I strongly suspect this has to do with Japan's low birth rate. But I would love a society where you only need to work three or four days a week. As they always say no one says on their deathbed I wish I spent more time at the office
Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
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Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#52It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…
> absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week You are being a little broad with this statement. One can easily put in 60+ hours for weeks on end and be incredibly productive while doing it. Its all circumstantial. If you have no family, are the sole founder in the company, and really enjoy what you are doing, why the fuck would you stop at a 40 hour work week? Not all of us loathe the thing w…
I read it more as "no one is having 40 hours per week of productive work continuously".
Even in your example, being productive for 60+ hours is possible, but for how long? There might be extreme (extreme!) outliers, but I think it's fair to say that at some point you will increase your productivity by putting in less hours.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#53It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…
What’s wrong with an hour long lunch? Isn’t that normal?
From what I have seen 30 mins is standard but some companies have an hour lunch and ask you to start 30 minutes sooner.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#54It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…
> absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week You are being a little broad with this statement. One can easily put in 60+ hours for weeks on end and be incredibly productive while doing it. Its all circumstantial. If you have no family, are the sole founder in the company, and really enjoy what you are doing, why the fuck would you stop at a 40 hour work week? Not all of us loathe the thing w…
Yes, if you're starting your own business then it could help you to work as much as you can.
However, most people do not run their own business. Most people are low-level code monkeys in large firms where individual efforts aren't business critical. When your project gets cancelled for the 3rd time and you still get a raise, it finally clicks that your work doesn't really matter. This takes a psychological toll. As a result, most people I know in FAANG who are 28+ years old will sheepishly admit that they do very little actual work (30 hours max per week). That's the whole point of hiring people straight out of college: you get ~5 years out of them before they realize what the game is. The ones who are happy with the "truth" become managers, and the ones who aren't opt to keep their head down and coast, or just quit from "burnout".
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#55It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…
> absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week You are being a little broad with this statement. One can easily put in 60+ hours for weeks on end and be incredibly productive while doing it. Its all circumstantial. If you have no family, are the sole founder in the company, and really enjoy what you are doing, why the fuck would you stop at a 40 hour work week? Not all of us loathe the thing w…
> are the sole founder in the company
yeah in this case, if its really your dream, go right ahead.
most workers aren't the founders of the company.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#56It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…
> Companies that shuffle things up to prioritize productivity over simply showing up will be set to succeed over the next generation.
I tend to disagree, but don't argue either way for four or five day weeks, but because it seems success and productivity are only loosely coupled.
Company financial success, and / or long term viability, I believe, is largely random. Large, already successful companies will, largely, continue to be so, small to medium enterprises will survive the next five years at about the same rate they historically have. Small business will continue to fail all over the place.
People will continue to be super intelligent, flawed and incompetent, easily distracted, lack focus, and easily corrupted by power and vice.
And start ups, to anyone who's been paying attention, is almost entirely a branch of gambling for a specific type of whale.
I predict that on the whole the next decade will be largely like the last ten years, and there's approximately nothing to be gained from chasing tiny productivity gains.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only an owner would feel that way. Without significant equity, what's the point? The worker gets nothing except less life and more stress. The owner sucks up all the benefit.
Perhaps society would be better off if more of us were owners?
Not really possible. If everyone is an owner, no one is an owner. You can try completely abolishing the worker/owner dichotomy though, which is very difficult but probably possible.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#58It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…
I wonder if it's also an open secret that 99% of office jobs today are typewriter jobs of a few decades ago - soon to be gone.
Good riddance if people with a working brain were given any power, we'd all be at 2-3 hours of work per day with robots doing the rest by now.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week You are being a little broad with this statement. One can easily put in 60+ hours for weeks on end and be incredibly productive while doing it. Its all circumstantial. If you have no family, are the sole founder in the company, and really enjoy what you are doing, why the fuck would you stop at a 40 hour work week? Not all of us loathe the thing w…
I read it more as "no one is having 40 hours per week of productive work continuously ". Even in your example, being productive for 60+ hours is possible, but for how long? There might be extreme (extreme!) outliers, but I think it's fair to say that at some point you will increase your productivity by putting in less hours.
I can work 55 hours a week in perpetuity as a founder, with the exception of four off grid, week long vacations a year. Even two weeks over 60 hours (e.g. fundraising across timezones) and I rapidly lose it.
Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split
#60Tangential, but how many of us need a dedicated work time period at all?
I have a 15 minute standup every day, an hour long 1 on 1 once every two weeks, and the occasional meeting where I am genuinely needed and maybe 3 hours talking to another developer.
I would love to convert my job into a purely objectives driven thing with the only requirement being that I am online/in the office for those specific 5 or so hours a week.
I will take the risk that what I think takes a week of work runs over (forcing me to work on weekends) in exchange for that kind of flexibility.