Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#101

Post by satyrnein » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

willheis wrote: post #14

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #6

I'm currently working for a company that forces office staff to work a half day on christmas eve with the additional stipulation, of course, that you must burn a full day of vacation to skip it. This despite the fact that no one in the company can ever remember a customer calling on christmas eve. So I'm very skeptical that this trend will grow. It took the IWW to get us the concepts of The Weekend and Sick Days, and…

Obviously on-call has to cover holidays but Christmas eve is a work day for everyone (in an office) at your company? Why stay? That is simply barbaric

Is this unusual? A quick google search shows Trump issued an executive order just last year to give the day off to federal employees, but Wikipedia doesn't list it as a federal holiday.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#102

Post by driverdan » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #6

I'm currently working for a company that forces office staff to work a half day on christmas eve with the additional stipulation, of course, that you must burn a full day of vacation to skip it. This despite the fact that no one in the company can ever remember a customer calling on christmas eve. So I'm very skeptical that this trend will grow. It took the IWW to get us the concepts of The Weekend and Sick Days, and…

Why would you expect to get Christmas eve off? It's not a holiday and not everyone celebrates Christmas.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#103

Post by tick_tock_tick » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

helij wrote: post #36

I took a new position in March this year and only accepted it after they agreed to 4 day workweek. I took 20% pay cut. One of the best decisions I made in my life. I wish all people who can, to do this. There's nothing you'll miss on Friday or any other weekday and so much to gain.

I mean most other tech people I know just take a de facto half day on Friday or "Worked" from home that day.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#104

Post by datavirtue » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #41

mlyle wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe that the government should focus on a shorter workweek rather than minimum wage increases in the near term. If we shorten the nominal workweek to 36 hours before overtime is required (and encourage this to be in the form of 4x9 or 9/2 * 8): * Supply of labor will fall, increasing equilibrium pay for everyone * Everyone's quality of life goes up * Traffic and environmental impacts from commuting s…

I'm a little worried about how that would affect the lower class in the short term. It's easy to say that they'll get more money as they'll get a day of overtime, but I think it's more likely that a lot of people will find that businesses just staffed up more for low skilled positions (and eventually for skilled positions), and then people have more time but are only making 80% of what they were previously, and can't…

One of the problems with low wage work is that it also sucks down all of your time AND you can't afford to take time off--unpaid. The only way to get a new job is finding another low paying job that can hire you on the spot. There is no time for personal growth...job hunting and interviewing. Getting out from underneath it requires a massive time and energy investment that a lot of people cannot maintain for the length of time needed.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#105

Post by ipaddr » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #82

mlyle wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that one needs both and that they serve complementary purposes. But a minimum wage is useful to the extent that there are jobs for your lowest skill, least desirable workers. And ensuring that may take reducing the work week.

Higher minimum wage laws do hurt low skilled workers. We have two great big machines at work each will pay for it's self in under a year at current minimum wage rates. There is no choice but to replace the people for machines if we want to remain competitive.

It is a win-win. They force other businesses who can't buy a machine to pay a higher floor. If no jobs exist at all those voters will bring in someone who will tax companies like yours and spread the wealth. Your company gets more productive.

Paying some a lower wage because it delays another machine purchase is not a long term solutiom

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#106

Post by skeeter2020 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

willheis wrote: post #21

azinman2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup… because their jobs may then go abroad as has been the trend for the past 20 years…

This happened to everything it could at least 10 years ago. It turns out that if you want software that works (at all), you need to pay people well, regardless of where they are in the world. Stop reenforcing this notion that leads to massive overwork and burnout in the US (+ Canada). Germany, the UK, Sweden, etc all have much, much better working conditions for software devs and their jobs aren't going away

This is not my experience. Overseas devs have only gotten better and more tightly aligned with the west in the past 10 years. The idea of throwing your work over then fence to the cheapest jurisidiction may have died but there are significant cost savings in going overseas, especially as westerners get more expensive and remote work grows

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#107

Post by skeeter2020 » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

dukeyukey wrote: post #60

giantg2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear that many of the European countries have lower dev salaries than the US. So maybe better conditions, but possibly lower pay. Our company just started outsourcing IT 5 years ago. It's still expanding that policy.

> I hear that many of the European countries have lower dev salaries than the US. So maybe better conditions, but possibly lower pay. While arguably true, it's almost definitely not better conditions to blame. A more likely source is the massive and relatively homogenous US market, a culture open to immigration, and the huge reserves of capital sloshing about the country.

the significantly higher direct and indirect taxes are definitely related though

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#108

Post by maximus-decimus » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

frontman1988 wrote: post #80

I would rather have a 6 day work week with 2 months of paid holidays every year. There isn't much you can do on a 3 day break that you can't do in a 1 day or 2 day break. But a month long break and you can do crazy stuff like hiking in Papua New Guinea or sailing across an ocean.

What you can do with 3 days per week instead of a month per year is to set good habbits. Fit a sport into your schedule, learn music. Anything requiring discipline is gonna be much easier if you're able to build a daily/weekly schedule around it.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#109

Post by ska » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

twalla wrote: post #83

austinl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the company I work for shuts our offices down from the 24th to the 2nd. Engineers submit availability for on-call schedules, and get a gift card for each on-call day they're responsible for. I feel very spoiled, but I think this is generally a trend amongst west-coast tech companies? I've had a similar experience at previous places, and it seemed like the rationale for the holiday…

The real rationale is to remove a metric shitton of accrued PTO from their books if paying out PTO on employee departure is something the company does.

In my experience xmas to NY holiday shutdowns are more likely to not come out of individual PTO, but I'm sure this varies.

We do something like this now, and the rationale is that it's a positive experience for the staff, gives everyone a bit of a break, and you only "lose" days that nobody was very focused in anyway.

Re: Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

#110

Post by tombert » Wed, Dec 01, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

My dad, my sister, and sister in law all work for Lockheed Martin and they do the 4-10 schedule: 4 days a week, ten hours a day, and they get every Friday off.

I'm a little jealous of it, honestly; it's pretty rare that I work less than ten hours a day anyway, so I think economically it would be better for me.