[HN Gopher] Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day wo...
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Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO
Standard work hours here is 9am-6pm, so 9 hours and I used to stay
10+ hours in the office often. before covid was another hour
commute daily which meant pretty much not having any sun. New girl
at work has a kid and told me she thought it was crazy staying past
3-4pm, and it dawned on me how right she is. pretty much everyone
finished working by 7pm - many stores, restaurants are already
closed before I even had a chance. Also after 6 hours the
effectiveness or quality of work declines. I got nothing against 4
day workweeks - I myself work part time, but I rather work 2-4
hours for even 6 days a week and I'd like to see this approach more
popularized. Anyone else feels like this?
Author : high_byte
Score : 252 points
Date : 2022-05-20 10:03 UTC (12 hours ago)
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I disagree. I have 6-7 hour workdays. That's nice but no nearly
| as nice as another free day. I still feel like I have no time for
| my own life/projects. I still feel exhausted after working even
| 6-7-hours (because I'm not a morning person naturally yet have to
| go work in the morning) and the evening time (nor even an evening
| nap) never actually feels nice if I worked that day. I go out on
| Saturday, sleep until evening (the only way I can actually get
| pleasurable and physically regenerative sleep) on Sunday, get up
| and immediately start feeling bad about the fact I had no
| productive time for my side projects/home as another workweek
| starts in just some hours.
|
| I'd rather work full 8 hours a day but have 4-day workweek.
| Ideally I'd prefer Wednesdays to be non-working days - this way I
| wouldn't have to spend more than 2 days in a row working in the
| office. For me this would feel even better than just 3-day
| weekends with 4-day contiguous workweeks. 5-vs-2 feels like you
| live in the office and go to visit home. 4-vs-3 feels the same
| although notably better. 2-1-2-2 (office-home-office-home) would
| actually feel you live at home and go to the office to get the
| job done. I even feel almost sure this would boost my actual
| office-time productivity.
| iso1631 wrote:
| When I'm not on site I work 4x10 hour days, usually 0900-1900,
| with 1h25 break.
|
| When I'm out and about I'll work as long as I need to, 12 hours
| is a typical day, but any hours I do over 35 per week get paid
| time-and-a-half. If I'm out on an event and say staying in a
| hotel in rural Norfolk, I'd far rather work from 10 or 11 to
| 2300 than do 1500-2300, it's not like I'm going to make use of
| the extra 4 hours in the morning.
|
| A 6 hour day sounds awful, I barely get into top gear until
| about 5 hours into the day on a typical desk day.
| toqy wrote:
| What are you doing for the first 5 hours? I typically find
| that if I'm actually working and not in too many meetings I'm
| basically checked out after 5 straight hours if I haven't
| wandered off already.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Generally firefighting, dealing with emails and various
| minor requests that all take less than half an hour but
| involve a lot of task switching.
| pineconewarrior wrote:
| I do a lot of this too. The worst is when the company I
| work for tries to prevent this from happening. I seem to
| -need- that time to "gear up" as you say. I also find it
| very rewarding to help my colleagues with these types of
| quick issues, as it often prevents issues from
| ballooning, encourages collaboration and builds trust.
|
| When they force me into "developer timeout" and
| effectively isolate me, I just sit there struggling for
| the first half of the day anyway.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| My wife and I just started slowing down to ramp into
| retirement, so we're both working 4-day weeks.
|
| We had the idea to stagger the days, alternating between
| Fridays and Mondays off. That works out so that weekends
| alternate between 2 days and 4 days. And a 4-day weekend is
| enough that you can really do something - an actual trip or
| something. Having that every other week is really nice.
| kahon65 wrote:
| Change job dude, you are going to have a burn out
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| My job is easy, crisis-proof and generally fun, not to
| mention 6-7-hour workdays which many can only dream about
| (not a common thing to find at my location). I just hate
| getting up in mornings, having fixed time schedule and
| spending many days in a row working this way. But that's the
| standard almost everybody has to deal with. So I don't feel
| like changing the job. Perhaps I'm going to return to
| flexible-schedule gigs someday, that felt better except too
| insecure. I just hope the society is going to move to 4-day
| workweek. It's been so long since it last decreased the
| workweek length.
|
| In fact I only share details about my sub-optimal perceived
| well-being because people tend to come up with useful
| suggestions of relevant supplements and practices. E.g. from
| my own experience I can say homemade kombucha can boost
| after-work evening well-being significantly (feels like some
| batches boost serotonin or something like that).
| chitowneats wrote:
| Dude, change job. You can absolutely find a software job
| where they let you work later in the day.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I used to have a software job but am not sure I want to
| return to that. I prefer communicating to people. Writing
| code gets me severe ADHD attacks :-]
| unfocused wrote:
| I know you're not to supposed to listen to advice on the
| Internet, but perhaps improving/changing your sleeping
| habits if you want to stay in your job?
|
| If Saturday is the one day you are getting good sleep, then
| there is some improvement to be done. Perhaps reading a
| book before bed, and trying to go to bed early, can create
| a new sleep routing for your sleep hygiene? Worth a try!
| Hope you feel less tired!
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > I know you're not to supposed to listen to advice on
| the Internet
|
| Perhaps that's the conventional wisdom yet advices on the
| Internet are exactly what I hunt for by writing this kind
| of comments here :-) For a reasonably rationally minded
| person this is a great input of things to explore. Many
| such advices already changed my life for good.
| bckr wrote:
| Another thing to look into is whether you have snoring /
| sleep apnea. Most people who do, it seems, are not aware
| of it. 2 easy, objective tests:
|
| 1) Ask your sleeping partner, if you have one, if you
| snore.
|
| 2) Record yourself sleeping. I used an app called
| SnoreLab which does audio analysis to give you a
| numerical rating and pulls clips of likely snoring
| moments so you don't have to scrub through the entire
| night's recording. The app also gives a pretty exhaustive
| list of recommendations for fixing snoring.
|
| Many people have snoring / apnea and don't know it / are
| in denial. Poor sleep quality / being tired is a symptom.
| Fixing this can add quality years to your life, so worth
| looking into.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I often snore when I sleep on my back. So I always sleep
| on my belly and don't snore. This developed before I even
| finished high school. I have never been (and am not) even
| slightly overweight.
| bckr wrote:
| Weight is often a cause but is not necessary to produce
| apnea. The human breathing apparatus is just weird.
|
| I'm glad you have a way to prevent snoring. But I wonder
| if sleeping on your belly isn't also bad for your sleep.
| Everything I've read recommends side sleeping for back-
| snorers. I've seen some sources say belly sleeping is bad
| for you as well.
|
| In any case, good luck on your health journey
| muffinman26 wrote:
| Sleep apnea often develops during puberty when the voice
| box changes, which lines up with the high-school
| timeframe. Being overweight can certainly make it worse,
| but apparently an above-average number of firefighters
| have sleep apnea, and they're not exactly an overweight
| group.
|
| Not saying you have sleep apnea or that sleeping on your
| side/belly isn't enough to deal with it, simply some
| information.
|
| (It's certainly possible that the reason an above-average
| number of fire-fighters have sleep apnea is that 1)
| they're more likely to have people hear them snoring, and
| 2) the people screened out of the military for sleep
| apnea often respond by becoming firefighters.)
| Aeolun wrote:
| Move to the Netherlands. Our workweeks are 28hr on average
| (that includes part time work, but I think that's still
| like 50% of all people).
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Ok. Thank you. I'm studying Dutch already (seriously).
| dsr_ wrote:
| Can we agree that different people have different optimal working
| styles?
|
| Some people get everything done first thing in the morning and
| are useless in the afternoons.
|
| Some people can't get started until noon whatever their local
| time is.
|
| Some people can commit to 10 or 12 hour days, and if so, it's not
| fair to ask them to work 5 days a week at that rate.
|
| Some people work best in private offices, some at separated
| workstations, some at big collaborative tables, and some at home.
| Some do best standing, some walking, and some lying down -- all
| different from the ones who do best in a nice supportive chair or
| on a stool with no backrest. Some need an ergonomic keyboard,
| some need macros, some need a giant screen or 2 screens, or six.
| Some need screenreader software and some need speech-to-text.
|
| The relevant questions:
|
| * are they productive in some arrangement? I have seen a very
| very few people who seem to be always rearranging things and
| changing equipment and hours in a constant pursuit of
| distraction. The vast majority of people figure things out and
| settle into a steady state of productivity...
|
| * is the nature of the work conducive to the desired arrangement?
| If the position requires customer or vendor contact or operations
| response, the coverage needs to be maintained (and handoffs need
| to occur smoothly).
|
| * is the company culture amenable to alteration or accomodation?
| At one workplace, most of the people I worked with didn't come in
| until 11am and liked to schedule meetings at 6pm. I liked to
| leave around 5:30, having been there since 8 or so.
| barkerja wrote:
| Agree 100% with this take. But my question is: how do you mesh
| all these types together and run an effective team/company? Or
| is that even possible?
| davidweatherall wrote:
| Hire based on working style.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| This is a really great way to introduce systemic
| neurodivergency filters and expose a greater surface area
| for unfair hiring practice lawsuits.
| rsanek wrote:
| Not sure if I'm just missing the sarcasm but almost all
| companies have been hiring based on the same working
| style of 5 days a week, 8+ hours, in office, open
| workspace for quite a while. What's the problem with
| choosing a different set of strongly opinionated
| defaults?
| andai wrote:
| Normal working conditions _are_ a neurodivergence filter.
| dsr_ wrote:
| In a large enough group, all things are possible, and a good
| manager can make them happen.
|
| In a small group, start by asking what the company needs, and
| hire or move people to fit. It might not be possible to get a
| good fit for everyone.
|
| Honesty and flexibility is the best policy: one dev who
| misses every morning meeting has a problem, but if half the
| team misses it fairly regularly, or everyone is yawning, move
| the meeting. Ask people about their working styles up front,
| and be clear during the hiring process if you have core
| hours, or inflexible shifts, or need everyone to be in person
| on the first Wednesday of the month, or whatever.
| helij wrote:
| By having agreed core hours.
| joadha wrote:
| How do you maximize opportunities for collaboration?
| galoisscobi wrote:
| Set 2 half days as office hours where people self organize
| and collaborate on whatever they need to solve. Poll the team
| to find what those 2 chunks of time are. 2 half days is
| arbitrary, the core idea would be that builders/makers have
| uninterrupted time to focus and build for the rest of the
| week.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Maybe I trust people too much, but I feel people will find
| and make their own opportunities to collaborate if they feel
| like collaboration is required to complete their tasks.
|
| If you're maximizing "opportunities to collaborate" you're
| probably taking their attention from their work
| unnecessarily.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| > Maybe I trust people too much, but I feel people will
| find and make their own opportunities to collaborate if
| they feel like collaboration is required to complete their
| tasks.
|
| I find this breaks down at larger companies. The problem is
| that people often do not understand when collaboration is
| required. This is usually not their fault. Someone up
| failed to communicate up or down the chain (either on the
| receiving or sending end).
|
| I've watched groups reproduce each other's works, bungle
| rollouts, etc. based on this lack of communication. The
| cost of these miscommunications was sometimes greater than
| everyone's salary put together. A truly excellent culture
| of communication and collaboration reduces the frequency
| and severity of these events but there's no silver bullet.
| weldedtogether wrote:
| We see the same issues in education with kids learning in
| different ways, and those who learn better in X way might learn
| less because they're being taught in Y way.
|
| It comes down to the overhead in time and complexity (usually
| money as well) being too high to justify accommodating
| everyone. We just sorta jam everyone into the same thing and
| figure we'll get enough out of them. As the culture shifts more
| toward worker's work/life balance being important (if it ever
| does here in the US) I think this will change, but I don't
| think we'll see ever enough flexibility to accommodate
| everyone. We'll settle on another standard and stick to it till
| enough people complain.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| Clearly we can't accomodate everyone but it seems achievable
| to work toward a culture where (for example) meetings are
| discouraged at 6pm where some employees start at 8am or 9am.
|
| One of the very minor customs that has developed
| (spontaneously) in my organisation (and I assume elsewhere)
| during the pandemic is (internally) people are quite likely
| to ask if it's OK to call you. This isn't a rule and
| obviously doesn't apply with anything urgent but it's
| starting to feel almost approaching rude now to call someone
| about a routine matter without checking whether they've got a
| minute for a call. Personally, I like that.
|
| A lot of emphasis is understandably given to
| statutory/regulatory intervention to protect workers but
| there are small cultural things we can do to make work a bit
| less awful (like not scheduling your team meeting at a time
| when you know multiple people are taking their kids to school
| or right at the end of the day where you know people have
| trains to catch or whatever). These don't need to be
| documented corporate policies (because then it becomes
| something else) but just customs that quietly evolve over
| time.
| junipertea wrote:
| Different learning styles are actually disputed [0], but I
| agree that 1. it's easier for employer to fit everyone in one
| box. 2. If people had more individual approaches, they would
| work better
|
| [0]https://www.educationnext.org/stubborn-myth-learning-
| styles-...
| paulsutter wrote:
| Your link doesn't demonstrate that all people learn in the
| same way, merely tries to debunk a specific/narrow set of
| learning styles (that seem bizarre in the first place)
| mym1990 wrote:
| The idea is that many people will learn best when a
| combination of teaching methods are present, rather than
| one person always being taught in style X vs style Y. But
| most schools and teaching institutions are setup as farms
| that make students believe that if they don't find
| success in this narrow little box, then they must be dumb
| or doing something wrong.
|
| Surely the idea that people learn in the same way is as
| bizarre as the idea that people learn in one of 4 ways.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Here are a few better sources. "Learning styles" are not
| established science, by any means.
|
| https://career.ucsf.edu/sites/g/files/tkssra2771/f/Articl
| e%2...
|
| https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA628405045&sid=goog
| leS...
|
| https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/LearningStylesMyth
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-
| myth...
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-
| with-...
| [deleted]
| bityard wrote:
| I read that article but it doesn't seem to actually say
| much, other than "leaning styles == bad." My best guess is
| that the author has built a strawman and his definition of
| "different learning styles" is markedly different (or
| narrower) than the common understanding of the phase.
|
| I consider myself a pretty open-minded individual and a
| strong adherent to the idea that (properly conducted!)
| science furthers human progress, health, and happiness. But
| there's no way anyone can convince me that, given the
| exceptionally wide variability in the way human brains
| process information, that there is "one true way" to teach
| somebody something. Or even "one true way" for a specific
| individual that applies to all subjects.
|
| For instance, there is an entire generation who seem to
| learn faster and/or better by watching well-produced videos
| on a topic. For them, reading a textbook or other forms of
| documentation takes too long or just plain doesn't work.
| This is basically what all of those modern online course
| sites and coding bootcamps are doing.
|
| I'm the complete opposite. I'd rather sift through book-
| sized volumes of written documentation and tutorials (or in
| a pinch, a textbook) to quickly gain an overall big-picture
| view of a topic and then dive into specific details as
| necessary. For me, watching videos takes too long, and I
| get bored and sleepy watching them. Give me something to
| read, reflect on, and play with.
|
| Another example: my son, unlike most of his peers, can't
| sit still in a classroom. Nor can he watch educational
| videos for any particular length of time. He is not (yet?)
| a self-directed learner because if you put him in front of
| an electronic device of any kind, he will tinker with all
| of the settings on the device instead of using it for its
| intended purpose. However, he absolutely excels at one-on-
| one tutoring because I have managed to teach him some
| fairly advanced (for his age) math, computer, and
| electronics concepts just by sitting down and talking about
| these things with him as if it was just casual
| conversation. The problem, of course, is that the way
| schools are structured, this cannot possibly scale even to
| just the kids that need it the most.
| TimPC wrote:
| There is a sizeable contingent in education that ascribes
| to the theory that learning styles is mostly bunk. The
| differences in outcomes for students taught with a
| preferred learning style vs students taught with their
| least preferred learning style is consistently quite
| small. There is also the practical consideration that
| teaching each student in their preferred of n teaching
| styles requires n times the instruction time. A large
| number of educators believe you get best results by just
| letting the teacher pick the approach to teaching they
| are most comfortable with.
| TimPC wrote:
| Ultimately though we need to pick an arrangement. It's going to
| be very difficult to have part of society on reduced five day
| work weeks and part of society on four day work weeks. It
| creates unusual demand patterns on schools and daycare which
| you need to decide whether to run on a four or five day
| pattern. It's hard for the schools or daycares if the
| teachers/ECEs opt for four day work weeks but a substantial
| portion of their market requires five day services.
|
| The push for a four day work week is inclusive and allows most
| people to shift to a four day work week. The push to people
| working in accordance with their optimal work patterns unfairly
| targets the service sector and restricts how their choice in
| how they work based on demands for their services.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It creates unusual demand patterns on schools and daycare
| which you need to decide whether to run on a four or five day
| pattern.
|
| Schools can run a 5-day pattern even if some of their
| employees are on a 4-day pattern (as long as they are not the
| same four-day pattern). In fact, it's not unknown for various
| workplaces to run a 5-day every week pattern with employees
| on a mix of 9-8-80 two-week and 4-10-40 1-week cycles with
| different cycle days off.
|
| _Faculty_ (especially in pre-K through primary grades;
| scheduling can be more creative without disruption at the
| secondary level) probably need to be on every open day,
| generally, but other than that,..
| TimPC wrote:
| It's difficult and disruptive for students to be on a 5-day
| pattern of education with a homeroom teacher on a 4-day
| pattern. This basically necessitates scheduling entirely
| non-core subjects on the fifth day, potentially even
| resulting in multiple sessions of gym in a single day. It's
| also not clear to me you can viably do this without
| increasing costs unless the school is free to choose which
| of the four days the teacher's work instead of the teacher
| doing so. For example, if the standard 4-day work week is
| Monday-Thursday then there is ridiculous demand for non-
| core subject teachers on Friday and those non-core subject
| teachers may even be working Monday-Thursday themselves
| resulting in reduced supply.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's difficult and disruptive for students to be on a
| 5-day pattern of education with a homeroom teacher on a
| 4-day pattern.
|
| Is it? In most secondary environments I've seen
| "homeroom", if it exists at all (which tends to only be
| early secondary, like middle school, and not consistently
| even there), is simply a regular class to which added
| time for administrivia like daily announcements is added.
| Cerium wrote:
| A substantial portion of the service sector runs with a seven
| day schedule, we don't push schools to offer seven day
| service in response? Perhaps having more mixed working
| arrangements will improve societal flexibility and better
| serve all people.
| TimPC wrote:
| I think it's a legitimate problem though that schools and
| daycares operate predominantly on a five day schedule now
| that works for a large number of workers. If we go to a
| model where we have something resembling a 50/50 split
| between longer 4-day work weeks and shorter 5-day work
| weeks we end up with a huge problem in how to schedule
| services so that they work for the majority of people.
|
| There will be overwhelming pressure on schools to have days
| that match the shorter length of day in the five-day
| workweek so that parents who opt for five days can spend
| time with their kids. There will be overwhelming pressure
| to have four slightly longer school days so that parents
| who opt for the four-day work week can spend time with the
| kids on the three days off. It's very difficult for schools
| to opt for both solutions as it would require doubling the
| number of class types being offered which makes it harder
| for smaller schools to have sufficient students in every
| class to be financially viable. Even if we solve financial
| viability schools would need the ability to tell teachers
| which schedule they had to take rather than letting the
| teachers freely choose.
|
| I can't stress how much this choice of working approach
| would be bad for the school system.
| dsr_ wrote:
| I can't help but feel that you are arguing that it would
| be hard on everyone if the current standard was not
| maintained, while ignoring that the current standard is
| not maintained.
|
| Here are occupations that generally don't have a M-F 9-5
| work cycle right now:
|
| police, firefighters, the vast majority of people who
| work in healthcare including nurses and doctors,
| restaurants, hospitality, janitorial, retail sales,
| plumbers, HVAC techs, construction workers,
| taxi/lyft/uber/whatever drivers, truck drivers, and
| customer service.
| TimPC wrote:
| I actually prefer a four day school week and four day
| work week as a standard I just don't think it's easy to
| have multiple simultaneous standards.
|
| I get that not all jobs are M-F 9-5 workloads. But I also
| know a number of people report substantial hardships of
| not having that schedule in those jobs. I don't think we
| want to make school no longer correspond to the default
| work week by having two default work weeks unless we want
| all people on the wrong default to add those problems to
| their jobs.
| semanticjudo wrote:
| Saving to copy/paste on every [X workstyle] is best thread...
| elevaet wrote:
| To further complicate matters, different fields of work have
| different optimal working styles/cycles as well.
|
| I did some very physical seasonal work for about a decade where
| most of us would work about 3 months of the year, very
| intensely. After years of experimentation, the boss of the
| finest company in this industry figured out that a 3 day on, 1
| day off cycle worked best for productivity and morale. This
| cycle gave everyone a chance to rest and recover from the
| athletic level of physical labour.
|
| It was really interesting to step out of a 7 day week and into
| this 4 day cycle every year.
| teekert wrote:
| This also depends on age, i.e., it sounds like I'd need 1 day
| on, 2 days off for this type of work ;)
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I produce as much as my teammates working about 1-2 hours
| 5-days per week. It would be a massive social problem for most
| employers to let me get paid what I make and have everyone see
| me only working 1-2 hours per day. That's why I had to switch
| to consulting. My case is extreme, but that's why you won't see
| employers letting people have visibly different work
| arrangements.
| srfwx wrote:
| Have you ever considered that your teammates may be working
| 1-2 hours each day too ?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Some aren't working at all.
| cabirum wrote:
| n-hour workdays must include commute time, encouraging for remote
| work where possible.
|
| Even 3 hour days should be enough - to interact with your peers.
| Other than that, performance is a measure of work planned vs work
| done. Time to sit on your ass should not even be a thing.
| cerwind wrote:
| I think this is the argument of whether to graze like a cow
| (working 2-4 hours 6 days a week) or work like a lion (working
| 9-10 hours 4 days a week). Neither is better in every case so it
| largely depends on what kind of work you're doing.
|
| If you're answering emails and having meetings where everyone has
| to sync up during the day - I'd opt for the first one. If you're
| developing or coding where the time of day is irrelevant - I'd go
| for the second.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| > graze like a cow (working 2-4 hours 6 days a week) or work
| like a lion (working 9-10 hours 4 days a week).
|
| I would dislike both of those.
| tlarkworthy wrote:
| I have done both and IMHO a Wednesday off where you can totally
| disconnect is worth more for mental well-being than shaving some
| time off everyday but otherwise doing 5 days a week.
| neodymiumm wrote:
| Agreed, largely because I find I'm able to efficiently use small
| amounts of extra time, but struggle to make productive use of an
| entire free day. Even working 30m or an hour less is enough to
| squeeze in a workout and some Anki reviews. I'm also hourly, so I
| can't help but assess whether the things I chose to do during
| that time were "worth it" compared to the compensation I missed
| out on.
| onion2k wrote:
| _I rather work 2-4 hours for even 6 days a week_
|
| I wouldn't. The problem with that schedule is that you never get
| a break. Every day is a work day. You're always thinking about
| work. You always have to spend time getting ready for work, spend
| time commuting, spend time (or money) getting lunch. You can't
| just chuck some stuff in a bad and disappear to a different
| country for a 3 day long weekend break.
|
| The beauty of a 4 day week is that you don't have to think about
| work for 3 days a week. That gives you far more freedom than
| shorter work days.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I think people with 1 hour commutes would definitely prefer 4 day
| weeks
| MadeThisToReply wrote:
| Eh, I have a 90 minute commute and I don't mind because I go by
| train. Three hours a day to read! I love it.
|
| Granted I wfh 2/3 days a week; if I had this commute every day
| I'd probably feel differently.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| On the other hand,
|
| - support remote working
|
| - have better housing closer to where people work
|
| - if people want to commute an hour each way, that's on them
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The issue with commuting is people have partners who work
| elsewhere so commuting is a compromise.
|
| WFH solves this and allows commutes of up to 12000 miles.
| hkt wrote:
| Very good point.
|
| (Excuse the smugness here, but I've wanglee a four day week WFH
| and my life is amazing)
| high_byte wrote:
| for me it was 30 minutes commute for only 2 days a week,
| usually at least one direction was carpooling with a coworker
| so beyond tolerable, even enjoyable at times. but more than 1
| hour while driving x5 days would be a no-no for me.
| kraftman wrote:
| I live in europe but work for a US company, so I do ~ 3pm - 11pm,
| and I absolutely love it.
|
| Instead of sitting inside all day while its sunny and then having
| free time just as its getting dark and everything is closing, I
| can enjoy (most) of my day, hang out with the kids for a bit
| while working, and then get some solid quiet work time in the
| evening.
|
| I ski, hike, bike, do admin etc during the week, then have my
| weekends completely free for family.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Agree. I have ~30h work week and free working hours and i am
| aiming to do ~4 hours/day, 7 days a week. I cannot imagine how
| people in mentally demanding jobs like software development can
| keep focus on 8-hour shifts.
| floxy wrote:
| ?Por que no los dos?
| ErrantX wrote:
| So I am seeing more and more of ideas like this; but I feel the
| need to challenge them a bit.
|
| Not the ideal; work less, have more fulfilling lives - I am all
| in.
|
| But all of these initiatives are focused on the wealthier office
| workers and sometimes factory/shift workers who are non-customer
| facing. But it totally ignores the service industry which is a
| huge part of our society (and arguably even more so if we end up
| working less!).
|
| You will still want an Uber after 5pm, or a shop or restaurant to
| be open on a public holiday. 4 Day work weeks, shorter hours -
| all great ideas but all ideas that either negatively impact the
| poorest portion of our society. Even universal basic income,
| which ostensibly would have a positive impact there would still
| not allow those individuals to work less.
|
| Which is why my challenge is always; first we need to automate
| out the poorest roles in society (and then give them UBI
| obviously) before we solve our own lengthy work weeks.
| code51 wrote:
| UBI first then automate? or Automate first, then UBI? Massively
| different options for millions of people.
| lentil_soup wrote:
| > ideas that either negatively impact the poorest portion of
| our society
|
| I don't see the connection here, why would it affect the
| poorest?
|
| I don't think people mean that all shops close earlier, just
| that they'd need to hire more people to cover a reduced shift.
|
| > we need to automate out the poorest roles in society
|
| I think we've done that many times in history but it has never
| led to a reduced workload, usually the company will take the
| increased profits and the ones that lost their job need to find
| something else
| oramit wrote:
| Thanks for this. There is a bit of tone deafness in this thread
| with everyone calling for fewer days of work so they can relax
| and then go to the cafe or linger over dinner while also
| wanting all those businesses to be open for them at all times.
| If we want to change the societal norms around working hours it
| has to include everyone, not just software developers or else
| it isn't going to stick.
|
| Though honestly this thread is making me think that we need to
| basically reinvent the Sabbath. I'm old enough (mid 30s) to
| remember when most everything was closed on Sundays and now
| it's just another day for errands and brunch. Even holidays
| that were considered sacrosanct like Christmas and Thanksgiving
| you can now go to the store or they have absurd opening hours
| the day after (black friday) so that retail workers can't even
| enjoy the Holiday because they have a 4am shift the next day.
| We're seriously out of whack here in the US.
| digisign wrote:
| Service folks almost always work in shifts already, many are
| part time. One of the benefits of moving up the ladder is to
| get holidays off. I think this is the only way it could
| possibly work.
|
| Agree that most people should have say, Sunday off, but there
| are many import things that must have 24/7 or close to it
| coverage. Groceries (every day), medical personnel,
| firefighters, etc. Lot's of nurses work 3*12hr shifts per
| week for example.
| ErrantX wrote:
| Yes and it is interesting that the response to my comment is
| "oh we meant them too". Which I know is said in good faith
| but it fundamentally shows a disconnect from how a huge
| portion of our society lives.
|
| How many of us would forgo a Starbucks on Friday in order to
| have that 4 day week?
| cupofpython wrote:
| >and then give them UBI obviously
|
| This has to happen first. Automation will put them out of work
| way faster than the UBI system will come online - and that is
| assuming the UBI system is not completely stonewalled to begin
| with.
|
| As soon as we know the work is definitely automatable, we
| should start pushing for UBI. Once people who do not want to
| work leave the workforce, everything will get better.
|
| I think people get so wrapped up in the concept of "free
| loaders" that they overlook how sandbagged our economy is by
| forcing those same people to engage with it.
|
| We dont cull the weak anymore, which is fantastic, but they are
| still weak. We need to care for them and get them out of the
| way of people trying to accomplish things.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You will still want an Uber after 5pm,
|
| No, I don't.
|
| I want a way to get where I want to go after 5pm, sure, but
| reduced working hours means, necessarily, that for a greater
| portion of the population than is currently the case, that will
| not be an individual, human-driven conveyance per party seeking
| transportation, and that's fine.
|
| > 4 Day work weeks, shorter hours - all great ideas but all
| ideas that either negatively impact the poorest portion of our
| society.
|
| No, they don't. Your argument that they do is based on the
| assumption that they are not _applied_ to that group, which is
| odd because they are exactly the group (unlike elite workers
| who are generally exempt) to whom wage and hour laws apply.
|
| > or a shop or restaurant to be open on a public holiday.
|
| Actually, I want far fewer shops and restaurants open on public
| holidays, of which I would like to see more than currently
| exist.
|
| > Even universal basic income, which ostensibly would have a
| positive impact there would still not allow those individuals
| to work less.
|
| Yes, it will. It would drive up the costs for the wealthier
| people that would like the things provided by them working as
| much as they currently do, which would lead to a mix of
| reductions I working hours and downward movement of wealth,
| both of which benefit the poorer workers.
|
| > Which is why my challenge is always; first we need to
| automate out the poorest roles in society (and then give them
| UBI obviously) before we solve our own lengthy work weeks.
|
| That's backwards. We change the general workweek standards
| (which aren't, after all, hard limits but when, for non-exempt
| workers, extra costs for the employer and extra pay for the
| worker in the form of mandatory overtime compensation kick in),
| and establish UBI funded by taxes on capital income, and then
| the resulting pressure on labor costs drives automation, with
| the increasing pre-tax aggregate returns to capital as labor is
| minimized in production increasing the UBI funding bucket.
| ErrantX wrote:
| > Your argument that they do is based on the assumption that
| they are not applied to that group
|
| I'd qualify it more as; I don't believe these ideas are easy
| to implement for that group vs. non-service roles.
|
| Now, I am based in the UK so things may vary around the world
| but I disagree with your assertion about the wage & hours
| laws.
|
| For example; here we have a maximum working week of 48 hours.
| This was supposed to help people in the service industry but
| actually it mostly helps office workers. We have leverage to
| kill off the crazy hours expected in creative roles. However,
| service workers have wage pressure to sign waivers to let
| them work more than the 48 hours (because minimum wage is not
| a living wage).
|
| These things have to work in tandem to drive up lower-income
| wealth but they just don't - so I object to other initiatives
| which don't directly address the problem.
|
| Anything that says "just hire more people" is an
| unsustainable plan which ignores the economics (most people
| work in service industry, and mostly in part time roles). The
| outcome of increasing demand on that industry OR forcing the
| full time workers to work less is that the part-time workers
| would need to work more.
|
| > No, I don't.
|
| Great! We all need this attitude.
|
| But I assert the vast majority will still want their 10pm
| Starbucks, Friday restaurants and Sunday shopping trips
| (also, it's not a high-wage sacrifice - the majority are also
| service workers and they also want these things, it's a
| circular economy!).
|
| Oddly we are probably largely in agreement; I just think we
| need to be _more_ radical in how we fix this otherwise we
| will just have another cycle that depresses the lower-income
| workers opportunities.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > However, service workers have wage pressure to sign
| waivers to let them work more than the 48 hours
|
| US wage and hour laws are not generally individually
| waivable, as the entire point of wage and hour laws is to
| address power imbalance between workers and their
| employers. When talking about the length of the legal
| workweek in the US, the discussion is of laws as to when
| overtime compensation for non-exempt employees is required,
| the added cost creates pressure on employers to limit
| excess working hours of non-exempt employees.
|
| If UK wage and hour laws are waivable the way you suggest,
| that suggests a fundamental problem with the structure of
| the law which renders any discussion of fine tuning their
| coverage irrelevant.
| ErrantX wrote:
| Interesting point; but I think the US laws have similar
| effect in different ways.
|
| For example; the overtime laws just create incentive to
| work more than 40 hours a week. On average US workers
| work much more than other OECD countries.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > For example; the overtime laws just create incentive to
| work more than 40 hours a week.
|
| They create incentive not to allow workers to work more
| than 40 hour weeks.
|
| > On average US workers work much more than other OECD
| countries
|
| That's because the US has low minimum wage / cost of
| living compared to other OECD countries _and_ relatively
| week social support systems.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| No one thinks they should be that same hours removed. Shift
| work could handle 32 hour weeks instead of 40 hour weeks by
| just having more employees
| afaik69 wrote:
| My hairdresser[0] in Germany pays all employees 5 days salary
| for 4 days of work. So, it's possible in the service industry.
|
| [0] https://www.haar-werk.net/friseur-in/
| mrpotato wrote:
| > You will still want an Uber after 5pm, or a shop or
| restaurant to be open on a public holiday.
|
| No one says this change doesn't apply to people in those
| industries or in shift work. You have to remember that the idea
| is more to reduce work from 40 hours per week to something like
| 32 hours per week (30 in OP's case).
|
| In this case, you can still have restaurants open late, it
| would just mean the schedule would be shorter for all staff.
|
| > But all of these initiatives are focused on the wealthier
| office workers and sometimes factory/shift workers who are non-
| customer facing. But it totally ignores the service industry
| which is a huge part of our society (and arguably even more so
| if we end up working less!).
|
| The service industry could make up for the lack of coverage by
| hiring another person. Giving jobs to more people.
|
| I do believe that the question of having a livable wage
| (supplemented or not by UBI) is a separate issue that should
| not impede giving people their time back.
| ErrantX wrote:
| I still don't buy that. In an office job you can find cost
| neutral ways to cut hours: a lot of people in this thread
| have said they would work harder in less time to achieve the
| same outcome, as a really simple example.
|
| That's patently not an option in the service industry. You
| help people cut hours but now a restraunt, say, needs a
| percentage more staff (each of whom comes with a salary
| overhead) at a higher hourly wage.
|
| This is before you consider the scale of it. About 85% of UK
| jobs are in the service sector. There is a massive labour
| shortage in key service areas anyway. At the same time,
| highly leveraged office workers cut their hours and have more
| leisure time, so service industry demands go up.
|
| It's just not an easy pitch to make in my book. If I wanted
| to cut my hours I absolutely could come up with some
| automation and investment to help me do that, and my employer
| might agree to invest in that because I have high value and
| strong individual leverage.
|
| That is just untrue for the vast majority of the service
| industry.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| No matter how much currency you give the poor in society, there
| won't be an incentive to reward people which provide zero
| value.
|
| Prices will just go up.
|
| How much free time you have could very well be a function of
| how valuable / hard to automate your work is.
| ErrantX wrote:
| I fundamentally disagree; the smartest and wealthiest of our
| society should also be working hard to make the lives of the
| poorest better.
|
| You are sort of making my point; proposals like this assume
| that those who contribute "less" are less valuable - but of
| course that is only true on one scale.
|
| As a though exercise; if someone is physically disabled to
| the extent they cannot work and need regular care should they
| a) live hand to mouth and unable to afford non-essentials? Or
| b) should they be comfortable and capable of indulging in
| luxuries.
|
| Currently our society says they have zero value so (a). I
| argue that it should be (b)
| mrpotato wrote:
| > there won't be an incentive to reward people which provide
| zero value.
|
| I am assuming you mean "who don't work" when you say provide
| zero value. The poor encompass more than just people living
| in a cardboard box in some alley. There are poor people
| living paycheck to paycheck who are barely able to afford
| food AND a roof over their head. A poor person can be a
| single parent with two kids who works two minimum wage jobs
| just to be able to provide for their family.
| joomooru wrote:
| Really telling when a person equates low wage with
| providing no value in society. So much for "essential
| workers" being forced to work in-person during the pandemic
| ErrantX wrote:
| Indeed. I have a top 1% salary but my pleasant life is
| provided largely by those earning under 30K GBP. This is
| probably true of the majority here...
|
| It wears heavily on me daily.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I _like_ working long hours, but 6 hours is the absolute max for
| the majority of people for intense intellectual or creative work
| for a sustained period of time.
|
| Most super prolific creatives (painters/composers) do a routine
| of between 1.5 and 3 hour sessions, one or two sessions per day.
| Depending on the person, but very consistent once the person
| figures out their routine.
|
| That means 1.5 - 6 hours total. But this doesn't include meetings
| and correspondence and all that jazz.
|
| I like to wake early, work a bunch, then take time in the
| afternoon to do non work stuff.
|
| Then I can come back at the end of the day and do another few
| hours. This lets me experience the world when things are less
| crowded, make time for family etc, while still having plenty of
| time for work.
| 988747 wrote:
| Well, I'd _love_ to have 6 hours or more of intellectual
| /creative work per day but in reality I get only 2-3, the rest
| is meetings and distractions.
| high_byte wrote:
| me too, but instead of meetings it's about energy. I can sit
| 18 hours on the computer if I have to, but rarely can I code
| for 18 hours. (sometimes I can but usually it's something
| very exciting and non-work related)
| Kalanos wrote:
| 3 days is long enough to go somewhere
| HardwareLust wrote:
| I disagree. The worst part of my day is getting up and forcing
| myself to get ready to go to a job I absolutely hate. Having to
| only do that 4 times a week versus 5 is far more important to me
| than getting home at 4pm instead of 6pm.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Do your best to not feel trapped. If you do, try to figure out
| how to escape. If you're miserable everyday at work, plan an
| exit.
| bombcar wrote:
| There are different kinds of "work" and generalizing to one set
| schedule isn't going to work for everyone.
|
| A retail clerk can likely do a 10 hour shift with little to no
| loss of productivity in the later hours - and some jobs basically
| just need a human there to monitor the process - those likely
| would do well on 4/10 shifts.
|
| But other kinds of work can't get much beyond six hours a day
| anyway, in which case spreading it out may make sense.
|
| But there's also a weird "fairness" aspect - even if _everyone_
| would be better off with varying schedules, people would think it
| "unfair" - and it's visible. If Sally gets paid half what you do,
| you never know. But if she leaves after 4 hours each day, you
| start to feel annoyed.
| ac2022 wrote:
| I agree especially with kids. I got kids, I close shop at 4pm.
|
| I get kids, go to park, pool, etc. Bring sandwiches or pick up
| junk food. One kid is baby, so usually drop him at home with mom.
|
| Sadly most parents especially dads work late. So I am not able to
| make plans with moms for after school playdates. And my wife is
| not very social and she doesn't like Texas afternoon heat.
|
| But there are a few dads who leave work early and we try to
| arrange pladates after school.
|
| Not sure if one whole day off would create as many opportunities
| for play as shorter work days.
| stevieb89 wrote:
| I personally can't focus in the mornings and have to clear up
| small jobs and I use 4 hours to focus. That's probably down to
| the amount of emails / small jobs we deal with and my weak point
| is I always tend to prioritise the interesting work :)
| fleddr wrote:
| I'm fully in favor of shorter work days regardless of how many
| days one works. However, when forced to pick between the two
| options, I strongly prefer working 4 full days, which I have been
| doing for more than a decade.
|
| It could be just me, but I find the value of stopping around
| 3-4pm versus 5-6pm to be pretty limited. You still have this
| feeling that the main part of the day is almost over and you
| can't do any substantial personal tasks or serious relaxing
| before the dinner ritual.
|
| Also, when you're the exception in your team to leave early,
| you're effectively "disappointing" your team every single day
| that you work. Where others might have 4PM meetings, you're never
| available. This invites a feeling of guilt, where you start to
| make exceptions, and incidentally stay longer. Others are
| learning that your 4-6pm unavailability is quite soft. Further,
| every single morning you're behind in email and chat, needing to
| go through what happened late in the previous day whilst others
| are already up to speed.
|
| With a real day off (4 day workweek), you have a full day to do
| something really substantial. Time feels plentiful rather than
| scarce.
|
| A full day off is a barrier that is much easier to defend. You're
| just not available at all on that day, and work and expectations
| easily adapt to that.
|
| Overall, I think the problem with modern office work is that it's
| far too collaborative. We've normalized being in meetings for
| half of the day and having hundreds of emails and chat messages
| to wade through, whilst the actual work takes a back seat.
|
| If you'd have a clean and clear work package, you could do the
| work in that package at your convenience in whatever way fits
| best in your life. But we don't have that. We start the morning
| fresh with an idea of goals for the day in mind, and at the end
| of the day we did almost none of it. Everything changed
| throughout the day. Too many dependencies, too many moving parts.
| That's the real problem.
| coldtrait wrote:
| What country is this? I just moved to India from the US and was
| surprised that it was 9-6 here instead of the 9-5 I was used to.
| And everyone here is used to overworking.
| sdevonoes wrote:
| Just be sure you don't acquire bad habits of the country your
| are living in ;)
| coldtrait wrote:
| Sadly I am from India, lol
| sdevonoes wrote:
| I just realized I misread your first message. Sorry!
| coldtrait wrote:
| No worries.
| samuli wrote:
| I do not think that there is a one-size fits solution. People
| with kids might want to opt for six hour day, to better arrange
| life around them, some others might enjoy more the three day
| weekends.
|
| Some people work on ships and work six months in twelve hour
| rotation and then be on vacation for six months.
| ajaimk wrote:
| Why not both?
| [deleted]
| svennek wrote:
| I hear you. I am self employed but try to mimic the standard
| 37-hour work-week of my country. Most weeks I do it 6x6 instead
| of 5x7,5ish...
|
| 6 hours feels more productive and 6x6 feels less hard than the
| normal 37 over 5 days...
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Funnily enough Im more the opposite. Give me 10 hour days for 3
| days a week and I'd jump at the chance. An extra 2 hours at the
| end of the day isnt much to get used to, but being able to spend
| more full days not working than working would mean a lot to me.
|
| That vs the proposed 6-hour 4-day week some people mentioned in
| this thread, it'd be very happy with either obviously, but I
| still think I'd go for 3 days if I had to choose.
| sph wrote:
| Your brain and body recharges every night. Memory function
| actually _improves_ over night. Doing more hours doesn 't make
| you more productive, the amount of meaningful work you can do
| in a day is pretty much constant.
|
| I'm definitely in the shorter days camp. In my experience
| there's a 2 to 4 hour peak performance window and a long tail
| of diminishing brain power.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| > Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive
|
| Agreed, but nobody is gonna offer me 4 hours a day for 3 days
| a week. Being extremely optimistic, the best I can expect is
| 10 hour days for 3 days a week (though I dont thats gonna
| happen anytime soon either, so Im happy with 4 days).
|
| Shorter hours but more/same days do little to nothing for me.
| I mean it'd be nice, but that or less days is a very easy
| choice for me.
| sph wrote:
| Fair enough. My point was that 5h over 6 days yields better
| output and happiness than 10h over 3 days. The average
| person would really hate those additional 2 or 3 hours,
| it's not fun consistently going over one's physical limits,
| even if you rest for the remainder of the week, but YMMV.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| >Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive, the
| amount of meaningful work you can do in a day is pretty much
| constant.
|
| Although that may be the case for most people, I doubt
| there's no exceptions to this.
| sph wrote:
| The amount is constant for each person, but one person
| might have a 2 hour performance window while a 100x
| engineer might have a 9 hour performance peak.
|
| You can increase or sidestep it a _little_ with
| performance-enhancing drugs or a healthier lifestyle, but
| with their downsides, changes in your environment and other
| aging-related issues you 'll see over a long enough period
| that it doesn't change much.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The thing about the 5 days a week is that at the weekends you end
| up doing personal stuff you neglected during the workdays.
|
| I'm not sure that having two more hours a day will free up your
| weekend, I'm kind of leaning to 4 days a week because you can
| actually have useful time.
|
| Personally, I wouldn't object to 3 days of non-stop working till
| the midnight to have 4 free days a week. Things won't pile up and
| instead of having just evenings, I will be able to leverage full
| days which will give me better freedom of movement away from
| where I live.
|
| The 5 days a week schedule is my primary reason that I'm not in a
| full time job since a while. I was at home at 18:20 max, yet I
| never had time to do anything for myself.
| high_byte wrote:
| those 2 hours (actually 3+ since it's normal for 9+ hours over
| here) include everything from shops, sun, avoiding traffic and
| other things I didn't mention or think about. also allows you
| to plan your day differently, like working 12-6 instead of 9-3
| for example. imagine waking up at 6am and only starting work at
| 12pm...
| Crusoe123 wrote:
| In that case being done with work at 12pm sounds like a much
| better deal.
| twh270 wrote:
| As you can probably see from the diversity of comments, this is
| a very subjective topic. I've seen (just in this thread)
| everything from "I'm fine with my 6x7" to "I'd love 3x10".
|
| Some people would find that having two extra hours a day is
| great; others wouldn't.
|
| For this among other reasons, I'm against a "one size fits all"
| policy. Give people more than one option, where it's reasonable
| to do so.
| fendy3002 wrote:
| As I've read in other reddit thread, it depends on your
| lifestyle.
|
| Have activities after work, near work place, especially with work
| colleagues? 5-6 days with low hour daily.
|
| More time to do chores and rest at weekend? 4 days work weeks
| m-p-3 wrote:
| Personally I prefer 4 days workweeks, especially if I need to
| commute. Just having one less day of commute per week really
| makes a difference.
| hgs3 wrote:
| Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think a four day work week is
| radical enough. A web developer today is easily 5x more
| productive than a web developer 30 years ago: we have off the
| shelf databases, frameworks, and a huge ecosystem of open source
| libraries. If I can produce the same output as a web developer 30
| years ago, but at 1/5th the time, then why am I not working 1 day
| a week for the same pay? What's the point of modern technology if
| it can't free us up to enjoy life? Same goes for workers in every
| industry that have benefited from technology.
| missedthecue wrote:
| I don't understand why you deserve a huge raise in pay because
| someone else developed an off-the-shelf database. Investments
| into capital and tech go to the investor, not to you. That
| would be a complete mis-alignment of incentives. Why would
| anyone invent, develop, pay for, or work on improvements if all
| the benefits went to you? Should accountants have gotten
| massive raises across the board when Microsoft Excel was
| invented and they didn't have to use paper any longer?
|
| _You 're_ not more productive than a web developer in 1995,
| your tools are.
| hgs3 wrote:
| > Investments into capital and tech go to the investor, not
| to you.
|
| I hear what you're saying about investors needing a return on
| their investment, but investors only exist because modern
| human society runs on money and the people doing the real
| work don't have enough of it. Human beings will naturally
| develop tools and technology with or without money or
| investors because doing so improves our lives. The problem
| with our modern world is we are no longer building tools to
| improve our life, but rather turn a profit. Any
| "improvements" we've had are merely a side effect of the
| unnatural need for money rather than a better life. I'd argue
| we'd see more innovation if people had more free time to
| innovate rather than waste their lives in corporate slavery.
| missedthecue wrote:
| you don't think something like Microsoft Excel improves
| people's lives?
| akersten wrote:
| For real. Let's start at 6 hour, 1 day work weeks, and Capital
| can negotiate to 8 hours/2 days from there if they don't feel
| like the cogs are busy enough. Because you know if we start at
| proposing a 4 day week, it's gonna be "well how about half days
| every other Friday?" Let's earn some real keep here.
| robobro wrote:
| unionize!
| DeathArrow wrote:
| At my last workplace I had to work number of working days in that
| month * 8. So Op could have worked Monday to Saturday 6 hours and
| 4 hours on Sunday if he was a colleague of mine.
|
| I'm all in for either shorter working days or fewer working days,
| provided that stuff is still done. I think I can do what I do in
| 4 hours at most. At least 4 hours are lost.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "so 9 hours and I used to stay 10+ hours in the office often. "
|
| There is the main problem already. Stick to your working hours.
| Don't do free overtime.
| taubek wrote:
| It all comes down to productivity. Who can be productive 8 hours,
| day after day, for years?
|
| I know people (in IT) that work 6x6hours. And both they and
| employers are satisfied with this arrangement.
| silencedogood3 wrote:
| Honestly if we had Both a six hour work day and a four day work
| week that would be really ideal for a good work life balance.
|
| And that generally seems like the amount of Time we can be
| productive.
| brnt wrote:
| I worked in the Netherlands. They had a 36 work week and asked me
| how I preferred to arrange those hours. I said: divide it by five
| please. Apparently I was the first person in their history (3k
| people work there! 100 years old institution) who asked for that!
| Everyone took either a day every two weeks off or worked 4x9hrs.
| A day every week or two is nice, of course, but I generally
| really like short days better! Doesn't leave me that exhausted
| and leaves a bit of time for things every day.
| artemonster wrote:
| Do you know how people usually place their free day? Is it
| adjacent to weekend or middle of the week?
| brnt wrote:
| Wednesday was significantly more quiet at work.
| Apreche wrote:
| Why not both? 4 days, 6 hours each.
|
| Hey employers reading this. Having a hard time finding software
| engineers? Offer me this and I will come running. I'll be banging
| on your door with my resume. Think about it.
| robobro wrote:
| Let's go a step further:
| https://archive.iww.org/history/library/misc/Bekken2000/
| yboris wrote:
| Thank you for this amazing link!
|
| 4-day-workweek arguments from 1986 !!!
| zwily wrote:
| You can already find this. It's called a "part -time job". :)
| digisign wrote:
| Few of these offered for skilled workers.
| high_byte wrote:
| "part time" is still 9/10 hours in the office, usually for 3
| or even 4 days and not 2 days.
| digisign wrote:
| Too bad companies don't know how to hire, and will disqualify
| you when the first micro-flaw is found. So people running in
| with their resume makes no difference.
| Closi wrote:
| Are you willing to get paid 24/37 = 64% of a fulltime positions
| salary? If so, I think plenty of smaller employers would be
| happy to do this.
| shippintoboston wrote:
| I like how these proposals never get raised when it's the
| companies that suppress wages or hoard more wealth generated
| by their employees.
| rmetzler wrote:
| Your calculation assumes that all working hours create equal
| value. I can say for me that on most jobs I had, I got like
| 80% done in the first 4 hours and 20% in the other half of
| the day. I regularly stop working when I can't concentrate
| anymore and do some hours on weekend mornings instead.
| refurb wrote:
| At my old job we used to get Friday's off if we worked 9
| hrs the first 4 days.
|
| People just worked 8 hours and didn't come in Friday's.
| high_byte wrote:
| Over here commute is part of work by law, so I assume it
| would count as 9 for most people?
| refurb wrote:
| In this case no, they just took the option to work less
| without making up the hours.
| v-erne wrote:
| Which country is this? I would love to have commute as
| part of work in my country. Fom the point of law
| employees materialize at work in the morning and than
| teleports to home in the evening (the creator of work
| code here must have been fan of star trek). I believe
| this kind of change in workers law would motivate
| employers to implement more sane WFH policies.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Yes. In a heartbeat. Don't even have to think about it.
|
| And by the standards of HN users I make a poverty wage
| already. Cutting my salary to 64% would put me well under the
| median household income for the my state and the nation as a
| whole.
|
| And I promise I won't be less productive, because I'd be
| surprised if I did that amount of actual work as it is.
| erklik wrote:
| Hilariously, I have literally asked companies to give me a 4
| day week and take away the salary for the last day. I don't
| care. I just want a free day, but nope, no-one bit .. even
| the "smaller" employers.
| high_byte wrote:
| strangely I had encountered mostly resistance to this idea,
| but after staying persistent on this condition I finally
| got what I was looking for. before (and still) I would've
| imagined this would make sense to employers. even startups
| have this old fashioned mentality ingrained...
| em-bee wrote:
| you'd think so, but on every job site i check, part-time jobs
| are extremely rare. and trying to impress in the interview
| before asking for part time is not an option.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Nope. I will do more than 24/37 of the work. Probably in
| terms of value, just as much. (Just let me also choose what
| to work on and which meetings to attend)
| Markoff wrote:
| I am not paid per hour (I have availability roughly between
| 08-15, of course I am not paid anything for availability, I
| am paid only per finished task), but I would still prefer to
| lose 1/3 of my income to have 3 day weekend, because whether
| I have 100% or 66% of my income makes no difference to me,
| it's just money (same as now losing like 10% (maybe 20K EUR?)
| of my current savings in stock, some people would go crazy
| here to lose that amount of money, but I don't care), but
| extra free day each week is priceless.
| Apreche wrote:
| Despite having fewer hours on the clock, I will still deliver
| the same software on the same timeframe. It's the software I
| create that they are buying, therefore I should be paid the
| same.
|
| That being said, yes. As long as the salary is enough to
| maintain my standard of living, I will accept a lower salary
| to work fewer hours.
| high_byte wrote:
| fair enough. I wonder if there's a job board for this kind
| of jobs..?
| unglaublich wrote:
| That's the irony. Output doesn't scale linearly with time for
| human workers.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Yeah "trouble finding talent" and yet it is the tired old 2010s
| Google perks being offered. Cheap/free food, couches and
| pingpong.
|
| Offer low tech debt and good hours and get a queue form!
| ravenstine wrote:
| > Offer low tech debt
|
| A company that actually takes tech debt seriously is worth
| it's weight in gold.
| is_true wrote:
| Depends. I want a free day to go do something outdoors, I prefer
| having Wednesdays free
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Working from home has immensely increased the value of the lunch
| hour and my afternoon productivity. Spending an hour in my home,
| whether in the kitchen or just relaxing, recharges me in ways
| that sitting in the company cafeteria or in my cube never could.
| Even when I worked at jobs that had a nice park nearby, it simply
| didn't compare to the decompression and mind clearing that I get
| from a midday hour at home. Six hours in an office would easily
| collide with my point of declining productivity but at home I'm
| still going good at the end of the day.
|
| This is of course dependent on each individual's needs and
| circumstances. My manager has three kids that need feeding at
| lunchtime for several weeks at the end of and beginning of the
| school year because his wife is an assistant principal so the
| kids get a longer summer break than she does. He seems a bit
| frazzled after lunch during those periods.
| benji-york wrote:
| I've been working 32-hour weeks for the last year. I initially
| thought that I'd work 4 8-hour days a week, but quickly fell into
| a pattern of just working however long felt right. That ended up
| being 7 hours a day most days. On Thursdays I tally up how many
| hours I have left and work the remainder on Friday to finish out
| the week. I suspect I'm as productive as I would be at 40-hours a
| week.
| lbriner wrote:
| That makes the most sense. With the sort of jobs I have,
| there's no way I could only work up to 6 hours per day without
| leaving something important undone.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think it depends on the job quite a bit. For creative work, I
| often find it impossible to force myself to work past 4 hours in
| a stretch; in other cases, I can easily work 11 hours before
| noticing that it's been that long and I haven't even had lunch
| yet.
|
| My company does a version of summer Fridays, where it's very easy
| to take 3-day weekends every week and I very much appreciate the
| "extra" day and would strongly not like to go in the other
| direction.
| truckerbill wrote:
| Flexible hours in general should be encouraged and fought for.
| 4x6hrs would be ideal for me, but you have to have leverage to
| convince most places to agree to that.
| nvilcins wrote:
| Been practicing 6-hour 4-day work week schedule for a while now
| and I'm the happiest I've ever been. No real noticeable
| difference in productivity long-term, and a significant
| improvement in the amount and quality of personal (non-work)
| time.
| cwoolfe wrote:
| I currently work 32 hours per week. When I was in the the office
| it was a 4 day week; now that I'm remote I prefer working about
| 6.5 hrs per day. I negotiated this with my employer as 20% less
| working hours for 20% less salary. I love it. The big win for me
| is having ~8 hrs per week where I don't need to work AND have
| childcare, so if I want to sip coffee and read a book in peace &
| quiet, I have time to do that. Also gives time to be involved in
| my neighborhood, church and school, which I find satisfying. The
| biggest concern my companies had with this is that co-workers
| would hear about it, get jealous, and ask for it too. Companies
| also had this concern about remote-work pre-pandemic, and I think
| both have found these concerns to be unfounded. Especially with
| my current schedule, I'm available at all the times when anybody
| would want to talk to me anyway, so most people don't even know
| about this unique arrangement.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| I can't remember an office in my past 15 years, where anything
| got done after 2 or 3pm. When I started WFH I optimized for my
| "peak times" and mostly blew off trying to do anything off-peak.
| MUCH happier now.
| bobro wrote:
| Same here. I get a lot done from 9-11 and 1-3. I'll do little
| things outside those windows, but I won't push myself if I'm
| not feeling it. Still plenty productive.
| pimpampum wrote:
| Why not both?
| osigurdson wrote:
| I would much rather work longer hours (even 10) and get an extra
| day off each week. However, shorter work days with no
| productivity loss are likely possible for many companies simply
| by cancelling unneeded meetings.
| kodah wrote:
| As a lead this won't help me. I have to be able to meet people
| from overseas and my job would be harder if my work hours
| dictated that I could not.
|
| Shrinking the window of days I can meet with them is very
| effective though.
| seydor wrote:
| I think the new trend should be #asynchronous work so everyone
| can fit work in their lifestyle in the optimal way
| anotheryou wrote:
| If I give up the free day for less hours I sell more valuable
| hours of my time.
|
| However it's also nice to work with more energy and never have
| any dreading late hours where you'd rather rest a bit some days.
|
| I have a 4 day week but flexible enough so I can move hours over,
| but I only move 1-2h to my free day on average.
| ben_w wrote:
| I tried 10 hour days *once* for a project crunch, and that was a
| bad decision in every regard.
|
| If your office hours are officially 09-18, but you're working
| lunchtime and until 19:00, I don't expect that _officially_
| reducing hours is going to help, because I expect you to
| _unofficially_ keep with the longer hours anyway. On that basis,
| I think you personally would be better off with fewer days than
| shorter days.
|
| On the other hand, if you keep to the shorter hours, I think
| either shorter or fewer days would both be an improvement, though
| I don't know which is the better quality of life.
| 255kb wrote:
| I'm all in for both. Having an extra day to spend with my family,
| or doing "other things" (gardening, sport, etc.) and working less
| everyday. I find myself being way more productive when I know my
| work day is short. Having too much time on my hands makes me
| procrastinate! Also, after ~6h of uninterrupted work, I am
| usually exhausted and need to do something else.
|
| 8h/day sitting in front of a computer is a lie and a bad way to
| measure productivity.
| throwaway23236 wrote:
| Everyone is different if I lead and required to be at my job 9-5
| and I worked more of an engineering schedule I would do something
| like 20 hours days to try and maximize the days off you have.
|
| Would the work days suck? yes. But in my opinion working 8 hours
| a day already makes the rest of the day useless. I think in the
| end a schedule where you work to get it out of the way and then
| enjoy the time off would feel like I am taking more time off than
| I am working. I know every industry couldn't do this, but for
| some it's possible. If you get do it by pay month you could work
| 4 on the front and 4 on the back and get 21-ish days off for 8
| days of work.
| Jedd wrote:
| Fight for what you think you want, but don't assume everyone
| wants what you think you want.
|
| > Standard work hours here
|
| The fact you assume we know where 'here' is _implies_ you 're in
| North America, but that's not a foolproof heuristic. Where are
| you where that's standard?
|
| > stay 10+ hours
|
| If standard hours 'there' were 9, why were you spending > 10?
|
| For context -- I am in Australia, it's a week away from winter, I
| would prefer a 4-day work-week be legislated as default rather
| than a 6-hour workday.
| api wrote:
| I prefer the opposite. I would rather work dawn to bedtime for
| three or four days then have a block of time off.
|
| It minimizes context switching. I could get my head fully into
| work then fully out of work.
| dt2m wrote:
| Exactly - context switching will make you less productive
| trying to fit in three different "modes" every day all week.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Meanwhile in China...
|
| Excerpts below taken from the website https://996.icu/#/en_US
|
| What is "996"? 996 working, ICU waiting.
|
| A "996" work schedule refers to an unofficial work schedule
| (9a.m. ~ 9p.m., 6 days a week) that has been gaining in
| popularity. Serving a company that encourages the "996" work
| schedule usually means working for at least 60 hours a week.
|
| In early September 2016, it was said that 58.com (58Tong Cheng ,
| a classified advertisements company) introduced the "996" work
| schedule, without paying employees overtime who worked on
| weekends. The company later claimed that the schedule was only
| practiced managing extra workflow during peak season - September
| and October, and that the schedule was not compulsory.
|
| In early 2019, Youzan (You Zan , a Hangzhou-based E-commerce
| company) announced the company would adopt "996" work schedule in
| the annual convention. Bai Ya, the CEO of Youzan, responded:
| "This will definitely be a right decision when we look back in a
| few years."
|
| In mid-March 2019, it was reported that JD.com (Jing Dong , a
| major E-commerce company) started adopting "996" or "995" work
| schedules in some departments. The PR posted that (Our culture
| is) to devote ourselves wholeheartedly (to achieve the business
| objectives) via Maimai (Mai Mai , a Chinese real-name business
| social network platform).
|
| Gaining more publicity only recently, this work schedule,
| however, has long been a known "secret" practiced in a lot of
| companies in China.
| s5300 wrote:
| There are some rich people in the US who endorse 996. Calacanis
| being one.
|
| Imagine trying to be a bigger piece of shit.
|
| Japan isn't even 996 & they're going to have to start forcing
| people to have kids at gunpoint or kinda implode as a nation.
| Near purely because of their abysmal work culture.
|
| I recall when Cards Against Humanity paid for their overseas
| factory workers a day off by paying for a full factory day with
| a quota of zero or something like that. All they asked was that
| the workers spend time with family & send a picture if they do
| anything special.
|
| A ton of heartwarming but also incredibly sad to think about
| pictures came in, like a family celebrating their very young
| child's birthday in a closet of an apartment. Tiny little home
| baked cupcake with a singular candle.
|
| They wouldn't have even gotten to celebrate that in the
| slightest without their day off, paid by foreigners
| indescribably richer than them that they've never met nor
| likely will meet.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| Another option for Japan is to jettison their national racist
| identity and convince lots of foreigners to move there. But
| maybe it's easier to instead force people to reproduce.
| ryan93 wrote:
| Its not racist. I would support it if you are personally
| willing to take the punishment for any heinous crimes
| committed by immigrants.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| It's not racist!!
|
| > makes it even more racist
| ryan93 wrote:
| If you take actions that you know for a fact will lead to
| negative consequences for the people you are responsible
| for you should share the punishment.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Don't you know that two racisms in opposite direction
| cancell out and you have no racism left
| silon42 wrote:
| That's an alternative way to implode as a nation.
| [deleted]
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Japans xenophobia is a problem in that they can't bandaid
| their birth rate issues with immigration the way other
| countries have been able to, but that doesn't make it not a
| problem. Immigrants arrive and then have similar birth
| rates within a generation or so.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Wow! I did not realize this was the case. So this must be
| a result of domestic policy even beyond the job culture.
| jimmydeans wrote:
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Continue that line of through - whats the gameplan?
|
| Then those foreigners are forced into the same work culture
| that makes having a family impossible?
|
| What's next?
|
| Contunue leaching off countries that actually support
| sustainable survival of the human species?
| avisser wrote:
| This is an overly flip answer, but this seems to be
| America's game plan.
| hemreldop wrote:
| froh wrote:
| That does exist in _some_ companies but it's not "the norm".
| lostcohort wrote:
| Exactly, but people just love to parrot it. It'd be like
| taking banking hours as the norm here.
|
| > Bob Diamond on brutal working hours for junior bankers:
| 'I'd do it again in a nanosecond' [1]
|
| [1] https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/bob-diamond-on-brutal-
| work...
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| This is terrible, unfair, and morally wrong, but we can
| understand what it comes from: this is a difference between the
| so-called "developed" and "developing" countries.
|
| Because why do we work? To have money so that we can live
| comfortably. Work is not meant to fill in 40 or more hours of
| our life, it's just a means to and end. If we can have enough
| money by working less, many people chose this way. In the
| meantime, in most countries of the world it's not an option:
| you might need to work much more just to survive. A sad reality
| and something that I hope changes one day, once the old
| generations (thinking in terms of nations and wars and not
| realizing all human beings are mutually interdependent) pass
| away.
| dgb23 wrote:
| That's the difference between suppressing/co-opting grass
| roots worker movements versus negotiating with them and
| incorporating some leverage through rights and regulations.
| The 40h 5d workweek was a radical demand not so long ago.
| forinti wrote:
| China is a modern country. I don't think Jack Ma's 996 makes
| any sense.
|
| If you apply it to manual labour, you will get sick people.
| If you apply it to intellectual work, people will just
| pretend to work.
|
| I think he is just plain greedy.
| adamhp wrote:
| > If you apply it to manual labour, you will get sick
| people. If you apply it to intellectual work, people will
| just pretend to work.
|
| I've always been for the reduction of work hours, but this
| is a really good concise point that I'll put in my pocket.
| Thanks.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Actually, intellectual work - that in most cases is done
| by sitting in front of a computer - also causes
| illnesses, just different from those caused by manual
| labor.
|
| For me this is the largest boon of the pandemic
| revolution: I can take as many exercise breaks as I want
| without anyone judging me, I can do some parts of my work
| while cycling,* and I can adjust my work position they
| way I like. None of these is possible without disturbing
| my colleagues in the office.
|
| *) Especially meetings! Man, so many of these are such a
| terrible waste of time! But not mine: I burn calories and
| become more fit. If only we could have been reasonable
| and implemented such policies without the need for a
| pandemic to erupt.
| junon wrote:
| Japan is similar. You're expected to be at the office for
| long periods of time, but people often aren't working while
| they're there.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Maybe that is true for you, but not everyone. Some people
| actually like their work and find it fun and meaningful.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Actually, I do like my work but I prefer to have a choice
| whether to work, say, 30 hours and earn slightly less or
| work "full time" (what a terrible choice of words) and earn
| the same as my colleagues. Most employers don't give me
| that choice and force me to work 40 hours.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| C'mon, they're obviously speaking for the majority but yes,
| as you've stated there is a minority that finds their work
| fun and meaningful. That is incredibly lucky and great for
| you!
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I thought the Chinese government was pushing back on 996.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Jack Ma said 996 was a blessing.
|
| Then he said other things that pissed off the wrong people and
| has not been seen since then.
| sokoloff wrote:
| He has been very rarely, but not never, seen since then.
|
| https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3177452/jack-
| ma-m...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Guys like Jack Ma consider being awake to be working. It's
| how a former CEO of mine justified his 10 week a year
| vacation schedule with 2.5 day work weeks. The man would walk
| into the office after a weekend at around 11:30am on a
| Tuesday to select a few employees to eat lunch with, and then
| make up for his missed work by staying until 7:30 on
| Thursdays.
| exabrial wrote:
| Former "large China FAANG" employee here so I can speak
| authoritatively on this.
|
| These things above fail to take in the culture aspect.
| Generally, "being present" is considered "work", so the idea is
| to be present in the office for all of these hours.
|
| When "we" (Americans) showed up at 8a-9a, busted out an
| enormous of amount of code, email, meetings, etc then left at
| 4p-5p was quite a shock to our native compadres. One of the
| managers actually asked us to slow down as they weren't able to
| keep up and were causing problems.
|
| A snooty person would claim "oh look how much better the
| American system is", but it's much more complex than that.
| First, the Chinese have a very interesting total life
| integration. You still get married at late biblical ages
| (15-19), your parents move in with you and take care of the
| kids, you generally don't own many things (including a house),
| and your job and coworkers are friends and very much part of
| your life; you'll eat three meals a day with them and talk long
| walks. Your job pace is much slower and therefore, hours much
| longer.
|
| Americans tend to live these absurd double identities, where we
| have coworkers our spouses will never meet, and we rarely
| interact with said coworkers outside of work, which is quite a
| culture shock to the Chinese. There was just another thread on
| HN about "fundatory activities", and how badly they can go
| over, which simply wouldn't exist in China.
|
| In the end, just a different system, based on completely
| different national ideals. It's hard to understand until you're
| there living and breathing it.
| mcv wrote:
| Even so, what's the point of "being present" at work and not
| actually working? I'd rather spend that time with my family
| or friends.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| I think they just explained it in their comment... your
| coworkers are your friends.
|
| I think the flip side of what you're saying is, why would
| you not want to be friends with the people you spend 8+
| hours a day with during the workweek?
| mcv wrote:
| And if you get fired, you get fired from being friends
| with them too?
|
| I certainly want to be able to get along with my
| coworkers, but it's not quite the same thing as being
| friends. There are few former coworkers that I keep in
| touch with after I leave a job. I tend to have my friends
| outside work. And my family too.
| exabrial wrote:
| Are you certain the concept of "Getting fired" exists in
| the way you perceive it over there?
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| I mean I am an American, and I live my life in accordance
| with American norms.
|
| I just am pointing out how cultural differences lead to
| different perspectives. I would imagine that Chinese
| corporate culture around layoffs is also very different
| from how it is in America.
|
| It's really difficult to comprehend all of the small
| details that go into living within a different culture,
| and isolated components end up seeming bizarre, while
| they are perfectly logical when you live within the
| system itself.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Perhaps its to maintain the perception of being of a higher
| social class than the peasantry (baseless speculation)
| gdfgjhs wrote:
| As a Pakistani-American, I can confirm, this is exactly how
| many people from my culture also work, though not as extreme
| as 9-9. We may take long lunches, go for multiple coffee
| breaks, walks, etc. May even watch some Bollywood movies
| while working.
|
| But as a father, this is horrible work schedule. Culturally,
| it is totally acceptable for fathers to just provide but not
| really interact with their kids. Also there is an aspect of
| heroism of fathers working long hours to provide. And then,
| unfortunately, for some there is no option but to work long
| hours because they need extra money.
|
| But some men would rather stay away from their children and
| let moms or grandparents raise the them. And I do know some
| such men. They stay late at work to avoid their families,
| they even bring their gaming laptops to work, so they can
| game after 5 and avoid their families. Honestly, work is a
| walk in a park compared to being a good father.
|
| But it is hard to tell who is avoiding their families, who is
| staying late because of cultural pressures, and who really
| need to work late hours to provide for their families.
| lvl102 wrote:
| Let's be honest, if you ever worked in East Asian countries
| with these work ethic culture, you'd know they just sit around
| the office doing absolutely nothing. It's bullshit.
| lostcohort wrote:
| Even on this very forum you people will consistently brag
| that they only work a couple hours a week at their 500k job.
| [deleted]
| onion2k wrote:
| If you can generate enough value in 2 hours to justify 500k
| a year then that's fine.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Not even just this forum, there have been plenty of
| articles about data of varying quality showing that
| vanishingly few people actually work a full 8 hour day
| and/or are capable of actually sustaining heavy thought for
| that long anyway!
| erazor42 wrote:
| 100% agree, I personally would probably have the same weekly
| productivity in 965 vs 996. Brain resting is pretty
| important.
| IMTDb wrote:
| I think a significant point in the 996 is also to ensure
| people are available, not only productive. Most probably
| are extremely productive few hours per day (let's assume 4)
| and few days per week (let's also assume 4). We could all
| be performing almost all our weekly tasks in about 16 -
| extremely targeted and focused - hours. SO it might be easy
| to think we should only be working 16 hours per week and
| that would be enough.
|
| Yet, if people were only working 16 hour per week, the
| company would stop to a crawl. Because during _my_
| extremely productive, I might need a few non productive
| hours from _you_. Maybe it 's answering a quick question,
| maybe is giving me a pointer to something, on inviting me
| to a document, enough that I can keep progressing without
| being blocked and getting those golden 16 hours interrupted
| and wasted.
|
| The point is that, even tho these are not productive hours
| for _you_ , they are creating a massive value for the
| company because you can be supporting other people
| productive hours. And maybe those are happening on a
| Saturday from 6 to 9 PM. In fact it might even be OK for
| the company to tire you a bit, to get that availability,
| even if that means you won't have 16 hours of quality work
| anymore.
|
| This is not in defense on the 996, but it is to balance the
| whole point that people should only be working when they
| really are productive/focused/.... Availability, even non
| productive does matter as well.
| voxl wrote:
| Do you really think a factory worker doing 996 isn't
| constantly moving/making something? Because if so, then
| you've clearly never done any factory work, in the US or
| otherwise, those jobs are nonstop work, even if it is menial
| work.
| aeyes wrote:
| Working factory is mind numbing in some ways but a lot of
| things that burn you out just don't exist: Politics,
| context switching, firefighting, changing priorities,
| working irregular hours to get project out of the door,
| meetings, Slack chats or phonecalls...
|
| I love nonstop work, the problem is that a lot of times I
| have to unblock problems, stop to talk to other people,
| there are dependencies or things are on fire so a lot of
| time is spent busy waiting. It is work but it is not
| rewarding and you don't actually get much done.
| FabHK wrote:
| One of my all-time-favourite Onion stories, which is so
| stinging because of its kernel of truth:
|
| _Chinese Employers To Grant 15-Minute Maternity Break_
|
| https://www.theonion.com/chinese-employers-to-grant-15-minut...
| glonq wrote:
| In a month or two my project gets transferred to new ownership
| and I will find myself re-negotiating for my current job. I'm
| 8ish hours per day 5 days per week right now. I would love to
| work 8x4 or 6x5 instead, but new company is full of go-getters
| and try-hards so I don't think my needs are a great match for
| their culture.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Why settle for either when you could have both?
|
| A four day week, six hours a day sounds like bliss to me!
|
| I do get the feeling of wanting way more flexibility but I also
| think that maybe contracting is the way to get that?
| artemonster wrote:
| When you work 4 days, do you take Wednesday or Mo/Fr?
| alistairSH wrote:
| I think it depends on the total number of hours per week. If we
| assume 40 hours regardless, I'd rather spread it out over 5x8
| than work 4x10. Ten hours is just too long - even after 8, I'm
| mentally cooked.
|
| If we're shortening the work week by 4 hours, I'd rather take
| that as a single afternoon off. 4x8, then Friday is a half day
| (vs shortening 5 days by a fraction of an hour).
|
| If we were to go to a 32 hour week, I'd probably want to just do
| 4x8 and have a 3 day weekend. That allows so many options for
| short trips, major home projects, camping, going downtown, etc.
| With the current 2-day weekend, I always feel torn between doing
| things that are fun vs doing chores. It's never quite enough
| time.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Here's an idea: "roller coaster week" Monday: 4
| hours Tuesday: 6 hours Wednesday: 10 hours
| Thursday: 6 hours Friday: 4 hours total: 30
| hours
|
| How it works:
|
| - Monday: The second half of your day is work. Your morning is
| open to sleep in, get chores done, run errands, eat brunch with
| friends. Second half of the day should be meetings to plan the
| work for the week, and catch up from the previous week.
|
| - Tuesday: Very few meetings, planning and gathering items to
| work on for Wednesday.
|
| - Wednesday: Heads-down work, no meetings allowed, period. Turn
| off all communcation; this is "productivity day". You've had 2
| days to get your "mise en place", and now you have 10 hours
| uninterrupted to churn away.
|
| - Thursday: Shorter day than wednesday, wrapping up what you
| didn't finish.
|
| - Friday: The first half of the day is work. Meetings to recap
| the week, complete any last minute details, documentation. Second
| half of the day enables you to get more errands done or get an
| early start to your weekend.
|
| The time you save allows you to rest your brain, ruminate, get
| more sleep, exercise, pursue a hobby. This rest time recharges
| your brain to enable it to do more work when you _are_ working.
| The roller-coaster nature makes you think the week is pretty easy
| most of the time, but you know you 've prepared for the hard part
| and can tackle it in one go. Because of the forced planning and
| dedicated work time, you'll be more productive than if you only
| got drips and drabs of interrupted work done for 5 days.
| stevenking86 wrote:
| I love it.
| corrral wrote:
| Looks like hell for trying to schedule _anything_ kid-related.
| rsanek wrote:
| 4/5 days in this proposal are better than most people's
| existing 9-5 schedule.
| mbg721 wrote:
| My experience with a < 3 year old is that I go "I need to do
| this today, this is fine," and my boss is cool with it and
| somehow the world doesn't burn down.
| corrral wrote:
| I was thinking:
|
| 1) School (transportation to and from, parent home to see
| kid off to the bus and be there when it gets back, at
| least)
|
| 2) Child care (10-hour days, which are more like 11 when
| you factor in travel, would be... very expensive, if you
| could get anyone to do it)
|
| 3) Any scheduled after-school/after-normal-workday kids'
| activities whatsoever.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| What? How? It's the exact same day & time as the 5-day/8-hour
| that's been standard for decades. But you get more free time
| to play with your kids, drive them to school, bring them to
| BJJ, cook for them.
|
| Wednesday is "no communication day" so you could break the 10
| hours up and it won't affect anyone.
| gituliar wrote:
| Given that we have a limited number of productive hours per day,
| say 3-4, the overall performance is better with 5-day workweek.
| Add 2-3 hours of tuning your mind, meetings, emails, etc. Which
| gives 5-7 hours. In line with what you said.
|
| So, next time you negotiate a raise with you manager, ask for
| less hours instead of more $$$.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| It really depends. If you live in a condo and you free time is
| sports, meetings friends, etc. a six hours work day is more
| important.
|
| If you build your house on your own, cultivate green land etc.
| the four day workweek is more important as these kinds of work
| require a lot of preparation time.
|
| Opt in models?
| ThalesX wrote:
| > Opt in models?
|
| Inflamatory post but this would actually mean managers would
| have to manage. You can't go to a seminar and cocktail party
| and come back with the insights to properly manage a team where
| people opt in to the model that works best for them.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Managers would need to trust the team members
| ThalesX wrote:
| One can give all the trust in the world, but a good manager
| must also align incentives towards business goals and
| create a structure for tracking progress.
|
| Adding on top of that care and integration for the personal
| preferences of the team members... that would truly be a
| sight to behold.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I agree with that.
| SemanticStrengh wrote:
| Strongly agree
| mouzogu wrote:
| I would take 3 day weekend. Needs to be a clear delineation
| between work and weekend or some companies will take the p*ss.
|
| If you have 6 hour days you might find yourself still working
| more. For me its no contest.
| qw wrote:
| I am in the same situation. I tend to get messages on Slack
| after hours on work days due to the different work hours, but
| almost never on weekends and holidays. I assume that an extra
| long weekend would be more beneficial.
| corderop wrote:
| I think it's better, at least for me, to have 4-day workweeks. I
| feel that much more of my productive energy is wasted during work
| hours. Even with 6 hours in the morning, I won't be able to focus
| with the same intensity for a full day for me after work.
|
| I think this is because I mostly use my leisure time for studying
| or coding. I reckon that a parent would prefer 6-hour workdays to
| spend more time with their kids.
| robobro wrote:
| Iww has been asking for a 4 hour day, 4 day week for a long time
| now.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| There's no free lunch
| sgjohnson wrote:
| I'd personally much rather an extra day off. But I do see the
| appeal of just having a shorter working day.
| rg111 wrote:
| You do not say how.
|
| If you mean in terms of productivity, I agree with you. Having a
| clear boundary between workday and free-time is a clear
| productivity multiplier for me. This is much better than one more
| extra day-off.
|
| I can also maintain peace of mind throughtout the week if I do
| not do _any_ work at all agter designated boundary.
|
| This is true, when you _want_ to do what you do. But when you
| work mostly for a paycheck, I will disagree with you. Then an
| extra day-off is so much better than a shorter work day.
| hyfgfh wrote:
| Technically 4 days would be better because of the commute and
| extended weekends for the employee. But as an employer 6 hours
| workdays would be the best, you get basically the same value of
| your employees, since mostly office workers don't really work the
| 8 and also would make then free to study.
|
| You could also go crazy and get a second or third job.
| rr808 wrote:
| Damn the tech bubble is bigger than I thought.
| high_byte wrote:
| how so.?
| rr808 wrote:
| Everyone I know in non-tech jobs work minimum 40 hours a
| week. I know a bunch of people doing minimum wage jobs doing
| 80+ hours a week. I remember tech in the early days (and
| still at many jobs) working dawn to dusk. Now it seems
| developers are choosing between 4 day weeks and 6 hours/day?
| the job market is going to get a rude awakening.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| Software engineers are hardly minimum wage jobs! And the
| human brain can't sustain constant thought intensive tasks
| for long period of times continually... The dawn to dusk
| (if ever happened... I guess it depends on the country)
| it's just a waste of time. Anyway I live on France and here
| the official working week is 35h!
| rr808 wrote:
| Agreed they're skilled jobs and you can't write code 50
| hours a week. You can write code 30 hours a week then
| talk with users, have design meetings, do paperwork, do
| first level support etc.
|
| France is a nice place to live. Everyone working 35 hrs
| and being on holiday so often is a good reason its
| economy is slowly dying.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| Better dead and happy than overworked and depressed
| trying to feel the void caused by not having a life with
| work!
| zackmorris wrote:
| This is our failure.
|
| I got into tech in the 90s specifically to avoid the 9-5
| dead-end job and ended up working mostly exactly that. But
| hey, we have billionaires now.
|
| If we want a 30 hour workweek, we need to deliver it to
| everyone in the world with real tech. No more phantom tech
| distraction BS.
|
| Solar. Permaculture. Robotic hydroponics. Real recycling.
| Personal digital assistants (and I don't mean tablet
| computers). Independent income streams beyond mining crypto
| and donating plasma. This stuff is so incredibly obvious
| but the entire weight of the global economy keeps us
| running the rat race instead of solving the real problems.
| Now work is just another form of escapism to distract us
| from stepping into our power and taking agency over our
| lives.
|
| The ultimate expression of tech is the 0 hour workweek and
| self-actualization for the entire human race.
| sidlls wrote:
| I prefer shorter work weeks.
|
| My company's return to office policy is a hybrid deal. I am very
| productive when I'm in the office and I use the remote days to
| refresh myself. On those days I generally only "work" by replying
| to messages and listening in on remote meetings. I've never been
| more productive. I get more done in my in-office days now than I
| did during a full week either during the pandemic or before it.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Why not both? Or, alternatively, 3 8-hour days? I'd take a pay
| cut to 60% of my current salary for a 3 day work week,
| absolutely.
|
| I do my very best when I'm at work. But, it's dead time to me. I
| have a lot of ambitions, projects, I write music, I'm trying to
| learn to draw, I have kids, and I yet have to give 8 hours of my
| day to just keep the lights on. Life is too short for that!
|
| It's employee evaluation time at work right now. I always wonder:
| what would happen if I sat my wife down and had her write a
| document defending her performance as my spouse? And then I
| ranked her and told her whether it was satisfactory. And I had
| her record what she was doing with her time every day. I wonder
| what her reaction would be. That's pretty much how I feel about
| employee evaluations.
| irrational wrote:
| This is the great thing about remote working. When I worked in
| the office I felt like I needed to be seen working, even if I
| really wasn't because, let's face it, programming often requires
| time not working to allow your subconscious to figure out the
| solution to the problem you are working on. So I would have my
| butt in the seat, but wasn't actually doing anything. Now with
| remote work I can go for a walk, do the dishes, etc. while my
| mind is working through things. I get just as much actual work
| done (if not more), but I no longer need to pretend to be doing
| something for appearance sake.
| dsaavy wrote:
| Absolutely. I never understood why taking mid-day breaks and
| relaxing wasn't encouraged when I was a full-time employee.
| Coworkers even mentioned it regularly during conversations that
| their problems always seemed to be solved while on a walk, in
| the shower, etc.
|
| When I started my own business I made it absolutely clear to
| the people I hired that the workday is just when you start and
| when you finish, but everything in between (including breaks,
| walks, lunch, etc.) are all part of "work". It's not like when
| you go to lunch you just stop thinking about the hard problem
| you were working on, and even if you do stop thinking about it,
| that's an important part of the mental digestion process.
| high_byte wrote:
| yes. people don't realize this, but IT'S OKAY to take a
| break... in my last office, besides dragging feet to get coffee
| it seemed people wouldn't even go stretch for 10 seconds. they
| even bought a brand new PS5 and NEVER even played for months
| and months (and it probably still accumulates dust over
| there...)
|
| it seemed inhumane - and crazy nobody told them it wasn't okay
| or anything... I like getting some sun, let the blood flow,
| things like that. it's not only okay, it's highly recommended -
| even necessary.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| This is one of the reasons diversity (in this case neural
| diversity) is important in the office. I've worked in a
| number of startup where theoretically take breaks, playing
| video game, going for a walk, whatever was supported, but in
| practice nobody did it. But all it takes (when the management
| is supportive) is 1 or 2 outgoing people that make a point to
| prod their colleagues to do something. Working with a few
| people that say, "hey, who wants to go play drisbee in 15
| minutes" or "pinball tournament after lunch" makes the work
| environment much more enjoyable. On the other side, the
| company driven "mandatory fun" is a drag. It needs to be opt-
| in, often spontaneous, and supported by culture.
| irrational wrote:
| >"hey, who wants to go play drisbee in 15 minutes" or
| "pinball tournament after lunch" makes the work environment
| much more enjoyable
|
| Oh hell no. I need a break, but the last thing I want to do
| is take a break with other people. I'd rather sit at my
| desk pretending to work that go play games with other
| people. That is literally hell on earth.
|
| But now I can't go for a walk on my own because then I'll
| get questions about where I am going and why didn't I go
| and play their stupid game with them instead of going on a
| walk on my own.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| one size doesn't fit all is the takeaway of almost every
| post here.
| petergriffeen wrote:
| there's an unspoken rule to appear productive and "committed"
| while in the office, especially when everyone else -
| including your engineering manager - is doing it, you feel a
| pressure to do the same!
|
| same thing for not leaving home at 5pm sharp and waiting
| 15-30 mins before you allow yourself to leave
|
| it has to start from the top
| andix wrote:
| If the weather is nice, you should leave at 3. To stay
| happy and motivated.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| The weather is almost always nice in california
| andix wrote:
| Then you need to create the special occasion on your own
| :)
| lolinder wrote:
| Yes! And it's more than just the need to appear to be working--
| in the office I don't get much choice what I do with the breaks
| that I _do_ take.
|
| At work, many of my "breaks" are involuntary distractions that
| yank me out of flow, and during the others I can't do anything
| productive for my home life, so I end up reading HN or
| something similar.
|
| At home, I can go out and play with my kids, take care of
| something that's been bugging me around the house, start
| dinner, or walk the dog. Those breaks not only give me the
| subconscious processing time I need, they also check things off
| my to-do list that have been _distracting_ my subconscious,
| allowing me more focus for my work. I end each day having done
| more at work _and_ more at home, so when Saturday rolls around
| I don 't feel like I'm playing catch-up.
| taylodl wrote:
| I believe that's an open secret few, if any, people are talking
| about and is the largest reason why WFH has increased
| productivity so much. Not to mention your mental health is far
| improved because you don't have to keep up the BS of
| _appearing_ to work to people who don 't understand the nature
| of our work. They're still scratching their heads as to why we
| became so much more productive while WFH.
| [deleted]
| andix wrote:
| In my last on-site programming job I spent at least half of the
| time either talking with colleague about not (directly) work
| related stuff or I spent it in the break room. Nobody cared, we
| got our work done, everybody was happy.
| gabrieledarrigo wrote:
| I actually work 4 days a week from 3 years and a half circa, and
| to be honest, I simply cannot get back to the classical 5 days/40
| hours jobs. I'm simply more productive, more motivated, and I
| finally have free time to make something else (for example: I
| just completed a Bachelor's degree in CS). In regards to 996, I
| have no gentle words for China and their work (slavery) culture:
| life is too short to work so much.
| codingdave wrote:
| I like the 4 day week, but that is because I have kids who are
| teenagers. Giving them some extra time each night with their
| parents is not important to them. But having an extra day to do
| something big, explore a new place, go to new museums, take small
| road trips, go camping, etc. - that makes a difference in their
| life.
|
| When they get older and go off on their own, though, I would
| agree with you - a short daily working routine sounds good for me
| personally.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| That sounds awesome! If you don't mind sharing, how do you
| manage school obligations?
| high_byte wrote:
| I guess 4 day school days wouldn't be a bad idea either... of
| course the other day should be filled with something
| productive, which may or may not include "schooling"
| (learning) or "working" (as in creating, not paid/unpaid
| labor) or other form of activity.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| The college I graduated from for the most part didn't offer
| classes on Friday and I can attest that it was wonderful as
| a student. It meant that I could get homework done and/or
| work a side job on Friday and still have a proper weekend
| to re-coup for the next week.
| dudul wrote:
| Based on everything we've learned about productivity over the
| past few years, I would say just do 6-hours a day as part of a
| 4-day week.
| metabro wrote:
| There just is so much work that I don't get how working 4 days
| will workout. The work isn't going to scale down. The deadlines I
| don't think will change.
|
| At my company which is a very typical big sv company, no one is
| watching how long you work but the work needs to get done.
| xyzzy4747 wrote:
| The amount of work that can be done at any business is actually
| infinite.
|
| If companies allow people to take the weekend off, it's not
| such a stretch to extend it to 3 days.
|
| That said, I run a startup and even taking the weekend off
| feels generous to me because I see all the things not getting
| done.
| high_byte wrote:
| I think most people would prefer focused work instead of more
| office idle time. think less days (hopefully) lead to less
| meetings (hopefully) lead to better time management.
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