.
| quesera wrote:
| San Jose is over a million people. That counts as "big"
| in the US, I think? 10th most populous.
|
| The "suburbs" between SJ-SF-Oakland range from very dense
| urban areas, to very sparse (and expensive) bedroom
| communities, to uninhabited (protected land) areas.
|
| I think it's fair to loosely characterize SV as a big
| city, from almost all US perspectives.
| xapata wrote:
| > corporate slave-driving overlords
|
| > big city, that grass will never be green enough for me
|
| Take your pick, I guess. I like cities, and I certainly
| don't want to feel like I'm a slave.
| twalla wrote:
| The real rationale is to remove a metric shitton of accrued
| PTO from their books if paying out PTO on employee departure
| is something the company does.
| a_c_s wrote:
| How does shutting down the office remove PTO obligations?
|
| I worked at a company where we had 10 days of vacation +
| the office shut down for the last week of the year. Nobody
| had to use vacation time during that 1-week shutdown. If
| anything, it increased PTO accrued obligations because
| nobody had to use their PTO for time off during that week.
| nradov wrote:
| It varies by company. Accrued PTO is carried on the
| balance sheet as a liability, since it's owned to
| employees and would generally have to be paid out in cash
| if the employee is terminated. Reducing that liability
| makes several financial metrics look better. Some
| companies shut down for a week and require employees to
| use up their accrued PTO (or take unpaid leave). Other
| companies give it "free" essentially as company holidays.
| There's no right or wrong here, it's just one of many
| factors you have to consider when deciding where to work.
| lfowles wrote:
| Worked at a company that would do that (using PTO or
| unpaid) with a couple months notice.. really messes with
| any vacation plans you might have made before you've been
| there long enough to accrue significant PTO!
| meepmorp wrote:
| Where I work everyone gets Dec 24 - Jan 2nd off, "for
| free." You can also take PTO along with it if you want a
| longer break.
| ska wrote:
| In my experience xmas to NY holiday shutdowns are more
| likely to _not_ come out of individual PTO, but I 'm sure
| this varies.
|
| We do something like this now, and the rationale is that
| it's a positive experience for the staff, gives everyone a
| bit of a break, and you only "lose" days that nobody was
| very focused in anyway.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| My office shutdown this year is three full weeks, from the
| 20th to the 7th. Nobody is burning PTO.
| [deleted]
| taude wrote:
| Our office shutdown doesn't use PTO, either.
|
| My friends in agency life used to have their office
| shutdown from the time of the holiday party, until the new
| year. Which was about 2 to 2.5 weeks.
| woobar wrote:
| Hmm... in a few companies I've worked holiday shutdown was
| not coming out of PTO budget.
| myohmy wrote:
| My employer does this, and is the only one in town who does.
| It isn't deducted from our 4 week of vacation either. Its the
| only reason I stick around despite subpar pay.
|
| It turns out the HR books are right and pay isn't the primary
| consideration after a certain point. The problem is that most
| HR people take that and say, "We're already soooo generous,
| we already offer unlimited vacation (lol), so we don't have
| to pay people too!"
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Once you have a full time employee who is "the HR person"
| who has a department to run, and has OKRs, unless there is
| absolutely stellar company culture pushing for the
| contrary, that's it, that's the end, all your good benefits
| are going to get micromanaged away.
| gumby wrote:
| > we already offer unlimited vacation (lol),
|
| I offered unlimited vacation in every business I started or
| ran since 1989.
|
| But the abusive bullshit many companies have pulled while
| claiming "unlimited vacation" has justifiably made people
| cynical. This stated policy has become a warning sign
| instead of a benefit.
|
| So in my new company we have a written policy four weeks
| but there is no way to track it (where the law permits
| this). _sigh_
| skrtskrt wrote:
| I have worked 3 places with unlimited vacation, and there
| was zero pressure to not take vacation.
|
| One company specifically said they we needed to get our
| asses out of the office because they saw people not
| taking at least 3 weeks a year.
| TylerE wrote:
| It isn't uncommon in industrial situations to shut the plant
| down for two weeks or so around Christmas/New Years.
|
| Since A: The staff want it off and B: It gives a good window
| to do heavy maintaince and such
| midasuni wrote:
| Who does that maintenance?
| acchow wrote:
| Hopefully split off among staff so nobody works more than
| 1 or 2 days during those 2 weeks off, plus they get a
| bonus.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > On the opposite end of the spectrum
|
| I'm so stockholm-syndromed into typical corporate apathy, I'd
| probably feel so weirded out if I found out myself in such an
| environment I wouldn't be able to handle it like somebody who
| spent 50 years in prison is unable to cope with the reality
| of life on the outside.
| willheis wrote:
| Obviously on-call has to cover holidays but Christmas eve is a
| work day for everyone (in an office) at your company? Why stay?
| That is simply barbaric
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Christmas eve is usually a work day for the vast majority of
| the world, even the out-of-touch white collar minority. We
| benefit from the fact that (a) the work is easy, (b) not much
| of it gets done and (c) you go home 1/2 way through the day.
| You sound even more out of touch than the rest of us if you
| think this is "barbaric".
| satyrnein wrote:
| Is this unusual? A quick google search shows Trump issued an
| executive order just last year to give the day off to federal
| employees, but Wikipedia doesn't list it as a federal
| holiday.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| As with all things, it's about trade-offs. As much as I
| dislike this company for its policies towards time off and
| butts-in-seats[0], I am not on-call and am never obligated to
| answer my phone outside of work, no one bats an eye at me
| taking a few hours to make an appointment every now and then,
| I don't hate my manager or coworkers, and generally little is
| expected of me which suits me fine because I haven't found IT
| work fulfilling for at least 5 years.
|
| [0] Which is directly responsible for infecting my household
| with COVID. Literally everyone in the company has had it.
| devin wrote:
| As they wrote, barbaric.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Ahhh....the plantation still lives.
| satyrnein wrote:
| He was literally talking about how it was his choice to
| stay, and you're calling him a slave. Over only getting
| half a day off on Christmas _Eve_ , which is not even a
| holiday. I honestly cannot tell what is sarcasm anymore.
| hvgk wrote:
| I tend to attempt to ruin asshat companies like that, usually
| because it's only the tip of the iceberg of abuse. I've taken
| out two so far, one by quitting as the sole engineer when their
| only client went down and i wasn't paid properly and secondly
| by scaring all the permanent staff off after getting a bailiff
| appointed to take kit away from their office because they
| didn't pay my invoice. I don't shed an ounce of guilt for this.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> forces office staff to work a half day on christmas eve
|
| ...or that traditionally lets people go home at lunch? This is
| pretty common but you frame it pretty negatively.
| hnarn wrote:
| There's power in a union.
| xhrpost wrote:
| I'd like to point out a less popular point that the FDWW does not
| lie only with employers improving but also is the decision of
| individuals. I remember reading somewhere about a survey where
| they asked people what they would do if they had 1 extra day
| every week (so, 8 days). The response on average was "that would
| be great because I could get so much more done". Now the "so much
| done" may not be for primary employer, but the point is that
| people say they would spend more time with friends and family, if
| they had more time, but when offered, we don't take the
| opportunity.
|
| My point is, even if we did reduce our primary employment to 4
| days, there are still a lot of people who will simply take this
| as an opportunity to work an additional part time job or side
| hustle. Then the bar for standard of living rises with them and
| we're back to where we started. Until we actually value rest,
| relationships etc, the maximal output mindset will endure.
| narraturgy wrote:
| I doubt that the majority of people who would take on a second
| job or "side hustle" would be so affluent because of it that
| they would raise the standard of living. Given all the people I
| know who have worked second jobs, the "choice" to do so has
| come from them needing more money to make ends meet or to
| provide for their families, all while dreaming of being able to
| spend some time with the families they are providing for, as
| opposed to being in traffic driving from one job to another or
| in another meeting where they are expected to talk once for 5
| minutes.
|
| The people in the world working 2 jobs don't tend to be
| affluent because of it. There are exceptions among the 3-letter
| elites, such as Jack Dorsey and his multiple CEO-ships, but
| those people /already/ represent a standard of living that is
| all but unachievable for the rest of us.
| 14 wrote:
| No we are not within grasp. I work as a care worker and we are
| short staffed every day. You could deem the official work week 4
| days but they would still need ya to work 5. All this would
| change is when someone would be deemed full time and when they
| can get benefits. The companies would still be short staffed but
| after declaring 4 days a week would be forced to pay overtime for
| the last day. There are no more workers available we are
| constantly trying to hire.
| kungito wrote:
| I wish I didn't hate my job. I would work proper 10+ hours a day
| for a worthy cause. 4 days of boring and unfulfilling stuff is
| too much
| more_corn wrote:
| Our company is shifting to a 4 day week. The fifth day you can
| take off, work on a side project or even work on a company backed
| R&D effort. Work smart, not long.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| FWH has exposed how many white-collar jobs were only full-time in
| the ass-in-seat sense and how many employees should have
| _Professional Meeting Attender_ as their job title.
|
| I used to be the guy who would champion efficient meeting
| practices. Now it's the last thing I want given that I can now
| work-out, make breakfast, do manual labor, etc., while listening
| to meeting.
|
| 4 day work week in grasp you ask ? For many I'd be surprised if
| they actually did 15hrs of work a week. I'd never hire a full
| time employee who can work remotely. I'd employ a contractor who
| has to itemize their invoice.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| > I'd never hire a full time employee who can work remotely.
| I'd employ a contractor who has to itemize their invoice.
|
| That's a knee-jerk reaction that you probably already know has
| some serious problems ;)
|
| People who are _working_ 40 hours a week have no capacity to
| take on some important task with no notice unless they go past
| 40 hours a week. Which generally doesn 't cost any extra money.
|
| Hiring a contractor to _work_ 40 hours per week is going to get
| really expensive really fast when you need them to suddenly
| ramp up beyond 40 hours on no notice. If you can even get them
| to do it!
|
| If you're any kind of normal modern business, this is going to
| eat all your cost savings and probably even cause you to
| unnecessarily miss a lot of deadlines.
| welshwelsh wrote:
| >I'd never hire a full time employee who can work remotely. I'd
| employ a contractor who has to itemize their invoice.
|
| That's not going to save you any money though.
|
| A FT developer who makes $75 an hour only accepts that pay
| because it's closer to $300/hr in practice (if you only count
| the hours they are actually productive, which maxes out at 2-3
| per day for knowledge work).
|
| A freelance developer of similar skill, who accurately bills
| per hour worked, will simply charge $300 per hour.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Yeah I don't understand this mentality. You're paying for
| finished work not hours. People cannot seem to separate
| themselves from the hourly concept. If you want finished work
| faster then who cares about the hours?
|
| All you're doing by requiring a certain amount of hours is
| ensuring the employee stretches out the time it takes to get
| things done.
| nimbius wrote:
| an excellent point. speaking from a more blue-collar
| perspective, i would argue most "real" (non meeting attender)
| jobs have been 3-4 day for a long time now thanks to automation
| and a perverse incentive to avoid paying benefits.
|
| bartenders, repair staff, custodial, fast food and construction
| have never offered a solid 40 hour week. many of these roles
| are highly automated and simply do not need a full 40 woman or
| man hours of work anymore. farming has been this way for a very
| long time and as such, most farmers wives would take jobs as
| lunchroom staff for the local elementary school to provide
| health insurance for the family that a farming job simply
| couldnt.
|
| what i wonder now is that if this affects 'white' collar
| workers, will the rules change? will nail-swatters in the
| construction yard see benefits and retirement? or will an
| elaborate machination take place to ensure only the cloistered
| ass-in-seat see affordable flu shots and checkups.
| lolsal wrote:
| > I'd never hire a full time employee who can work remotely.
| I'd employ a contractor who has to itemize their invoice.
|
| I'm just curious as I've been the employer and the contractor
| in this scenario - do you think the output between a FTE and a
| contractor would be different? Do you think it would be
| different financially?
|
| In my experience, developers tend to behave like a gas that
| expands to fill their container - people tend to work up to
| their compensation (whether it's hourly contracting or some
| form of salary + comp), and no more.
| dboreham wrote:
| The true killer feature for the remote tech stack would be to
| attend more than one meeting concurrently.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| Tried that with Teams just the other day, sadly no go.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Once when I was triple booked I logged into three Teams
| meetings simultaneously (laptop, iPad, iPhone) and turned
| up the volume to create a cacophony of chaos in my home
| office while I laughed maniacally to myself. Then I took a
| picture of the setup with my second iPad for my pandemic
| scrapbook.
|
| I could only listen to two simultaneously... so I would
| modulate the volume.
| p_j_w wrote:
| Am I misunderstanding something here? This just seems like
| a bad suggestion from the get go. I have a hard enough time
| paying attention to a single meeting sometimes and
| forgetting some of the information. If there were two going
| simultaneously, I feel that my absorption of the relevant
| info would be close to 0.
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| > I feel that my absorption of the relevant info would be
| close to 0.
|
| That's the point lol
| kitd wrote:
| Lol, look at this guy, paying attention to meetings!
|
| Me, I'd be tempted to hook the microphone to the speakers
| and create a "crossover" meeting and seeing how long it
| took till someone noticed.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| > I'd employ a contractor who has to itemize their invoice.
|
| As a contractor, I would just charge you for the time it takes
| to itemize an invoice while I do it sitting on a call for
| another job I'm also billing for. And I would be _very_
| thorough with my itemization so you know exactly what you're
| getting...
|
| The non-itemized invoice is free. We can argue over contract
| terms if you want to or come to an arrangement if you don't
| feel you got your money's worth, but if I disagree the result
| is going to be completion of the terms of the contract and we
| go our separate ways. I'm not hurting for work, I can fire an
| obnoxious customer if it buys me QoL.
|
| The pandemic tipped the balance of power from the money men to
| the workers. We're going to watch this dynamic play out in ways
| large and small, but the net is that employees have a lot more
| power to set the terms of engagement than employers do right
| now.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| Here's what my invoice looks like for today
|
| 0.5hr chats, code reviews, time-audit
|
| 1.25hr Bug#12345
|
| ...
|
| So I have captured the ~15 minutes I spent itemizing/cleaning
| up my invoice for the past day or two in a "time-audit"/misc
| line item.
|
| "very thorough with my itemization" implying you'll just over
| bill your customer because they have the nerve to have you
| professionally account for your time ?
|
| "tipped the balance of power from the money men to the
| workers"
|
| Right so if they weren't operating with integrity that
| doesn't mean the worker shouldn't either. Tit-fot-tat might
| be an optimal game theory but better to optimize for a clear
| conscience.
|
| Note, I realize I am being unfair to your comment. When my
| customer first asked me to itemize my invoice it was an
| annoyance, but now I am efficient at it and see it as win-
| win. I just keep adding to it in real time as I work through
| out the day and then do a periodic clean up and aggregation.
| akiselev wrote:
| I think the GP just hasn't discovered the magic of the
| "minimum billable increment" yet. Lawyers love this trick!
| Customer wants you to itemize the bill? No problem - it
| comes with a 15 minute minimum billable increment. The more
| demanding/PITA the client is, the longer the minimum.
|
| Send me a text a minute after I've finished working for the
| day to check on the status and it takes me a minute to read
| and reply? No problem, I just billed the client for 15
| minutes. Takes them 15 minutes to come up with and send a
| response that I need to respond to ASAP? Another 15 minutes
| billed. Want me to spend 3 minutes at the end of the day
| itemizing the bill? Perfect, that's another 15 minutes
| billed!
|
| The more granular the itemizing, the more opportunity to
| shove the minimum billable increment in their face. Called
| me for a two minute chat while I'm in the zone on their
| project? Gotta itemize it! 15 minutes billed.
| kashkhan wrote:
| two day work week would be even better...
| koch wrote:
| Shoutout to philmcp who was able to quit his job recently to work
| on https://4dayweek.io full time!
| yupper32 wrote:
| For being so progressive, I'm surprised that not a single
| listing I clicked had salary ranges.
|
| It's just not worth the effort of even considering these
| companies without salary ranges. 4-day work weeks mean nothing
| if it means getting paid <80% market rate.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| The whole idea that our lives should be divided into seven days
| chunks always seemed strange to me. If I'm "in a flow", 5 days is
| too little for me - I almost force myself to switch to "weekend
| mode". And two days of weekend is too short - I can't travel to
| anywhere, I can't switch so something else that requires another
| "flow". Basically, 5-2 cycle gives you sense of having some
| personal time without giving you any personal time.
|
| Probably 10-4 or 10-5 would be more healthy and liberating in
| some sense.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| 10 continuous days of work would be horrible for me, as a
| programmer, and would probably jeopardize the health and even
| lives of many blue collar workers. While I think flexible
| schedules are a good thing, the default for most people is
| already too many working days in a row.
| ByteJockey wrote:
| Fair, but I think the idea that everyone has to have the same
| schedule regardless of field of work (or even within the same
| field) isn't necessarily the best idea.
| rectang wrote:
| I haven't taken a position which required more than 32 hours a
| week since 2016. The trick is that I've gotten everything through
| word-of-mouth networking where my reputation made bargaining down
| the hours feasible.
|
| Our biggest hiring institutions (e.g. LinkedIn) for the most part
| don't provide a way to specify that you are only willing to
| consider "full-time but not 40+ hours". So I indicate "part-time
| only", but I still tend to get recruiters who ignore that and
| ping me for 40+ hour jobs.
|
| The four-day workweek will be within our grasp when we can
| actually specify it in a job search.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I work a 4 day week; just don't tell my boss.
| icedchai wrote:
| You and everyone else "working from home."
| mrweasel wrote:
| You joke, I assume. My boss was notoriously against working
| from home. COVID proved him VERY wrong. People where just as
| effective, if not more. They where much more flexible with
| customer. It doesn't matter that a client ask you to say a
| bit longer, if you're already home and have everything set
| up.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Be the change you want to see in the world.
| handrous wrote:
| The ones in the office do the same. They just spread the day
| of not-working over the whole week and have the added stress
| of having to pretend to work some of the time.
|
| Though actually it's more like 2-3 days of not working,
| spread out, more often than not.
| rectang wrote:
| No, that's not true, and it's that fantasy which gets us the
| "butts-in-seats" management style.
|
| This is correlated first to workplace morale and second to
| the individual worker. The workers who would do this from
| home are the same workers who would do it in the office. And
| employers who make their workers' lives miserable will have
| endemic problems with people not putting in effort.
| [deleted]
| whateveracct wrote:
| My goal is to find a good job I excel at so I can do 3 days and
| still have FTE output.
|
| That's the tipping point: >50% of the week is now mine.
| dboreham wrote:
| Boss is working three day week...
| mmlkrx wrote:
| I have both worked 32 hours per week over 5 work days, as well as
| 28 hours over 4 work days. While they both have their merits, I
| found working 4 days better for my work life balance. I typically
| work on creative projects on Fridays or run errands. This frees
| up my weekend and I feel very rested returning to work on Monday
| --even during stressful times. Strangely, working on a different
| cycle than most of my co-workers has also increased my focus
| quite a bit.
|
| disclaimer: I haven't read the linked article, apologies if the
| comment is slightly off-topic.
| rectang wrote:
| It certainly doesn't seem like it's within our grasp on HN.
| Looking at the December 2021 "who is hiring" thread, I see four
| posts which offer "part-time" but aside from that nothing which
| specifies that either a 4-day or sub-40-hour workweek is an
| option.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Bolt in SF has a 4 day workweek. Check them out.
| rectang wrote:
| Thank you, I did. :) While I'm not looking for a position at
| this moment, I've added Bolt to the list of companies I'll
| actively consider when I'm back in the market a few months
| from now.
| jcvhaarst wrote:
| Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't
| had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years.
|
| It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days.
|
| The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it
| was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was
| the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him
| benefit.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > Please people, step out of your USA bubble
|
| This is an article from the New York Times. New York is in the
| USA.
| procinct wrote:
| It's definitely not just a US thing. In NZ the vast majority of
| people work 5 days. I suspect probably the same in AU and UK.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Definitely also still the case in Denmark, which is a stone's
| throw away from the Dutch. Don't think this is in any way
| illustrative of a US-bubble.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Hell I'm in the USA and I work a four day work week (four six
| hour days!!). Last time I was job hunting I simply told every
| prospective employer my desired schedule and I found one small
| organization that was fine with that. It's life changing!
| jorblumesea wrote:
| Most of Europe works 5 days, 40 hr weeks. Sounds like you're in
| a bubble.
| rackjack wrote:
| I think 9 hours per day for 4 days a week would be very
| reasonable, since this is only a 10% reduction in work time and
| for me personally, work days are a wash anyways.
| tombert wrote:
| My dad, my sister, and sister in law all work for Lockheed Martin
| and they do the 4-10 schedule: 4 days a week, ten hours a day,
| and they get every Friday off.
|
| I'm a little jealous of it, honestly; it's pretty rare that I
| work less than ten hours a day anyway, so I think economically it
| would be better for me.
| rhexs wrote:
| The downside here is that LM pays about 30 to 50% of top tier
| tech companies with mostly worse benefits.
|
| But otherwise, I agree. That's a wonderful schedule along with
| usually great WLB in defense.
|
| The other risk is that defense has been overfunded and high
| flying for years and years now. Usually goes in cycles with
| massive layoffs, and we haven't had one in a long, long time.
| smithza wrote:
| I work at LM and most of my colleagues here do the 4x10. I
| opted for a traditional 5x8 because I have young children at
| home and found that being gone for 10.5-11 hrs means I don't
| see them during their waking hours. If I could afford it, I
| would choose 4x8 and take the 20% paycut.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Is that ten hours including lunch break (and if yes, how
| much?), or not?
|
| Based on the stereotypical 9-to-5 office job in the UK or
| elsewhere, a "40" hour work week in those countries must
| obviously include some amount of _paid_ lunch break (at a guess
| at least half an hour, maybe even one hour, giving somewhere
| between 35 and at worst 37.5 actually worked hours)
|
| In Germany on the other hand lunch breaks are typically unpaid,
| so 40 hours means 40 actually worked hours, _plus_ however long
| your lunch break is (at least half an hour is the legal minimum
| when working between six and nine hours per day).
| gingerlime wrote:
| My company switched to 4-day workweeks at the beginning of
| 2021[0]. I can't imagine we'll ever go back. I guess it's one of
| the advantages of running a bootstrapped company with no VCs
| breathing down your neck...
|
| [0] https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/how-we-switched-to-4-day-
| we...
| frontman1988 wrote:
| I would rather have a 6 day work week with 2 months of paid
| holidays every year. There isn't much you can do on a 3 day break
| that you can't do in a 1 day or 2 day break. But a month long
| break and you can do crazy stuff like hiking in Papua New Guinea
| or sailing across an ocean.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Arguably that's what savings and sabbaticals are for. I've had
| several colleges take an extended (albeit unpaid) holiday to go
| travelling or sailing or something.
|
| I'm not saying a load more PTO isn't worth it, but there are
| definitely ways to do this kind of thing, and it's worth asking
| your company about it.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| What you can do with 3 days per week instead of a month per
| year is to set good habbits. Fit a sport into your schedule,
| learn music. Anything requiring discipline is gonna be much
| easier if you're able to build a daily/weekly schedule around
| it.
| handrous wrote:
| We could just have 8 weeks of paid vacation by law and _not_
| also work 6-day weeks. That 's not so far from what other
| countries do as to be obviously crazy or unreasonable.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Why trade away your year for 2 months?
|
| 40 hour per week with 40 days PTO is not very common but in
| larger companies in Europe is not unheard of specially for
| senior ICs.
| lolsal wrote:
| Life happens outside of two months a year, though.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Yet those two months will be more memorable than the ten
| months of monotonous life. I just feel work and related city
| life bullshit stays with you even on the weekends. There is
| some fun in just escaping. Or maybe I am too much vacation
| starved due to covid lol.
| lolsal wrote:
| I would urge you to reconsider your work/life balance.
| Trading 10 months for 2 seems like a poor trade. A 4 day
| work week automatically gets you 52 extra days a year. If
| you have flexibility in the day of the week, it's very
| compelling.
| ghaff wrote:
| Haven't done this long of a pure personal trip in a while but
| in a previous (US) job I took several month long trips with an
| otherwise conventional vacation/work schedule. Combination of
| fairly long tenure at the company, some unpaid leave from
| taking leave for a Christmas shutdown, and concentrating almost
| all my vacation on those trips.
|
| A 6-day work week means you basically have to take time off to
| go away for weekends at all.
|
| That said, I'm not convinced a 3 day weekend is much better
| than a 2 day weekend on a routine basis, certainly compared to
| have the same time allocated more flexibly.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Easy: No.
|
| We can barely get a small percentage of jobs converted to remote.
| What makes people even hope for 4-day work weeks to be common?
|
| See also:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
| helij wrote:
| I took a new position in March this year and only accepted it
| after they agreed to 4 day workweek. I took 20% pay cut. One of
| the best decisions I made in my life. I wish all people who can,
| to do this. There's nothing you'll miss on Friday or any other
| weekday and so much to gain.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I mean most other tech people I know just take a de facto half
| day on Friday or "Worked" from home that day.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Most of my colleagues, and myself, could easily take a 20%
| without a noticeable impact to quality of life. That's also a
| problem, if we where allowed to make that trade, I believe that
| most would.
|
| If, as others have seen, productivity goes up, then it might
| not matter. It's a risky bet for companies with highly paid
| staff.
| flipbrad wrote:
| I started working a 4 day work week a few years ago and would not
| go back. The benefits to the employee are obvious, but consider
| those for the company: it gets a motivated, energised employee,
| and if like me they're a parent or for some other reason the
| employee has appointments (school, Dr etc), the employee often
| schedules them during the day off (or moves the day off to
| accomodate them), meaning the employee isn't taking any time off
| (usually, paid!) for them - I suspect I've had a lot less PTO
| than fulltime colleagues.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Are you on a 32 hour or 40 hour week? I would not go back
| either but 10 hour days are exhausting. I go work out and eat
| when I get off work and then I pretty much have to go to bed.
| flipbrad wrote:
| 9 to 5.45 or thereabouts. Leaves plenty of family / hobby
| time _if_ you 're working from home. Commute takes away from
| that.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| And less sick days probably.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| I did a few interviews this year. I specially asked for a 4 day
| work week. Almost every single recruiter seemed baffled by the
| idea. One said they offered it but I have to be available on my
| off day for "important" (they couldn't give me a definition)
| meetings, which defeats the purpose.
| waspight wrote:
| What about five days but 6 hours a day? How is that compared to
| four day workweek?
| zimbabwe_zim wrote:
| 5 Days x 6 Hours = 30 Hours per Week
|
| 4 Days x 8 Hours = 32 Hours per Week
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| You still need to do your full commute every day, twice a day.
| So you don't get the full range of personal time available by
| reducing your hours. You also lose the advantage of having a
| free day during office hours for personal appointments. I would
| also argue that (for me at least), a 6 hours day will be just
| as stressful as a 7 hour day.
| unklefolk wrote:
| If you have a young family, working a 4 day week would make all
| the difference. At the moment I work 5 days and then go into a
| weekend which can be just as tiring as a work day with kids to
| tend to. With an extra day, this would mostly be when the kids
| are at school, so it would be genuine time to myself.
| vitno wrote:
| 4 day work weeks as a concept real clicked for me when put into
| ratios. It's a 50% increase in personal time and only a 20%
| reduction in work hours.
| acchow wrote:
| Don't you have personal time on weekdays outside of work hours?
| Tarsul wrote:
| and less than 20% in net income lost (due to income taxes
| usually being progressive).
| bradjohnson wrote:
| Why should there be any loss in income?
| smithza wrote:
| If you negotiate with management to go from 40 hrs a week
| to 32 hrs a week, there is usually an expectation you will
| take a 20% paycut. Parent was saying that since income
| taxes are tiered, you will likely take a < 20% take-home
| paycut.
| usefulcat wrote:
| ..and even less if you consider the value of benefits, like
| health insurance in the US
| PeterisP wrote:
| On the other hand, if large parts of your income are tied in
| near-fixed expenses (e.g. mortgage), then 20% more net income
| can mean doubling your discretionary spending, and 20%
| decrease - almost eliminating it.
| GordonS wrote:
| I switched to a 4-day work week several years ago (maybe 7 or
| 8, forget), taking. 20% pay cut. Ot really does _feel_ like
| such a better work-life balance - as you say, it 's a much
| bigger increase in personal time than it is a decrease in
| working hours.
|
| And I am just as productive as when I worked 5 days a week!
| ptudan wrote:
| This is better than the math looks, as the 20% you lose is
| taxed at your highest marginal rates. Your take home
| difference is probably closer to 12% which is much more
| palatable.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I did the exact same thing. It was amazing and well worth the
| 4/5ths pay. My mental health was improved and the only thing
| that made me eventually leave was that i was offered 3x the
| pay to work at a FAANG.
|
| Startups trying to compete for talent should probably take
| note of the fact that it took 3x more pay for them to poach
| staff, not 20% more. I'm not saying you'll get away with
| paying 3x less but you also won't have to worry about losing
| staff if you're in the ballpark since the 4 day work week is
| that valuable to anyone lucky enough to have experienced it.
| jerrygoyal wrote:
| where can one find such 4-day work week jobs? Jobs listed
| on most portals are either full-time or part-time (contract
| basis)
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| It was a startup and they were flexible when i asked to
| work for 4/5ths pay for 4/5ths workload.
|
| It should probably be a norm but right now it's ad-hoc
| for companies to support it in order to retain staff.
| mywittyname wrote:
| A lot of smaller companies are open to it once you've
| worked there and proven yourself.
|
| My current and prior jobs have people in 3-4 day a week
| roles. But the people in those roles are senior
| contributors whose value to the company is as much
| knowledge as it is contributions.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > And I am just as productive as when I worked 5 days a week!
|
| For 20% less compensation! I'd rather do the 4-10s for full
| pay, without the pressure to get 40 hours of work done in 32
| hours.
| GordonS wrote:
| For me at least, it doesn't feel like pressure to get more
| done in less time - it's more like I'm a bit more focussed
| (e.g. less time on HN!), don't over-think things as much,
| and am more adamant about not attending meetings I don't
| need to be in.
| Arrath wrote:
| One of my most enjoyable stretches at work was when we were
| allowed to start a project several months ahead of schedule,
| but only allowed 40hrs/wk until the normally scheduled starting
| time. My team voted to do 4/10s for the duration, and I argued
| it through management. We were working out of town so its not
| as if the longer days cost us time at home or with family, and
| it allowed for so much more time at home on the longer weekend.
| It was wonderful.
| fastball wrote:
| How does that work?
|
| If you sleep 8 hours a day and work for 8 hours Mon-Fri,
| that's:
|
| - work: 40hrs
|
| - personal: 72hrs
|
| - sleep: 56hrs
|
| Switching to a four day work week would thus result in a 20%
| reduction in work hours but only a 10% increase in personal
| time.
|
| I'm going to assume you weren't including non-work hours if
| they were on "work days", but that seems silly if you have a
| 9-5 job.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I don't know about everyone else, but my evenings are far
| from entirely "personal time." Chores take up most of my
| evenings, so really I get maybe 1-2hr of personal time on
| work nights. People with kids who do sports probably get next
| to zero personal time, beyond maybe vegging out on YT/FB for
| an hour before bed.
|
| Weekends are the only days where I generally "plan" to do
| things, and even then, Sundays are half reserved for chores
| like mowing/shopping. Having an additional weekend day that I
| can plan for hobbies would be amazing. For me, it's honestly
| akin to doubling my free time.
| munificent wrote:
| And a 20% reduction in commute time.
| city41 wrote:
| I recently did a contract where I negotiated a 4 day week. Hard
| to measure, but my hunch is I still produced about the same
| level of output. But I was happier, and I also think I was able
| to make better decisions with the added brain rest.
| robotsquidward wrote:
| As long as a 4-day work week doesn't mean 10-hour work days.
| mitigating wrote:
| I would do 10 hours day for Friday off. Working an extra two
| hours doesn't put a huge strain as you are already at work or
| in the work mode. During crunch time I would end up working
| until 21:00 to 22:00 and I felt it was like exercise in that as
| long as you don't stop it's not as bad.
|
| You also avoid commute overhead if you work from the office.
| GordonS wrote:
| That would defeat the point - time with arse in seat does not
| equal productivity.
|
| I switched to a 4-day work week years ago, and still work 7.5h
| each day. I found that I'm much more focused during working
| hours, and spend less time procrastinating - I'm just as
| productive as I was before.
| williamtwild wrote:
| Working 5 10 hours work days (at least ) already , four would
| be great.
| willcipriano wrote:
| If you got no raise this year, working roughly two and a half
| hours less per week would bring your compensation back in line
| with inflation. If firms can't stomach wage increases this may be
| a valid alternative.
| ericd wrote:
| Shrinkflation comes to the workweek.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| How about a four day week and a three day week? That would even
| out the economy through the week and accommodate different
| appetites for work.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| I _almost_ fell for the clickbait, but then I remembered
| Betteridge 's law of headlines.
| swayvil wrote:
| You mean NOT extract the maximum return on our labor investment?
| Lol, no.
|
| Sincerely, your ruling oligarchs.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Came here to post something similar. Sort of nation-wide
| legislation (or some combo of CA, TX, FL and NY going this way
| on their own), we'll never see it. The ruling class has too
| much to loose. Even for creates and professionals, where
| there's an arguable case for higher productivity over 4 days vs
| 5, I don't see them ever giving up the control granted to them
| by the 5th day.
| seniorsassycat wrote:
| I've been working 4 days a week, 32 hours, for 4 years and I will
| never go back. It has made me hesitant to look for other work,
| I'm not sure if get the same deal, but so far I'm happy where I
| am.
|
| As others have said the ratios are awesome. I have 15 days off
| every 20 days instead of 8. For a 20% pay cut, while getting full
| benefits.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| For my geographical area, I get paid what feels like a very
| good salary (enough that I no longer have to worry about money
| at all). If my company said "hey, we'll pay you half as much
| and you only have to work 20 hours a week" I'd take it in a
| heartbeat, even though I'd have to start being more careful
| with money. Sadly, I don't see that offer ever coming, even
| though I could totally do my job in half as much time with some
| creative meeting deletion.
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