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World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

independent.co.uk

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Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#41

Post by Gustomaximus »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #24
sandworm101 wrote: post #7

I work in a field (military) where "overtime" isn't a thing. We can and do work 24+hour shifts without any extra pay. Even during peacetime, if we need to work 16-hour days every day for a month we can do that without any financial cost. We can also be sent home at noon every day without diminishing our wages a penny. That absolute flexibility does not reduce stress. With no standard office hours we face constant neg…

> And somehow the entropy always flows up to supervisors. At 0400 (4am) Sunday morning I took over a watch from my boss. All the junior people are at home enjoying their flexible work schedules while the two senior people on the team end up covering the long shifts nobody else wants. This hits home for me. I briefly worked at a company that tried to allow infinite flexibility in working hours. The flexibility quickly…

With the meeting issue a good mid-way a company I worked for had in the contract hours were flexible but we expect you to be available 10-2. This mean late risers and early leavers were both covered + in a way limits the day of meetings larger companies tend to progress to.

Also we need to recognise flexibility relies on good work ethics. Its great when your in a well hired and motivated company, but you know some companies it going to be a tool to slack off. I've seen both sides on that one where it was a great vs if someone was marked 'remote' you knew everything was going to take significantly longer.

I think a good middle ground might be recognising most white collar work more than contracted office hours, so going back to 4 days might actually take us back to a 40 hour week. I think an alternate is govt to set rules and enforce the 40hr week. Make the 40hr week responsibility of the business and overtime much be paid or they need to get you about the door or return time in lieu. Maybe an exception for salary over $400k type thing or whatever fairly high amount as you want senior managers getting out the door too for the example it sets.

My concern about the 4 day week is many people are financially struggling so does this just encourage 2 jobs to be more common and the 4 day week ends up leading many people to 7 day work weeks? So in a way I wonder if better enforcement on the 40hr week is the better option in practicality as much as I like the idea of a 4 day work week for society.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#42

Post by paulcole »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #25
paulcole wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. Now you’ve met 2! I hate working 8 hours a day. 0% chance I’ll ever work a schedule of 10-hour days. Who downvotes this lol?

ten hour days are hard for me—I start fading at the 7th hour I do love a four-day work week, but with 8-hour days, and I've been lucky enough to pull that off for the last 15 years. There's a downside though: it makes switching jobs much more difficult because few companies want to hire someone who only works 4 days/week.

Yeah I’ve told employers who’ve asked about 4-10s that I’d just phone it in (at best) the last 2 hours of the day. My thing is that I’m an early riser and have a chronic illness that means my most productive hours are 6AM to 2PM. Works great at my current job — about one week a month I shift things a bit for more meetings between 2 and 4, but I don’t know how easy it’d be to find another similar situation.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#43

Post by benbayard »

ctdonath wrote: post #40
benbayard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just hard, it’s unlikely to be successful because of how rare successful businesses happen. Working 4 days a week at a stable successful company isn’t the same as starting a new business so that eventually you can work 4 days a week.

Then maybe the bosses & investors for those few successful companies deserve their profits after all.

Agree with your point well enough. I think a 4 day work week where bosses get the same amount of profit is the dream conclusion to this experiment.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#44

Post by IntelMiner »

seibelj wrote: post #39
benbayard wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just hard, it’s unlikely to be successful because of how rare successful businesses happen. Working 4 days a week at a stable successful company isn’t the same as starting a new business so that eventually you can work 4 days a week.

Whelp that settles it - absolutely nothing you can do in life but be miserable until you die.

You aren't unhappy that someone else doesn't like working, you hate your job and have been trained to think that someone "wants it easier" and thus are a threat

Punch UP, not DOWN

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#45

Post by insert_coin »

benbayard wrote: post #37
seibelj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are tired of making someone else rich, you could start your own business. But that’s a lot of work, and as someone who is anti-work, I don’t think that’s possible for you and your comrades. But the option is there!

It’s not just hard, it’s unlikely to be successful because of how rare successful businesses happen. Working 4 days a week at a stable successful company isn’t the same as starting a new business so that eventually you can work 4 days a week.

They are so unlikely, everyone else that didn't make it feels entitled to tell them how to be successful.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#46

Post by handrous »

paulcole wrote: post #16
hellbannedguy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. He was a Electrician acquaintance of my father. He was beyond a odd duck. His idea of a fun weekend was painting his house. I'm not kidding. I used to talk to my father a lot over a four day work week. His union almost got it, but they backed out at the last moment. I still think it was a payola thing from the contractors! It just makes so much…

> I've only met one person who wasen't for a four day 10 hr/day work week. Now you’ve met 2! I hate working 8 hours a day. 0% chance I’ll ever work a schedule of 10-hour days. Who downvotes this lol?

I've done light-to-moderate physical work and would prefer 4 10-hour days for that. Office work in front of a computer, including programming, I can't realistically manage 5 five-hour days of actual, productive work. Not week after week, consistently. With more rest and an interesting task, yeah, I can do 8-10 hours in a day, for-real. Every now and then if I just happen to have a great day, yeah, maybe. Otherwise, god, it's draining as hell, in a way "boring" or repetitive non-back-breaking physical work just isn't (for me, anyway).

Story may be different for the really body-destroying physical labor, but the lighter stuff is less tiring than office work, to this particular worker, and cutting it from five days a week to four with the same number of hours would be my preference if I were back in jobs like that. Meanwhile I'd love a 4-day 6-hour schedule for programming. Maybe I'd actually manage to do focused work all the scheduled hours, that way.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#47

Post by seibelj »

IntelMiner wrote: post #44
seibelj wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whelp that settles it - absolutely nothing you can do in life but be miserable until you die.

You aren't unhappy that someone else doesn't like working, you hate your job and have been trained to think that someone "wants it easier" and thus are a threat Punch UP, not DOWN

I believe using guns to force everyone to make the same salary would lead to economic ruin, as it has everywhere it’s ever been tried. If you allow differences in wealth, then some will accumulate more. Over time, these differences become pronounced. Those with wealth identify new areas to expand their enterprises. They wish to hire the best employees. The employees they consider the best get paid more. And the cycle continues.

Your dream of doing nothing for money is unsustainable. I have nothing against free people choosing to work less, and free people choosing to hire part timers. Just don’t stop people from working harder and getting more than you.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#48

Post by conanbatt »

akersten wrote: post #31

Take a minute to think, on this Sunday night, about how much personal time you've had this week. You've most likely spent 5 of the last 7 days making someone else richer, at the expense of an incredible toll on your body and mind: an artificially early wake-up to an alarm, a late-night frozen pizza dinner because there's no time to cook and clean up for yourself, and you're finally sitting down getting ready to relax…

> the hell that is the modern salaried work week.

Salaried work is by far the most lenient way to make money. Any other venture: a small business, a startup, an executive position, etc is way harder and more demanding.

In any case, what would be great is for the market to offer 4 day work weeks to those who wish it at the best market price, and give 5 days to the ones that want 5 days.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#49

Post by hellisothers »

bostondavidvc wrote: post #33
nameoda wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I have observed in software development companies is that there is no limit where one can say, "My work is done". When one task is complete, there is another one ready to pick up. So, the only way to stop working for a day is to track your hours and say, "I have worked for 8 hours today and I will pause the work until tomorrow". What field and role are you working in, where you can roll in whenever you want and…

> there is no limit where one can say, "My work is done" I'm a couple years into my first software job, at Google. We don't do performance evaluations relative to whether you're doing as much work as you're capable of in 40 hours. You're evaluated against a fixed rubric corresponding to the job level. In other words, if you're capable of doing a Software Engineer N's worth of work in 40 hours and your title is Softwa…

This is my impression at where I work as well. If you work at a company like this you can effectively already work 4 (or less) days a week. If you currently work at a company that you feel tracks your time then if you do somehow “win” a 4 day work week you’ll probably still be expected to put in 40 hours OR take a 20% pay cut. Either way it doesn’t seem like being told you now only work 4 days a week is materially changing anything.

Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’

#50

Post by disposablex »

seibelj wrote: post #47
IntelMiner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't unhappy that someone else doesn't like working, you hate your job and have been trained to think that someone "wants it easier" and thus are a threat Punch UP, not DOWN

I believe using guns to force everyone to make the same salary would lead to economic ruin, as it has everywhere it’s ever been tried. If you allow differences in wealth, then some will accumulate more. Over time, these differences become pronounced. Those with wealth identify new areas to expand their enterprises. They wish to hire the best employees. The employees they consider the best get paid more. And the cycle…

isn't it already pronounced?
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