51–60 of 253 posts
let's start by just cutting aka not doing ALL THE BULLSHIT that is being done. all the needless crap. ding 50% time saved. "what" you ask? take a serious look at your inbox.
I changed my working arrangement to 80% recently, so now I work four 8-hour day weeks. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you can make it work. I have wednesday off, so the week is divided into two-day stretches. Not sure if I'm any more productive (maybe), but I'm a lot happier. I suspect some coworkers are going to follow my lead, now that the precedent has been set.
How did you manage to arrange that? I can't imagine going to my boss and proposing I spend 20% less time working for the same amount of pay, and getting approval for that.
>and the Dutch people are better known for their love of cycling We don't 'love' cycling it's just highly ingrained in our culture and it's way cheaper than owning a car, especially with our awesome public transport. >But what about tackling the issue at its roots? What if everyone had a shorter working week? We would be healthier and happier, and society would be less unequal and more sustainable. Is it? How is this…
Well, it's not speculation to compare Britain to Denmark, which have comparable living standards, levels of technology, &c but different attitudes to the working week. No-one in Denmark/Germany is a slacker, btw. They're just really productive when they're actually at work.
I agree that shorter hours are likely to be beneficial, but why are people trying to achieve this by passing a law? I think that this can be achieved with a softer approach. Imagine that when you sign up for a job, you select how many days per week do you want to work, from 3 to 6, with proportionate wage scale. That you can select what hours do you want to work. That it's easy to change this arrangement while you're…
The only way to change culture is through law. Look at seatbelt use: decades of public awareness campaigns did nothing, but once it became a legal requirement people switched. Also laws are the way to prevent a race to the bottom. If it's legal to work longer hours people will, and everyone else will do so to compete with them. Compare OHSA, see http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ .
Not true. What about education?
I changed my working arrangement to 80% recently, so now I work four 8-hour day weeks. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you can make it work. I have wednesday off, so the week is divided into two-day stretches. Not sure if I'm any more productive (maybe), but I'm a lot happier. I suspect some coworkers are going to follow my lead, now that the precedent has been set.
How did you manage to arrange that? I can't imagine going to my boss and proposing I spend 20% less time working for the same amount of pay, and getting approval for that.
I'd be happy to take a 20% pay cut for a 4-day work week at some point in my life. I have a semi-retired relative who does just that.
As it is now, I'm vocal at reviews that I'll take more days off per year in lieu of direct salary increase -- an idea which seems to throw people off and hasn't been seriously entertained. At some point, I'll make enough annually, that I'll simply start taking days off without pay, which is something payroll seems to really hate for some reason when it concerns salaried folks.
Corporate pay/work expectations are really odd sometimes.
I agree that shorter hours are likely to be beneficial, but why are people trying to achieve this by passing a law? I think that this can be achieved with a softer approach. Imagine that when you sign up for a job, you select how many days per week do you want to work, from 3 to 6, with proportionate wage scale. That you can select what hours do you want to work. That it's easy to change this arrangement while you're…
That's a bit of a "trickle down economics" argument. Depending on corporations and owners to offer an option is never going to be as effective as passing a requirement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you manage to arrange that? I can't imagine going to my boss and proposing I spend 20% less time working for the same amount of pay, and getting approval for that.
GP does not mention the impact on its salary. Usually if you work 80% of your previous time, you are also payed 80% of the previous salary.
edit -----
Secondary source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3547965
Quoting the secondary source:
"From a business point of view, long hours by programmers are a key to profitability. Suppose that a programmer needs to spend 25 hours per week keeping current with new technology, getting coordinated with other programmers, contributing to documentation and thought leadership pieces, and comprehending the structures of the systems being extended. Under this assumption, a programmer who works 55 hours per week will produce twice as much code as one who works 40 hours per week. In The Mythical Man-Month, the only great book ever written on software engineering, Fred Brooks concludes that no software product should be designed by more than two people. He argues that a program designed by more than two people might be more complete but it will never be easy to understand because it will not be as consistent as something designed by fewer people. This means that if you want to follow the best practices of the industry in terms of design and architecture, the only way to improve speed to market is to have the same people working longer hours. Finally there is the common sense notion that the smaller the team the less management overhead. A product is going to get out the door much faster if it is built by 4 people working 70-hour weeks (180 productive programmer-hours per week, after subtracting for 25 hours of coordination and structure comprehension time) than if by 12 people working 40-hour weeks (the same net of 180 hours per week). The 12-person team will inevitably require additional managers and all-day meetings to stay coordinated.
I agree that shorter hours are likely to be beneficial, but why are people trying to achieve this by passing a law? I think that this can be achieved with a softer approach. Imagine that when you sign up for a job, you select how many days per week do you want to work, from 3 to 6, with proportionate wage scale. That you can select what hours do you want to work. That it's easy to change this arrangement while you're…
You'd probably end up with nearly equal productivity for office staff, and you'd generate more jobs for shift based work, as you would need 30% more workers to cover a 5-day period.
This was one of the drivers of the 40-hour workweek -- previously, 12 hour days + saturday work were considered the norm.