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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

#111

Post by failwhaleshark »

hn8788 wrote: post #28
reidjs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it makes sense to have people available for regular hours, just so that if I ask someone a question I can expect a response today-ish. But, I agree that a lot of meetings should be emails, teambuilding events are usually poorly done, and procrastination is hard to avoid when you've got access to the internet. Minor nitpick: Is an hour long lunch really that bad?

Yeah, and hour long lunch is pretty long. Most people I know take less time than that to eat at a restaurant, let alone just grabbing your sandwich from the fridge.

Have you ever been to Central/South America or Europe? ;-)

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#112

Post by etempleton »

monsieurbanana wrote: post #52
bob1029 wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

In the marketing agency world 50-60 hour weeks are the norm and 70 hour weeks occur once a month or so. It isn’t really sustainable. Most people burn out and leave the agency world within three years. Those that stay often make work their life or have a way where they can set their own schedules, which is usually because they have reached marketing executive level and the work becomes different.

It is a very unhealthy industry. I am not sure if it can be sustained in it’s current form, but I don’t ever see the hours being reduced either. 4 day work weeks would just mean 12+ hour days and you would have to hope your clients aren’t open on Fridays or whatever day you decided to make your company day off. Staggering days wouldn’t work that well as most agencies have little to no redundancy by design.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#113

Post by _delirium »

xf1cf wrote: post #82
isatty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with an hour long lunch? Isn’t that normal?

At least in the states most places require you to "make up" your lunch. So normally you'd show up at 8 and work until 5 to make up for an hour lunch. This is true for both hourly and salary.

True in a lot of places, e.g. even in pretty labor-friendly Denmark, most union agreements in the private sector call for a 37-hour work week, but with lunch not counted as working time. So workers typically take short 30-minute lunches to avoid extending the day more. The public-sector unions have managed to get 37 hours with a 30-minute lunch counted though.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#114

Post by nixpulvis »

paxys wrote: post #17

It'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 this is related to the fact that my computer seems to have more bugs in it than a hive of angry bees.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#115

Post by tartoran »

irrational wrote: post #102
paxys wrote: post #17

It'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 work at a company where it is encouraged to use the fitness facilities during work hours. 15 minutes walking to one of the gyms, 5 minutes changing, an hour working out, 10 minutes in the sauna, 10 minute shower, 5 minutes getting dressed, 15 minutes walking back. That is 2 hours of my work day right there ;-)

They are smart, the employees are likely to be more productive if they are healthy. Many companies squeeze up employees like tubes of toothpaste then discard them and hire a younger gen. It is sometimes not intentional, just create a stresful environment and dont allow enough time to employees to catch their breath so to speak

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#116

Post by 8note »

irrational wrote: post #102
paxys wrote: post #17

It'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 work at a company where it is encouraged to use the fitness facilities during work hours. 15 minutes walking to one of the gyms, 5 minutes changing, an hour working out, 10 minutes in the sauna, 10 minute shower, 5 minutes getting dressed, 15 minutes walking back. That is 2 hours of my work day right there ;-)

Thinking is work too, and you can think from anywhere

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#117

Post by failwhaleshark »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90
whateveracct wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working 60hr/week for a startup is completely illogical. It's the sort of thing you only do drunk on kool-aid.

> It's the sort of thing you only do drunk on kool-aid Did not realise believing in a mission is akin to joining a suicide cult. Work doesn’t have to suck. It doesn’t have to be everyone’s calling. But it is for some of us, and sixty+ hours a week can be time well spent. My time at start-ups has been time around colleagues I love, work I enjoy and a mission I believe in. (I was also decently compensated while there a…

There's a balance between passionate hustle and diving into burnout. Some people can do more than others. etc etc. It's more sustainable for mental health to not make every waking minute about work, and take breaks and vacations. If you don't have a life, there's no point to working.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#118

Post by user123456780 »

xmprt wrote: post #100
ekianjo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially in industries that require deep thinking, the output doesn't necessarily scale with # of hours a worker puts in, not every hour is the same. Its not about the number of days per week, it's also about the frequency of the thinking you put into it. If you do a 4 days break between two work days, I'd be very surprised if you remember anything in detail of your previous work period.

Not all "weekends" have to be at the end of the week. You can have a weekend Wednesday and be able to recharge every 2 days without having to wait for 4 full days before your next weekend.

This is the way. I did this for a few months to burn through some of my leave budget. It was great Wednesday became my chores day. Get the house in order, go to the bank whatever. Then the weekend was entirely spent on luxury and entertainment.

My overall output was reasonably similar to that of a 5 day week because I came at work with a waay better attitude. It also made it easier to plan 2 days of work instead of 5. I also spent a chunk of my Wednesday thinking about work and how to tackle the next two days.

That meant I could without guilt take the weekend entirely off and not even think about work at all.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#119

Post by anitil »

irrational wrote: post #102
paxys wrote: post #17

It'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 work at a company where it is encouraged to use the fitness facilities during work hours. 15 minutes walking to one of the gyms, 5 minutes changing, an hour working out, 10 minutes in the sauna, 10 minute shower, 5 minutes getting dressed, 15 minutes walking back. That is 2 hours of my work day right there ;-)

That sounds marvelous! I'm looking at a job at the moment that is mostly WFH and working out during the day is something I'm looking forward to most of all.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#120

Post by ghshephard »

irrational wrote: post #106
xf1cf wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the states most places require you to "make up" your lunch. So normally you'd show up at 8 and work until 5 to make up for an hour lunch. This is true for both hourly and salary.

That’s insane. I’m in the states, but my company treats us like adults. I roll in when I want, work out in the gym for 2 hours during the day, leave whenever I want. I can’t imagine working for a place that tracked my hours.

You've never worked at a job where you had to submit time sheets at the end of each week? Lots of "professional" gigs where people have to do that in order to accurately track time to customers - particularly when they are billing you out at $500/hour on the contract.
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