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Working fewer hours would make us more productive

theguardian.com

151–160 of 253 posts

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why. Because minimum wage puts a floor on the 'bottom' that's being raced to. Otherwise, people would be earning considerably less than the current minimum wage, because the 'bottom' would be even lower.

The question was sarcastic (poor form, I know). More than 90% of workers earn above minimum wage, despite this supposedly inevitable race to the bottom.

Check out how many earn more than 150% of the minimum wage. Otherwise it's still minimum wage driven.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#152

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.

Can't speak for GP, but what I did was move my schedule up to 9:30-6:00 or so, let my arrival date float between 9:30 and 10:00 so I could come in pretty much when I felt like it. After awhile my workload dropped practically to zero, and I started leaving at 5. Kept it up even when there was a workload, and found that completion times didn't suffer. Don't propose anything. Just start shifting your schedule around and…

I should also note that management is likely to see this not as a wayward employee bucking the rules, but as someone doing what he needs to under the circumstances to make himself happy. So long as it's not egregious and work quality stays ultra-sharp, everybody involved is going to just work around your preferences. They know you'll be much less likely to leave if you're happy with your situation, the damage you cause by leaving is far worse than the damage caused by bucking the standards.

Around the time I was doing this, I got a new manager. I was wholly unwilling to reorient my schedule around his expectations, but I would stay until he left for the first few weeks. One day I followed him out, even though it was at least an hour before I "should" have been leaving. I'd also taken an hour-plus long lunch that day. I told him I usually leave at 5, but I was staying late in case he had any questions for me. He was like, "even though you took a long lunch??" and I just nodded, and followed him out. He didn't mention it again, until I started talking about taking another job.

There is a space in between political expectations, business needs, and personal wishes at any job that is ripe for exploration and exploitation. One can iterate towards their ideal work environment and conditions at any job where their performance is stellar. Just keep the business needs and political expectations in mind and you can practically get away with murder.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#153

I recently read an interesting book called Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy. It was written in 1887 but could have been written yesterday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward It was basically about a guy who accidentally travels forward in time (sort of like idiocracy) except he finds himself in an American Socialist Utopia. It was a really good book in general but there was one idea in particular that…

Would there be any prohibition against working two (or three or four) 4-hour per week jobs?

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was sarcastic (poor form, I know). More than 90% of workers earn above minimum wage, despite this supposedly inevitable race to the bottom.

Check out how many earn more than 150% of the minimum wage. Otherwise it's still minimum wage driven.

Or maybe the minimum wage is driven by real wages. Or maybe they're both by a common factor - like inflation.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#155

I signed up for a gym that apparently went on an initiative to improve its employee culture. The gym is really nice, not as good as Equinox in Palo Alto, but close enough. So one of the initiatives was to close the gym during holiday seasons so that staff could enjoy vacations schedules just like everyone else. Lo and behold, they closed the gym between December 20 and January 5th. Just when I was planning to catch u…

We should respect other people's time off if we want others to respect our time off. Is it really so hard to find some other way to exercise for a month?

Why not close supermarkets out of respect for labor unions as well, for 2 weeks. I think the solution lies somewhere else - such as automating humans out of retail and services to the extent possible. For instance, speaking of gym, I would keep the facility open staffed just with with security and reception. Shut down non-core functions: new member office, group sessions, cafe etc.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#156
post #31

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.

I don't think your plan is for everyone since if you need to be synced with a team not working on Wednesdays is negative in the long run.

Why? Is that much going to happen on Wednesday that can't easily be caught up on Thursday?

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#157
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said it was for everyone, but I suspect people magnify the expected issues a lot. Everyone knows I won't be here on wednesdays, so we try to arrange things so I'm not a bottleneck during that time. If some really important deadline shows up, I'll just work the one wednesday and take thursday off instead, it's not a big deal. I haven't needed to yet though. Besides, assuming you're not on a really tiny team, i…

Or you're an early startup. Sometimes hinged-on-one-person is all you have because there are only a few people with some non-overlapping talents.

And? If you know that the person isn't there on Wednesday, you adapt.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#158
post #143

I just finished reading The Masters of Doom and really got the impression that working more hours made Carmack more productive than nearly everyone else in the field.

Same impression from reading Elon Musk. Though perhaps working that is necessary for outstanding success, but that should necessarily model how we work on normal projects and lead normal lives.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#159

I recently read an interesting book called Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy. It was written in 1887 but could have been written yesterday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward It was basically about a guy who accidentally travels forward in time (sort of like idiocracy) except he finds himself in an American Socialist Utopia. It was a really good book in general but there was one idea in particular that…

Would there be any prohibition against working two (or three or four) 4-hour per week jobs?

No prohibition certainly, but you would receive the same pay.

In the book the author supposed that this would lead more people to spend their time participating in artistic activities.

Re: Working fewer hours would make us more productive

#160

I recently read an interesting book called Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy. It was written in 1887 but could have been written yesterday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward It was basically about a guy who accidentally travels forward in time (sort of like idiocracy) except he finds himself in an American Socialist Utopia. It was a really good book in general but there was one idea in particular that…

Humans have incredible propensity to acclimatize to the environment. That's the only reasoning I could arrive at when I was poor and saw people around willing to do the most mundane back breaking work than to seek other forms of employment. The lever that is used in society today is desperation as opposed to higher pay per hr in the "Looking Backward" case. The sanitation worker doesn't enjoy their work and no amount…

I believe convincing people to do "bad jobs" by means of desperation is named Wage Slavery. Besides being immoral and degrading, its pretty inefficient. On the other hand, some jobs that need to be done plain out unpleasant. How do you convince someone to do it?

In the Looking Backwards scenario the incentive to do one of the "bad jobs" isn't being paid more per hour, everyone is paid the same, its working less hours which I think is subtly different.

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