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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)

#51

Post by Bombthecat »

maxxxxx wrote: post #35
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…

In my company we have groups that over the last years have made weekend work pretty much the normal case. Whenever a project finishes management sends out congratulatory E-mails about "sacrifice" and "late hours". It gets really annoying. I can see how sometimes you have to scramble but this should be viewed as management failure and not as an incentive to glorify overwork. As far as I know there is no compensation b…

Similar thing is happening at my firm.

Just one or two years ago weekend work was a no no. Now it is like : weekend work, fuck yeah! And our wife's are complaining. That's super funny... I have no idea what the fuck happened...

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

#52

Post by jdlyga »

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've worked at various programming jobs for startups and large companies for 10 years in New York, and I've never had to work more than 40 hours per week.

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

#53

Post by Kephael »

thenewwazoo wrote: post #45
CydeWeys wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thro…

Big 4 in this context means Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. Google and MS are known to have good WLB, Amazon and Facebook do not.

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

#54

Post by dorchadas »

davidgay wrote: post #33
YjSe2GMQ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. My complaint for this article would be that given how much time the author spent on the cultural story of pushing the working hours up it'd be good to first do the basics: 1) what is "work" precisely, 2) what are the current and historical measurements of "work" per week, 3) how's the situation when you sensibly break it down, for example by profession or salary or geography. Don't think it is so hard…

In fact, someone does gather this data, though in hours per year, not per week. And, surprise(?): hours worked has been dropping since the 1970, not rising. https://data.oecd.org/chart/5skA https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm to explore more.

It really depends on how you define work. Answering email and phone calls after hours would constitute that for me, as would being on call. But not for many, and so those things likely go unreported.

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

#56

Post by muse900 »

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…

Yes it should be considered work. Anything you do towards your company should be accounted as work.

I also think commuting within reason should be accounted as work. Lets say 30 mins to go to work and 30 minutes to get back from work. That never happens obviously but in an ideal world it should be happening. I see some airplane crews e.g working for Ryanair 3 and a half hour flight, then go back another 3 and half hour, count an hour in between the flight for the change, and then they have to be redirected to where they live that can be another 3 and a half hour flight but its only in 5 hours from the time they get off. Its not accounted as work for them... but imagine they wouldn't be there in the first place if it wasn't for their work.

Also as I posted at another comment in another similar thread, I think the world should be evolving to a 6 hours 4 days a week schedule. Our work has been way more efficient with computers and it is only getting more and more efficient. We can most definitely enjoy the advancement of humanity by adding more personal time to our schedules instead of working more. We are not at a point where we are making 1 car a day, we are at a point where there is an influx of cars in factories, an influx of flights across the globe etc.

So I'd counter the title (although since 2012) with : 'Bring on 24 hour working weeks'!

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

#57

Post by HillaryBriss »

Drakim wrote: post #18
cullenking wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions got ostracized for a reason. They in many cases evolved past reasonable worker protection. I've seen examples of both, my dad has a good union as an elevator mechanic, with strong benefit bargaining power, but which allows for advancement by merit and not only seniority. However I worked for UPS for a few years, and teamsters is the worst organization. You can't advance by merit, only seniority, and job perfor…

Companies do bad things too (often very bad things) yet nobody thinks it's reasonable to just remove companies from society. Same for shares and shareholder culture, international franchise, etc. Yet with unions, so many people think "Unions sometimes do bad, therefore it's just better not to have unions, and all the downsides of not having unions we'll just have to live with".

but there are people who think companies should be eliminated. if you go to a protest rally in a large US city you will see them marching and carrying signs and advocating for their viewpoint.

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

#58

Post by drdeadringer »

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.

> And I'm still asked to be 'on call' at weekends.

Do you say "no"?

> people I work with are proud to tell me they worked the whole weekend for some reason

How do you look upon these people?

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

#59

Post by drdeadringer »

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.

Before the most recent re-org, me working overtime was a simple matter of "can you today?".

After the most recent re-org, it was "please get permission from the manager beforehand".

Either way I could still say "yes" or "no" so I still feel in control in some way, only now it's "in control with permission" on my "yes" if the manager agrees.

While I don't like playing "Timeclock Tommy" as a matter of course, having that mindset does protect my sanity.

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

#60

Post by 52-6F-62 »

blhack wrote: post #50
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 i…

Wait— a stage union? Is that IATSE down there?

I wouldn’t paint them all like that. Some of their members are brilliant and taught me a lot. Others were negligent cokeheads... but most of them got the job done.

Sounds like a bad crew more than anything.

Edit: can confirm the gaffer/duct tape thing, though. I once worked fixing up high voltage/amperage cabling and distro equipment. They always taped that gear to hell and it was terrible to clean and fix up.

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