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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

#331

Post by econcon »

frockington1 wrote: post #48
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.

I like the idea of working less, but it's going to be hard to use Germany as a poster child. The German economy hasn't been doing to great recently. In my opinion it's largely due to carrying lagging EU economies, but it will be hard to use a struggling economy as a positive indicator Germany: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth US: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

>The German economy hasn't been doing to great recently. In my opinion it's largely due to carrying lagging EU economies, but it will be hard to use a struggling economy as a positive indicator

Without Germany starting EU and issuing checks to other EU countries, there will be very small market for German companies.

If you compare the quality of life metric, Germany does much better than any other EU country

Here you can see how German industries has survived all of this time: https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-germany-shock-the-...

Germany has managed to effectively get all benefits of Imperialism without its downsides.

And china is trying to do this through currency manipulation and belt and reads policy. Still getting much hate for that while Germany barely got any hate.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#332

Post by alfonsodev »

kevindong wrote: post #266
kempbellt wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agains…

I've done this in London where the tube can get impossible in peak hours, and it worked pretty well, although I ended up moving 30 minutes walk from the office to get 1 hour walk every day. The downside was a bit of back pain for carring the laptop on my backpack for one hour every day.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#333

Post by goguy »

nickbauman wrote: post #89
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 changed my life so my work is 6 blocks from home. I will never go back. No realistic amount of money will ever be worth a commute. I consider commuting a form of incarceration.

I have to disagree. Realistically my only job opportunities for good pay are in cities, you couldn't pay me to live in one of those.

I'll take the commute for the luxury of living in the countryside away from the noise, overpopulation and dirt.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#334

Post by jacquesm »

timwaagh wrote: post #239
jacquesm wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the country. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, NL, Germany, Switzerland, France. Others probably less so, depending on how well the economy is and general attitude towards workers rights. Eastern Europe much less so, in some cases (Romania, Bulgaria) conditions are still terrible.

Lawful workweek in nl is 40 hours I'd wager the others are similar, with perhaps one exception.

That's the 'normal maximum' in NL (overtime is also a thing). Plenty of people on part-time contracts working 32, 24 or even 20 hours per week.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#335

Post by tprice7 »

jariel wrote: post #282
perfunctory wrote: post #217

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, f…

This is a funny kind of bubble quote, by someone I think out of touch with most people. I believe most people would watch TV, play cards, play video games. This is what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be more of it. It's amazing what a 'schedule' and 'working with others' and 'requirements' and 'deadlines' can do - it brings people to life and is probably the only wa…

"This is what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be more of it."

I can see one reason: the benefit that you get from an activity is a nonlinear function of how much time you invest in it. This is why people tend to specialize in certain domains. If you barely have any time to practice painting for example, maybe it's not worth learning to paint in the first place. Conversely, if you have more free time, it could be worthwhile to find more creative things to do with it.

This is especially true if you consider frame-switching overhead. The amount you can get done in 6 hours of some demanding creative activity is probably more than 3 times the amount you could get done in 2 hours. And obviously people would have more long uninterrupted blocks of free time if they had to work less overall.

Also, with most schools being the way they are, I think children in general get very little opportunity to pursue their creative impulses; it's always about following the teacher's instructions. Maybe adults would have more curiosity and creativity if these traits weren't snuffed out in their formative years.

Finally, even in our current society, being just a lazy consumer in your free time is far from universal, for example: https://www.namm.org/news/press-releases/gallup-organization...

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#336

Post by SnowProblem »

nmd wrote: post #322
SnowProblem wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Netherlands and France are still alive and kicking. They have plenty of successful businesses. Are they? I can't think of a single technology company coming out of either.

Booking.com, TomTom GPS are both from Amsterdam. As is Adyen, the payments provider used Linkedin, Uber, Spotify, Microsoft. Philips is also from the Netherlands.

Booking.com - sold in 2005. TomTom - dying since smartphones. Philips - an old appliance company. Ayden - hadn't heard of it, but granted.

I hear of new companies from China all the time.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#337

Post by magicram »

NullPrefix wrote: post #251
gordon_freeman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think stuffing 10 hours in a workday will have a diminishing rate of productivity return during the last couple of hours during the workday.

Wait, so do we want hours clocked or productivity? 32h week is about productivity.

I like 4*8 ==32 hrs productivity instead of hours being spend.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#338

Post by the-dude »

SnowProblem wrote: post #320
bboygravity wrote: post #316

These recurring 4-day work week discussions on HN show how non-European this site is. 4-day work weeks have been completely normal for lots of people in Europe for decades. In the Netherlands it's almost the norm to chose whether you want to work 4 or 5 days. 4 day work weeks are not always accepted everywhere, but usually they are in most places. In France the standard work week has been 35 hours for the past 2 deca…

> The Netherlands and France are still alive and kicking. They have plenty of successful businesses. Are they? I can't think of a single technology company coming out of either.

Gitlab

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#339

Post by the-dude »

SnowProblem wrote: post #336
nmd wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Booking.com, TomTom GPS are both from Amsterdam. As is Adyen, the payments provider used Linkedin, Uber, Spotify, Microsoft. Philips is also from the Netherlands.

Booking.com - sold in 2005. TomTom - dying since smartphones. Philips - an old appliance company. Ayden - hadn't heard of it, but granted. I hear of new companies from China all the time.

Philips is succesful in pivoting into medical.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#340

Post by blub »

burnte wrote: post #141
alistairSH wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with 4x10s is those days are exhausting - they leave me with no energy to do anything else that day. At least with 5x8, most days I can get out for a bike ride after work, or take my dog for a long walk. 10 hours? It doesn't happen, I go home and flop on the sofa.

Right, but that's you, lots of other folks like them, so we should have the choice.

There's nothing magical about other folks. They either have lots of slack time during the 10 hour days or their jobs aren't really that challenging.
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