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Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

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Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#161

Post by volgo »

gerbilly wrote: post #153

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours. My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.) I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever. If you do this consistently, and deliv…

Speak for yourself. I go home everyday at 3pm. I'm a productive worker and I know how much I contribute. I never miss a project deadline, always finish what I'm assigned to in a sprint, and don't chitchat with people throughout the day. I get in at 11 am and leave 3pm. I don't care what anyone thinks because at the end of every sprint, I know that my boss and other leaders get together and look at productivity and place me at the top of the chart.

When things get busy, I don't hestitate to pull some weekends for my boss because we have a mutual understanding. I get paid almost twice as the going salary for Silicon Valley and I happily work my ass off for the company. It's win win for everyone

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#162

Post by sdenton4 »

gozur88 wrote: post #129
Spooky23 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retailers have taken it to another level by requiring you to commit to availability without a commitment to have work. Nobody gets 40 hours — you target around 28 typically. Control and keeping high turnover is an objective in retail management. It’s usually cheaper and more efficient to have full time staff, but it’s easier to skimp 5% of labor hours and force the salaried manager to fill the breach.

>Retailers have taken it to another level by requiring you to commit to availability without a commitment to have work. Nobody gets 40 hours — you target around 28 typically. This is the law of unintended consequences as applied to the ACA. If they give you more hours care their costs go up dramatically unless they're already offering health.

The careful tailoring of work hours to avoid healthcare requirements was a thing long, long before the ACA.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#164

Post by Spooky23 »

gozur88 wrote: post #129
Spooky23 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retailers have taken it to another level by requiring you to commit to availability without a commitment to have work. Nobody gets 40 hours — you target around 28 typically. Control and keeping high turnover is an objective in retail management. It’s usually cheaper and more efficient to have full time staff, but it’s easier to skimp 5% of labor hours and force the salaried manager to fill the breach.

>Retailers have taken it to another level by requiring you to commit to availability without a commitment to have work. Nobody gets 40 hours — you target around 28 typically. This is the law of unintended consequences as applied to the ACA. If they give you more hours care their costs go up dramatically unless they're already offering health.

Many labor rules kick in with full time status. As a assistant manager in a mall store in 1996, scheduling more than 2-3 people (out of about 30) over 30 hours was up there with skimming the till in terms of severity of offense.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#165

Post by mooreds »

ukulele wrote: post #159
gerbilly wrote: post #153

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours. My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.) I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever. If you do this consistently, and deliv…

You can't really generalize this to everyone. It's dependent on your managers, and there are definitely people in the world who will fire an otherwise good employee for showing bad "optics" to other employees. You may not want to work in such an environment, but that is of course a luxury to be able to choose.

It also depends on your role and who depends on your work and/or expertise.

For some folks this kind of flexibility is eminently attainable, for others it juts isn't possible.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#166

Post by mooreds »

surfmike wrote: post #142
sliverstorm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people now are spending almost 50% of their pre-tax income on housing, and most of that is the price of land and goes to landlords. 1) That's really not a countrywide thing 2) It's not specifically the landlords, it's whoever was already there. A landlord who bought in just recently is not rolling in dough. The people who capture the gains are the people who got in fifty years ago and sold & moved, or the landlo…

Not everywhere, but in SF, LA, San Diego, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Oslo, Stockholm, London....

Would love to see a breakdown of the number of jobs in a given country vs the number of jobs in urban areas with expensive housing markets.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#167

Post by burkaman »

gerbilly wrote: post #153

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours. My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.) I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever. If you do this consistently, and deliv…

Most people would get fired if they did this consistently, whether or not they were performing well. And in the vast majority of jobs, it's not possible to perform well if you don't show up on time.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#168

Post by baursak »

gerbilly wrote: post #153

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours. My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.) I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever. If you do this consistently, and deliv…

That's called a delusional software developer bubble. Try this at a minimum wage job or pretty much anything outside of IT.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#169

Post by gerbilly »

baursak wrote: post #168
gerbilly wrote: post #153

For some reason most of us are too afraid of just going home at 5:00 much less asking for reduced hours. My whole working life, I've never used an alarm clock, and I never stayed late unless I was late on a commitment that I made. (This is not the same as some artificial deadline dreamed up by someone else.) I come in late, go home early, sometimes I don't even show up—whatever. If you do this consistently, and deliv…

That's called a delusional software developer bubble. Try this at a minimum wage job or pretty much anything outside of IT.

I've worked plenty of those kinds of jobs. I worked retail, farm labour pumped gas etc. When I worked them I showed up on time.

It depends what you sign up for.

There are 'availability' jobs and 'ability' jobs.

The more you try to find a job tailored to your ability, the less people tend to demand your availability.

They will try to demand it anyway, but if you're good you can get them to overlook it.

For now I'm lucky enough that I can live this way and still make customers happy.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#170

Post by beager »

nnq wrote: post #80

What we desperately need is a way to reverse-brainwash the workaholics that spoil the labor market by willing to work more than 6 hrs a day. If we could figure out a clever way to penalize them for working more we could damn enjoy the heaven-on-earth that current technology should afford us all (now that we seem to have figured out how to stop population growth too)...

Not sure if sarcasm, but salaried employees are indeed penalized for working more hours with a lower hourly wage.
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