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Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

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Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#41

Post by BossingAround »

mistrial9 wrote: post #24

anecdotal evidence in the United States, in the last twenty years.. the concept of "overtime" has been crushed out of existance.. tech workers are essentially expected to respond to signals and/or work, just about all of the time; certain contract-bound jobs are "milking" overtime to get pay raises that are otherwise not available; employers offer extra shifts and hours to existing employees rather than hire, even if…

That is my experience with colleagues from the US. They say Japan is overworking itself to death, but it feels similarly crazy from the US side. I really wonder why the US doesn't have much more burnout than the folks in Europe (or maybe it does, I just haven't noticed).

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#42

Post by esmi »

ryanSrich wrote: post #14
YjSe2GMQ wrote: post #11

This is well researched, but unless I missed something it doesn't answer the basic question: just how many people work over 40 hours? It just kind of assumes that "this is what happens". But how often? I worked for 3 years at a FAANG and only worked more than those 40 hours a week occasionally, perhaps something in the order of 10% of worked weeks. Even then it'd be 50 hours a week, tops.

I think the data is really hard to gather. I work remotely for a startup and my hours vary drastically week to week. Is checking email working? Answering a Slack message? Taking a phone call? Those things don’t feel like work to me, but I don’t think everyone feels that way. If “being available” is working then I’d say I work close to 17 hours per day. If we’re talking hands on keyboard development, management etc, i…

I imagine those paid hourly (wages, contractors, construction, accountants, lawyers, etc.) track their work time very closely and have very precise definitions for not work, paid work and unpaid work. It’s not everyone but it should be a significant portion of the work force and I imagine some kind of conclusion can be drawn from it.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#43

Post by jorblumesea »

hacker_9 wrote: post #13

Yeah I work roughly 45-50 hours in my financial job in London. And I'm still asked to be 'on call' at weekends. In fact some people I work with are proud to tell me they worked the whole weekend for some reason. The whole thing is crazy to be honest.

That's finance for you. All about image.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#44

Post by criddell »

ryanSrich wrote: post #14
YjSe2GMQ wrote: post #11

This is well researched, but unless I missed something it doesn't answer the basic question: just how many people work over 40 hours? It just kind of assumes that "this is what happens". But how often? I worked for 3 years at a FAANG and only worked more than those 40 hours a week occasionally, perhaps something in the order of 10% of worked weeks. Even then it'd be 50 hours a week, tops.

I think the data is really hard to gather. I work remotely for a startup and my hours vary drastically week to week. Is checking email working? Answering a Slack message? Taking a phone call? Those things don’t feel like work to me, but I don’t think everyone feels that way. If “being available” is working then I’d say I work close to 17 hours per day. If we’re talking hands on keyboard development, management etc, i…

> Is checking email working? Answering a Slack message? Taking a phone call?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#45

Post by thenewwazoo »

CydeWeys wrote: post #37
Kephael wrote: post #31

From experience, I'm not sure the 40 hour work week is an actual thing outside of highly bureaucratic organizations. In part time jobs like retail or restaurant work, it seems very difficult to get enough "hours" assigned. In professional fields such as software engineering, there seems to be an abundance of possible work. However, I find that even working 50 hours a week is far more enjoyable and easy when compared…

It's very common in government work (and there are millions of government employees at local, state, and federal levels). I'm at a Big 4 and it's pretty common amongst everyone I know to work 40 hour weeks.

What’s your level? I’ll be very very surprised if you’re an associate. When I worked at a big 4, the associates didn’t leave until after the senior associates, who left after the managers, who left after the senior managers (if they were around), etc. The reverse was true in the mornings. Because we were expected to maintain appearances. I didn’t play that stupid game (as a sr assoc) and definiely heard about it through back channels.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#47

Post by ddebernardy »

BossingAround wrote: post #39
axiometry wrote: post #6

(2012)

I considered it, but didn't agree. Apparently, the admin agrees. Guess it should be mandated, or at least cleared up, when exactly should the year be included in the headline.

My understanding is that you're only expected to omit it when the article is recent.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#48

Post by CosmicShadow »

CydeWeys wrote: post #40
CosmicShadow wrote: post #34

I don't understand why anyone would take a job or stay in a job that requires you to work more than you are comfortable with or to work more hours for free. If you are stuck, then that sucks and I feel bad for you, maybe it got sprung on you after you were in too deep, but you gotta make this stuff a priority to you if it matters, find out as you are interviewing, get ready to leave if it's not a fit, and that one th…

It's hard to find jobs in many industries (although maybe not ours). It's common for people to lose their jobs to be unemployed for months before finding another. And forgoing a single paycheck can be catastrophic if you don't have anything saved up, which is true of ~40-50% of Americans. In these circumstances, you work harder when asked to upon pain of potentially losing your job, because the alternative is much wo…

I understand that for a large group of people this is true, and they are just fucked, and there will always be a group of people that are fucked, you just gotta be cognizant of your own situation and make sure to take the reins while you can so you don't end up like those with no choices.

Many of us on here are probably lucky that we can fix it, but I bet a large group just don't because of the culture issue and peer pressure. To those people I say fight for what you want and deserve.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#49

Post by accnumnplus1 »

Stock options play a part at the company at which I work. Those who value the options work very hard, after hours, middle of the night from home, crack of dawn form home, weekends, look wasted, and I await their burnout snap. Those who have been through the options pot of gold at the rainbow scenario (multiple times) before fulfill contractual obligations and a touch more. Personally, four days a week is my sharp and productive limit.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week (2012)

#50

Post by blhack »

pjmlp wrote: post #10

Don't ostracize unions and 40-hour week will be back.

Unions aren't doing themselves any favors.

I worked a job in NYC once installing a custom stage/set that we had built in Phoenix. It was full of arduinos, custom lighting controllers that i built, custom blinkenlights panels that I had built, custom robotics elements. Just all sorts of completely custom one-off elements.

It was a BATTLE with the union labor that even get it installed on time. They had absolutely no idea what any of the stuff we were doing was, they worked at a snails pace, they took breaks seemingly every 30 minutes, they were expensive, and we HAD to use them even though our fabricators were on site for the install.

It was one of the most infuriating experiences I have ever had. It was like some sort of bizarre nightmare. Worst of all, they used stupid duct tape on all of our cables and gummed them up!

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