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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

#311

Post by bob1029 »

oblio wrote: post #307
bob1029 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Absolutely no one" and "1%" have entirely different meanings to me. I thought it important to highlight the "insignificant" case (of which I am a member) to avoid some notion that this applies to 100% of people in reality. The way we usually go on about work around here concerns me, and I fear we risk alienating a very energetic and well-meaning segment of the community.

HN comments (and in general, forum comments) are not PhD theses, they're generic, casual comments that in many cases try to tell a story. Hyperbole is to be expected.

Hyperbole or not it has an impact when repeated like some religion. This comment thread is making me not want to participate on hackernews.

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

#312

Post by Sanguinaire »

MereInterest wrote: post #167
ghshephard wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Billable hours" != "Working hours". A lawyer may work 70 hours/week to produce 40 billable hours/week. That doesn't mean that they aren't working for 70 hours per week. It just means that the "8 for what we will" and "8 for sleep" have been shaved thin and added to the "8 for work" by shady accounting of time.

Yup - I stumbled into consulting in my first job and carried on doing it in my second, timesheets are the main source of misery/annoyance for me. Non-consultant, non-sales roles are hard to find for people who are technically focused but not actual software developers.

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

#313

Post by unishark »

adamlett wrote: post #287
franciscop wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's what the market demands in the end of the day and why I don't understand Japan too much (yet). If a company hires 4 people just for road signaling, and another 0, I'd hire the second one since it's going to be cheaper. That's why I believe these market forces push to at-capacity, because if someone has spare capacity or a lot of profit another company is going to come in at a lower margin and win the market. Yes…

Isn’t it oversimplifying it to suggest that all “the market” rewards is low prices? Doesn’t the market also sometimes reward quality and timeliness?

If you can provide a product with those features at lower cost the market would still reward you.

But yes any description of economics is necessarily a simplification. For example market segments where people intentionally pay more for the exclusivity that comes with being charged more.

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

#314

Post by oblio »

bob1029 wrote: post #311
oblio wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN comments (and in general, forum comments) are not PhD theses, they're generic, casual comments that in many cases try to tell a story. Hyperbole is to be expected.

Hyperbole or not it has an impact when repeated like some religion. This comment thread is making me not want to participate on hackernews.

I think (I don't know you) that I wouldn't want you to do that, but to each their own.

You sound like you're having a bad day outside of HN, as this has been just a regular and might I say, civil, chat, otherwise.

A temporary break from HN (or social media in general), might not be a bad idea :-)

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

#315

Post by yodelshady »

rjzzleep wrote: post #293
adamlett wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it oversimplifying it to suggest that all “the market” rewards is low prices? Doesn’t the market also sometimes reward quality and timeliness?

I think you're right, I went through a E40m construction project once and the leaders kept saying how they have to chose the lowest bidder. But that was actually a convenient lie they did to avoid having to do due diligence on the bidders. Mid and long term cost actually turned out a lot higher than if they had chosen the better slightly more expensive bids.

"get three quotes and take the middle" is a common heuristic in my locale - for any work you're going to be living in, under or on, at any rate.

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

#317

Post by dzaragozar »

It is important to note that this announcement means that employers can opt to work for 4 days a week, with the corresponding reduction in salary. It is not reducing work week to 32h with the same salary! A similar scheme exists in the Netherlands, you are allowed to work 4 days a week AND you get paid for 4 days of work, so 80% salary.

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

#320

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

Arcanum-XIII wrote: post #236
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an open secret that people who are productive only 2/3 of the time in 40 hours/week would be productive only 2/3 of the time in 32 hours/week as well.

That's patently untrue: most of my colleague working 3 or 4 days a week are more focused their days in. The invert is true though: a task will evolve to take the time alloted to it, I see that regularly with "unconstrained" project running amok. Those with fixed time are way more efficient and finish with a minimum of overtime.

Every lazy slacker tells this same old story. I believe that most IT professionals don't even know what it means to work really hard. Oh, I worked producing lines of code 4 hours today, of which 25 minutes were spent compiling. I am sooo tired, my job is so difficult, it is the hardest job in the world, I need a rest and a 2 days work week!.
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