Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More bosses give four-day workweek a try

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 404 posts

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#241

Post by deadbunny »

timwaagh wrote: post #232

honestly would be pretty bad for singles who just want to hustle and make some money to afford plans later in life. i can see the appeal for families to take some time off, but currently there are enough facilities for dad-days and the like (at least, where i am). yes you need to pay for those, as is only fair. If this becomes law i'd guess the 'solution' for a lot of people would be to take two jobs. suddenly these…

I don't follow your logic. If you're working 4x8 rather than 5x8 for the same pay (as discussed in the article) you are not losing any money and have another whole day to "hustle".

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#242

Post by seanalltogether »

amyjess wrote: post #160
gpanders wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work from 7-5 each day, so even when I go to the gym or run a quick errand after work I can be home by 6, which strikes me as a "decent hour", although I suppose that's subjective. Waking up at 6am takes getting used to but isn't unreasonable in my opinion.

It's pretty much impossible for me to go to sleep any earlier than 2am, so getting to work at 7 would require me to only get a couple of hours of sleep at night, which isn't nearly enough for me to function on.

I used to be like that until I started forcing myself to go the the gym in the morning. It was brutal in the beginning but within about 3 or 4 weeks I was asleep at midnight every night.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#243

Post by m3kw9 »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #8

It seems a lot of these experiments are a success. But after a while somebody gets greedy and thinks “we get good productivity at 32 hours. I wonder how much more we could get at 40 hours?” And soon you are back at the old schedule. Something similar happened at my company. For once a project was ahead of schedule. So instead of thinking that the system worked well and keep working in relaxed manner management decide…

It didn’t happen when we had weekends. But they workaholics or pressure will have them work weekends. The 4 day week seem moot point in that regard. The other issue come up later on when people get used to 4 day work week is that they eventually have chores that can’t be done in 3 day weekends. Sort of like the rule where if you give x amount of time fir a task, you will likely use all of it.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#244

Post by porknubbins »

joegahona wrote: post #158
tombert wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I lived in NYC from 2001-2012 and much prefer my 20-minute car commute now to any amount of time in a jam-packed rush-hour subway. Nothing like being 5mm from a stranger's face while both of you pretend you're not 5mm from a stranger's face. The LIRR is more comfy obv but at $250/month still not worth the aggravation, and unless you happen to work at Penn Station, you still have to walk through rain/snow/95-degree hu…

I agree the average American 20 min house to office drive is much less stressful than rush hour subway (and god help us if we get coronavirus going around). Driving to work in NYC or SF doesn’t even make sense unless there was parking.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#245

Post by gen220 »

tombert wrote: post #120
wpasc wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what GP meant but in NYC I find NJ Transit, Metro North, LIRR style to be much more relaxing and reliable. Subway is just a different beast

I take the Subway virtually every day. On weekdays it's not perfect, but generally good-enough.

It depends a lot on your origin and destination. In my 6 years, I’ve found the optimal corridor to be Downtown Brooklyn to Midtown, with a slight bias for west manhattan over east. Anything outside that corridor has a high potential to be the Wild West (the G, L, JZM, etc) with kafkaesque reroutes and delays and express running local and no trains after 9pm on random 5 days every 9 weeks.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#246

Post by ratsimihah »

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've always prioritized living close to work and making my commute a 10mn walk. It's such a quality of life improvement, but I understand it can't be done by everyone.

Since I lived and NYC and London, living near work often meant living in busy and noisy city areas, but it's a compromise I've generally been happy with.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#247

Post by erikerikson »

I am using this as a company/boss/role filter and it is fantastic. Some are offended that I think I have any control (literally uncontrolled in their negative response, "how dare you ask that?"). Some seem confused ("but you're supposed to be lying to present an image of the perfect employee, aren't you?"). Others are glad for the request and appreciate my honest straightforwardness and willingness to discard convention to achieve better results. There's been sufficient discussion of this that it no longer counts as innovative but I've always been on the leading edge (sometimes, sadly so) and am obviously willing to take risks.

Always remember that interviews are mutual.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#248

Post by senordevnyc »

kempbellt wrote: post #172
tombert wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had the same experience when I lived in NYC. A 45 minute commute on the subway was a lot less stressful than the 45 minute bumper-to-bumper driving commute I do now (in Seattle). I would usually play mindless puzzle games and listen to music on my commute. Other people mention the train delays being stressful, but my company had a standing "subway delays ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" attitude about showing up late. People would show…

I commute about 45 mins on the subway in NYC and I don’t really feel comfortable taking my laptop out. Which sucks because it’s a lot of time and I’ve got stuff I could work on.

What I’m experimenting with now is taking Uber Pool most mornings. It’s usually about $20 but you can pay for it with tax free commuter benefits, and I’m saving $2.75 in subway fare, so it’s like ~$10 for almost an hour of time to catch up on administrative junk for my side biz. Seems worth it so far, although still a little frustrating.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#249

Post by dv_dt »

piffey wrote: post #215
wasdfff wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Service sector does not want you working 40 hours a week for benefits purposes.

You can never afford those benefits on a service sector job anyways.

At a time of coronavirus outbreaks in the news, I have to think that models of propagation should account for national differences like which areas have required vacation & sicktime benefits as well as universal healthcare.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#250

Post by OccamsMirror »

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 .

Absolute bullshit, but the metrics being gathered are all askew. When you've already fucked your productivity with bad management, what difference does a high turnover rate have?
Post reply on HN