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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

#221

Post by justin66 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #191
andrekandre wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had a manager at a startup tell me that conventional management assumes that engineers will only stay at a company for 18 months, so they really pile on the stress which is ironic, because isn’t that why people stay less and less longer at a company (can’t stand the slog)?

I think economically it may make sense to hire fresh people for less money, burn them out and then have them leave soon. This may be one reason for ageism .

> I think economically it may make sense to hire fresh people for less money, burn them out and then have them leave soon.

If the job is focused on smashing rocks with a hammer to make smaller rocks, that's probably true.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#222

Post by qiqitori »

twox2 wrote: post #121
TuringNYC wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m born and raised in NYC and took subways and trains to work everyday for over a decade in NYC. I mostly agree with you...but...I found the past several years of subway outages worse and started driving/ridesharing more and more. I’ve had times where subways constantly get rerouted, suddenly go express, skip stops, run on different lines, etc. it became so maddening.

All it takes is one time being stuck in the tunnel for 1.5 hrs in crowded train car and you have pretty much permanent PTSD. I have a panic attack every time the train comes to a premature stop even for a minute.

That really sucks, but I don't think this applies to a lot of people.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#223

Post by BowBun »

bumby wrote: post #150
calvinmorrison wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about single working adults? I have to literally take off of work to go to the DMV.

Isn’t that the case for everyone working a standard 5 day week, single, kids, or not?

No. A good amount of reasonable/compassionate companies like mine don't care if you take 2 hours to go to the DMV during work hours. I'm very fortunate

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#224

Post by davidajackson »

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…

This is why I recently started doing remote work. I just can't justify commuting/time it takes to go somewhere 30+ minutes away.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#225

Post by k__ »

sib wrote: post #168
k__ wrote: post #36

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.

Is there an English-language description of this law anywhere online? I couldn't find it and would love to learn more. Thanks!

https://www.mayr-arbeitsrecht.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/...

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#226

Post by twelvechairs »

dcre wrote: post #177
lwb wrote: post #133

Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that "average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last year. This seems like barely a rounding error... On the other hand, if you look at the FRED website it shows that average annual hours worked has massively decreased in the last 50 years: https:…

The overall average per person has declined (though not really since the 80s). However, in the same time frame, the proportion of women in formal work went from 35% to 60% [1]. So the story for men and women looks very different. Note also that for women this is a shift from domestic labor to formal labor, so it's probably not much of an increase in hours worked even though it looks like that on paper. However, in th…

There's more too - an apparent rise in unpaid 'off the books' overtime [0], the rise of mobile and email creating expectations of evening/weekend work, and increasing travel times to work.

[0] An average of 4.6 hours per week in Australia across all industries according to this https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/GHOTD%202019%20Fi...

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#227

Post by scrumbledober »

tombert wrote: post #37
volkk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

My previous job was a 1:20 commute by bike and train up to SF. I got really excited about a new job opportunity only a 20-30 minute drive from my house, but now that I've been at this job for almost a year I often miss the train commute. Commuting by car really is much more stressful.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#228

Post by duderific »

burnte wrote: post #140
davidjtighe wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely see where you're coming from, but having kids changes the calculus completely.

Not necessarily. Most folks have kids, most folks I know that prefer four 10s have kids, and like having that fifth day off.

I barely see/interact with my kids on an 8 hour day. On a 10 hour day, I'd probably miss them completely.

I would like one day a week when I'm not working OR looking after the kids, however. That would be amazing. It would be great to give it a try and see how it worked out. Unfortunately my employer is a hardass and doesn't even allow work from home, let alone fewer days a week.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#229

Post by TrackerFF »

jacquesm wrote: post #40

It's interesting to note that in Europe that 32 hour workweek is fairly standard and nobody would even bat an eye or think this is special in any way. https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/11/working-hours.html

Here in Norway it is 37.5 hours of paid work / week.

Our finance minister recently had a hissy fit over the idea of shortening the work week, arguing that if we got rid of 3.5 hours a week (i.e down to 34 hr. weeks) we'd lose out on tens of billions in tax revenue.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#230

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

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…

What's crazy is that you see regulation on minimum number of parking spaces for nearly any kind of building type and yet for working buildings, there's absolutely 0 regulations on minimum number of places to live. So, what happens is there's a huge imbalance between number of jobs offered vs places to live, thus driving up the cost of housing unnecessarily.

It's almost as if they designed cities to only be driven too without any thought given on how to place living spaces closer to working spaces.

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