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More bosses give four-day workweek a try

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Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#31

Post by volkk »

mjayhn wrote: post #18

I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice. All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle…

> I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, but I leave work and sit in an hour of traffic. My energy is just sapped from me by the time I make it home. I have enough energy to feed myself and sometimes work out to maintain my health..

I know that some people just dont have the privilege of living close to their jobs, but after spending one internship getting up at 5;45am to drive with my dad to work to beat the traffic for 1hr, and then spending 1.5-2 hours driving back in heavy traffic in NYC, I vowed to never ever live in a place where I have to drive that far to get to work. 2 months of that and I was already losing my will to live. My dad did it for 15 years and I can see why towards the last leg of that job, he was bitter and angry on a daily basis. That is not a way to live.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#32

Post by wolco »

hinkley wrote: post #15

Many of us work in spaces where servers are expected to be working and running 24/7. Yet our bosses still want every single employee to have butts in seats 9:00 am to 5 pm, 5 days a week and in the same time zone. Sometimes with a little guilt-tripping on the side for taking sick days and vacation. Wouldn't we be better off with several shifts, 4 days a week, covering Monday through Saturday or even the entire week?

Mature places have this with a global workforce.

Not so mature places put 9-5ers on call with a tiny bump in pay.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#33

Post by tombert »

I remember when I interned at Lockheed Martin forever ago, they had a system where you normally work 9-hour days (8 on Fridays), and as a result had every other Friday off. It equated to a 80 hours for every two weeks, and it was really nice if you ever had to go to the bank or DMV (which are typically only open during weekdays).

I always wondered why this wasn't more popular.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#34

Post by Cyph0n »

mjayhn wrote: post #18

I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice. All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle…

I feel exactly the same when it comes to energy, even though I live ~10 mins from work...

As far as work schedule goes, my company/team is fairly flexible when it comes to WFH. However, I still operate in "work mode" while at home, which makes it difficult to take of chores, etc.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#35

Post by thrower123 »

strig wrote: post #3
BlameKaneda wrote: post #2

Wonder how hourly employees who work 4-days weeks at 32 hours would feel about this proposal.

They could do 4x 10 hour days instead

I really liked working 4x10 when I was working a blue-collar industrial job over college breaks. It was not union, but it had a similar attitude towards the sacrosanctity of break times, which broke the day up nicely. Clock in at 6:30, spend the first 15-30 minutes going over the plan for the day. Work until 9, then everybody downed tools and took a coffee break. Go back and work until 12:00, clock out for half hour lunch. Go back and work until 3 for another coffee break. Then you'd usually just wind down and pick up until you clocked out at 5.

In a lot of ways, working an 8 hour day as a software developer is more stressful, because it's so disordered and interrupt-driven. Meetings are strewn around all over the calendar, wherever they can best fit the constraints of people in disparate locations. Emails or pings come in with problems you've got to handle right away - and it seems to be easier for people to rationalize making you switch tasks rather than finish what you're doing when you have a piece of software in pieces in your IDE than when you have a bulldozer in pieces with the tracks off...

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#36

Post by k__ »

I'm from Germany and none of my friends works 40h anymore.

They're all down to 50-80%

This is even regulated by the law, your employer has to allow you to reduce your work time, only in some extreme cases they can deny it.

Works like a charm.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#37

Post by tombert »

volkk wrote: post #31
mjayhn wrote: post #18

I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice. All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle…

> I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, but I leave work and sit in an hour of traffic. My energy is just sapped from me by the time I make it home. I have enough energy to feed myself and sometimes work out to maintain my health.. I know that some people just dont have the privilege of living close to their jobs, but after spending one internship getting up at 5;45am to drive with my dad to…

I live in NYC, and I have a roughly 1 hour commute each way, but I just take the train everywhere.

Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that taking a train to work is a lot less stressful than driving every day. At least on the train, I can read, or pull out my laptop, or just play a video game.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#38

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Some of our hourly employees are on a 4x10 schedule. One wrinkle that has come up is for holidays and vacation days, which are paid at 8 hours each. The 4x10 employees end up being two hours short each paid day off. The company won't change it to ten hours as that is unfair to the 5x8 employees. Maybe if 4x10 became the standard, they would.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#39

Post by mjayhn »

volkk wrote: post #31
mjayhn wrote: post #18

I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice. All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle…

> I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, but I leave work and sit in an hour of traffic. My energy is just sapped from me by the time I make it home. I have enough energy to feed myself and sometimes work out to maintain my health.. I know that some people just dont have the privilege of living close to their jobs, but after spending one internship getting up at 5;45am to drive with my dad to…

Yeah that definitely helps!

Unfortunately I think I'd still need a few hours to unwind and get out of "work mode." I've worked jobs where I could actually walk to work and I still went home just drained. TBH, I'm an introvert and I'm not sure going in to the office will ever be really conducive to my personality.

I've worked jobs where I had an office to go to when I needed/wanted to be there but could work from home or at a clients office. That was wonderful. I actually showed up to it much, much more often than I expected - by pure choice. If I was having an off day or felt especially introverted and just needed a break from people I could just knock things out at home!

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