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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

#261

Post by postsantum »

toper-centage wrote: post #17
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…

Is it not also the responsibility of employees to ask for that benefit? Specially developers have that leverage. We have the ability of changing the whole job landscape.

I agree. This is our duty to push for normalizing reduced work hours and remote work

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#262

Post by winfred »

alistairSH wrote: post #105
jonny_eh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe people could take different "3rd" days off?

How do we decide who gets Friday or Monday (ie, a three day weekend)? I have a friend who once had M-W off, and worked the four remaining days. He hated it because his time off was completely misaligned with his peers, so he had no social life. Edit - I don't have any fundamental problem with working fewer hours or fewer days. But, I think I'd prefer 5x7 hour days instead of 4x8.

I prefer mid week days off (Wednesday, but I'd settle for Tue/Thu). I love to have work weeks of two days.

I can imagine there are plenty of other people that prefer the same thing.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#263

Post by NaOH »

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…

> For some people it’s hard to accept that relaxed people are productive.

Just look at how U.S. culture treats service workers. We best be seated on time for our dinner reservation. No one should wait 15 minutes for their hotel check-in because housekeeping isn't done yet. Oh, and that coffee was ordered nearly 5 minutes ago. And the plumber was supposed to be here at 8.

Your concerns about greed extend well beyond worker productivity. It appears to be the logical extension of believing the individual is sacrosanct.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#264

Post by discordance »

philshem wrote: post #126
blackearl wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If not career limiting, pay limiting. I'd worry that I suddenly get a 20% cut in salary

I consider it a 20% bump in time. edit: or is it 25%?!

If you move from a 2 day weekend to a 3 day weekend it’s a 50% increase in free time.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#265

Post by Wowfunhappy »

winfred wrote: post #262
alistairSH wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we decide who gets Friday or Monday (ie, a three day weekend)? I have a friend who once had M-W off, and worked the four remaining days. He hated it because his time off was completely misaligned with his peers, so he had no social life. Edit - I don't have any fundamental problem with working fewer hours or fewer days. But, I think I'd prefer 5x7 hour days instead of 4x8.

I prefer mid week days off (Wednesday, but I'd settle for Tue/Thu). I love to have work weeks of two days. I can imagine there are plenty of other people that prefer the same thing.

I'm with you completely, but from talking to others I think we're in a small minority. Most people want a long weekend.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#266

Post by kevindong »

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…

An interesting lifehack I hypothesized earlier this week and confirmed today is to work from home for the first hour or so of the day and then head into work after the morning rush has substantially subsided.

Until today, I've typically gotten on the subway between 9:45am and 10am for my 30 minute commute to work (that's bed to desk travel time). The train usually wasn't packed, but I was certainly squeezed up against people. Perfectly tolerable, but certainly not comfortable.

Today I did an hour's worth of work from 9:30am to 10:30am and then I commuted to my office arriving just before my 11am standup. The 10:30am train was wonderfully empty in comparison to the 9:45am train. I got a seat for the first time in months! Furthermore, that hour of work was wonderfully productive since my apt is dead silent and no one was around to disturb me. I got most of my "heads-down, high-concentration" work done for the day in that hour.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#268

Post by [deleted] »

erik_landerholm wrote: post #202
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…

Do you actually like your job? I don't mean any disrespect, but I've had jobs I don't really like and I get where you are coming from. Right now, though and at other times, since I've had my own companies, 6 day work weeks and 10-12 hrs a day was not even an issue. I feel like if people go to 4 day work weeks, people that love their jobs and are willing to work 1.5times as much or more will have a huge advantage over…

[deleted]

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#269

Post by canuckintime »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #260
tombert wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as someone who pulls out their laptop pretty frequently on the train, I can say I've never had anyone spill coffee or kick it, though granted I don't pull it out if the train is at-all crowded. I recently got a GPD Win 2 as well though, so I've been able to do more computerey stuff lately, even when it is crowded.

The GPD Win 2 looks interesting. Can you tell us more about it.

I had the original GPD Win (second revision) and its a quite capable travel computer. I loved the using the two thumb typing grip (which I had perfected from the iPad mini and iPhone 3S ~ 5s landscape) even though the keyboard wasn't so great. My main other gripe was the low screen resolution. The keyboard has been improved in the GPD Win 2 but the resolution stayed the same (I understand why given the target audience but 720p limits it to gamers). I stopped using my GPD Win after the battery swelled up (and Chinese 'warranty' as my third complaint) but despite its flaws I miss it dearly and I'm considering getting a GPD MicroPC soon

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#270

Post by Eoan »

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…

Obligatory link to solution that would let working less be something that would not deserve a news story: https://i.imgur.com/ia2s7AM.png
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