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What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

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Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#101

Post by james_s_tayler »

coding123 wrote: post #93
IMTDb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a different set of skills and you create value/feel rewarded in a different manner. It's not better or worse, it's just different and appeals to different kind of people. Take some other example from video games: - Why would anyone pick a healer in an MMO group ? What's so great about becoming a healer ? How's that better than playing a DPS, actually contributing to killing the boss and letting someone else…

Also healers get placed in the dungeon ASAP - high priority because there are so few. I play a tank, and feel similar status effects. I want to know the analogy of healers that rage quit (they do so more than DPSs or Tanks) with the entire manager/subordinate thing ;)

Easy. 50% of devs promoted to management go back to dev within 12 months (or so I keep hearing).

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#102

Post by sixstringtheory »

ghaff wrote: post #94
sixstringtheory wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a grotesque lack of trust and set of priorities. If I ever found out an employer used my absence in such ways, I’d immediately start looking for new work.

You should probably take it up with regulators then who, especially in the financial services industry, recommend or require it. e.g. https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/1995/fil9552.html

That’s fair enough, you know what you’re getting into. Thanks for the info!

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#103

Post by emmanuel_1234 »

denormalfloat wrote: post #91

One other minor perk of working fewer hours is lower taxes. The first hour you work in a week is taxed much lower than the last hour you work. (In countries with progressive tax systems.)

Isn't that simply a consequence of having less money in your pocket in the end?

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#104

Post by shanghaiaway »

YayamiOmate wrote: post #31
seanalltogether wrote: post #14

I've often felt that a 5 day work week is about availability , not raw productivity. I could easily compress all of my weeks work into 30 hours or less, but that's not what my managers and clients value. What they value is the fact that I'm making progress on my tasks, and that my reachability is not preventing anyone else (people above me or below me) from making progress on their tasks

That's what i notced with my friend in the managerial position. He can spend most of the time in Work From Home mode, has really good pay grade, and can't rest. He's looks like he's on a wrist band leash getting mails every 2-3 minutes and needs to somehow react on 10%. He doesnt do much other than be available 12-16h 6-7days a week. It's taking more toll than one would expect.

Tell him that there is no need to reply outside of the 9-5 schedule

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#105

Post by grenoire »

chucksmash wrote: post #24
treis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not 32. 7 to 5 is 10 hours. Subtracting 1 is 9. Times 4 is 36.

Maybe subtracting two per day, or the "leave by five" had an implied "at the very latest." Surely he did the math before putting the number in the title of his blog post.

There is a reason why it's called a 9-5 job, and a 40-hour work week. They are the 'standard.'

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#106

Post by lubonay »

catacombs wrote: post #58
lubonay wrote: post #52

Programmer here. I worked on a 4-day week for about a year between 2017 and 2018 for a small consultancy company. The company needed the help of a senior developer but could not afford a competitive salary, so I offered to take a pay cut along with an extra day off each week. Of course, I was flexible in case my day off needed to be moved around for something important, but that almost never happened. Thursdays were…

> This makes me wonder: if working 32 hours/week can make you more productive than working 40, why the hell do people often put in way more than that? I work in a very competitive field, and there are times where I must put in 12- to 16-hour days to ship a project out on time. We get compensation days in lieu of ovetime pay, which has its pros and cons.

I've been in a similar situation in another company, where the whole team was working 12 hour days for a week or two to meet a deadline, but those didn't really feel productive... and the project ultimately failed. I believe it was mismanaged, which caused the overtime in the first place and made all those extra hours not worth it.

On the other hand, I've heard lots of stories like yours, where the project was only possible due to the pure grit of everyone working on it. Most of those stories were in game development, which seems at least twice as chaotic as regular software development.

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#107

Post by tatami »

emmanuel_1234 wrote: post #103
denormalfloat wrote: post #91

One other minor perk of working fewer hours is lower taxes. The first hour you work in a week is taxed much lower than the last hour you work. (In countries with progressive tax systems.)

Isn't that simply a consequence of having less money in your pocket in the end?

It is. But working 80% looks more attractive, when you work 80% for 84% of net income, rather than looking at the 80% of your salary.

This assumes your employer will pay you less linearly, my previous employer had paid the half-time staff about a quarter of the full time salary for 25 hour weeks.

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#108

Post by xondono »

itamarst wrote: post #97
xondono wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to be in a position where 20% off my salary is not something to worry

If you can't cut your expenses, getting better at negotiation will help you with both parts. Given how much Google and the like pay at the top tier, and the availability of remote work across geographic zones, it's highly unlikely you're at peak pay for your experience level. So you can: 1. First, get a higher salary. 2. Then, go down to 4 days and take the 20% cut. Example: when you get a job offer, merely by saying…

The main problem here is that I went for hardware engineering, which almost no one is willing to hire as remote work.

I also happen to live in spain, comparing with other friends working in the same sector, I’m likely above top 10% in salary/age ratio.

Sadly in this country, at age 30 this is 40k€/y that after taxes becomes 29,700€.

Rent alone takes more than a third of that, I take ~3500€ directly for savings, and I need to stretch the rest to cover the rest of my costs, including stuff like medical insurance, gas, etc...

I know this is partly my chosing and the first comment that will come to a lot of people is “move”, but I can’t do it without heavily disrupting my girlfriend’s career (she’s still finishing her studies and working part time). Our hope right now is that her current job might give her the option to (legally) move to the US.

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#109

Post by MiddleEndian »

tylermac1 wrote: post #48
MiddleEndian wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family: Laptop, internet at family member's home, work in the day. "Vacation" travel: Haven't done this myself (outside visiting family) but have had colleagues who did it without issue. Available and worked in the day, did vacation things in the evening presumably.

I've done vacation travel before. Worked out well as we were able to take a longer trip and relax a bit more (traveling with two kids under 2 can be stressful). I only ended up taking 3 days vacation on a two week trip.

Sounds like a sensible course of action. Hopefully we see remote work become more of a standard than an exception.

Re: What I Learned from Working 32 Hours a Week

#110

Post by itamarst »

xondono wrote: post #108
itamarst wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't cut your expenses, getting better at negotiation will help you with both parts. Given how much Google and the like pay at the top tier, and the availability of remote work across geographic zones, it's highly unlikely you're at peak pay for your experience level. So you can: 1. First, get a higher salary. 2. Then, go down to 4 days and take the 20% cut. Example: when you get a job offer, merely by saying…

The main problem here is that I went for hardware engineering, which almost no one is willing to hire as remote work. I also happen to live in spain, comparing with other friends working in the same sector, I’m likely above top 10% in salary/age ratio. Sadly in this country, at age 30 this is 40k€/y that after taxes becomes 29,700€. Rent alone takes more than a third of that, I take ~3500€ directly for savings, and I…

It's definitely harder in some fields, yes—mostly I'm talking about programmers, who have an easier time.

That being said, I'm told negotiation can still help even for hardware people (but I don't have personal experience with how that works).

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