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Is the four-day workweek finally within our grasp?

nytimes.com

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

#261

Post by akiselev »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #236
wayoutthere wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd employ a contractor who has to itemize their invoice. As a contractor, I would just charge you for the time it takes to itemize an invoice while I do it sitting on a call for another job I’m also billing for. And I would be very thorough with my itemization so you know exactly what you’re getting… The non-itemized invoice is free. We can argue over contract terms if you want to or come to an arrangement if you…

Here's what my invoice looks like for today 0.5hr chats, code reviews, time-audit 1.25hr Bug#12345 ... So I have captured the ~15 minutes I spent itemizing/cleaning up my invoice for the past day or two in a "time-audit"/misc line item. "very thorough with my itemization" implying you'll just over bill your customer because they have the nerve to have you professionally account for your time ? "tipped the balance of…

I think the GP just hasn't discovered the magic of the "minimum billable increment" yet. Lawyers love this trick! Customer wants you to itemize the bill? No problem - it comes with a 15 minute minimum billable increment. The more demanding/PITA the client is, the longer the minimum.

Send me a text a minute after I've finished working for the day to check on the status and it takes me a minute to read and reply? No problem, I just billed the client for 15 minutes. Takes them 15 minutes to come up with and send a response that I need to respond to ASAP? Another 15 minutes billed. Want me to spend 3 minutes at the end of the day itemizing the bill? Perfect, that's another 15 minutes billed!

The more granular the itemizing, the more opportunity to shove the minimum billable increment in their face. Called me for a two minute chat while I'm in the zone on their project? Gotta itemize it! 15 minutes billed and I restart the work (out of the zone) at the top of the next interval.

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

#262

Post by throwaway6734 »

dboreham wrote: post #86
throwaway803453 wrote: post #27

FWH has exposed how many white-collar jobs were only full-time in the ass-in-seat sense and how many employees should have Professional Meeting Attender as their job title. I used to be the guy who would champion efficient meeting practices. Now it's the last thing I want given that I can now work-out, make breakfast, do manual labor, etc., while listening to meeting. 4 day work week in grasp you ask ? For many I'd b…

The true killer feature for the remote tech stack would be to attend more than one meeting concurrently.

You can do this on zoom although

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

#263

Post by mlyle »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #178
trcarney wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are building your skills while you are working. If you can find time outside of work, you are just accelerating things.

You sound like someone who has never worked a minimum wage job. None of the skills you learn in these low end jobs is ever going to help you do anything but work similar low end jobs. I put myself through three associates degrees cleaning cars for a rental company. You know what that taught me? How to clean a car interior in 5-15 minutes. That's not exactly the most marketable of skills. Fortunately that wasn't parti…

> You sound like someone who has never worked a minimum wage job

Nah. He sounds like someone with class and privilege who's worked a minimum wage job.

See, a minimum wage job for someone who is a privileged youth-- is a good way to learn the last little bit of organization, focus, "eye on the ball", working with a supervisor, attention to detail skills-- that will serve them the rest of their life. It's a great skill building opportunity.

For someone who's been stuck in it 3 years--- well, it's exhausted all of its value in those respects by this point.

People who are scared of the minimum wage going up are often worried that it's going to squeeze out kids from getting these first work experiences. And it's a valid concern. But the people who spend their lives stuck in those jobs are invisible to them.

I personally favor shortening the work week because I think it will increase the compensation associated with low skill labor; provide additional incentives for employers to ramp people into higher skill positions; and leave room for kids in low skill jobs.

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

#264

Post by FredPret »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #27

FWH has exposed how many white-collar jobs were only full-time in the ass-in-seat sense and how many employees should have Professional Meeting Attender as their job title. I used to be the guy who would champion efficient meeting practices. Now it's the last thing I want given that I can now work-out, make breakfast, do manual labor, etc., while listening to meeting. 4 day work week in grasp you ask ? For many I'd b…

I went from a corporate job to bill-by-the-hour consulting.

The volume of work I have to get done in 40 hours has roughly multiplied by ten since I now have to justify every hour spent.

It’s pretty easy to ten times almost-nothing though!

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

#265

Post by cm2012 »

irrational wrote: post #212

My company typically gives everyone half days on Fridays from Memorial Day to Labor Day (and most people only put in a token amount of work - if that - on those Fridays - no meetings are allowed to be scheduled on any Friday of the year). This year, in addition to that, they gave everyone every Friday off for the month of July. And... the company still functioned just fine. We run on sprints and we finished just as m…

No code changes from Nov to Jan seems crazy to me. But if it works good for you guys.

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

#266

Post by AstroDogCatcher »

akiselev wrote: post #261
throwaway803453 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what my invoice looks like for today 0.5hr chats, code reviews, time-audit 1.25hr Bug#12345 ... So I have captured the ~15 minutes I spent itemizing/cleaning up my invoice for the past day or two in a "time-audit"/misc line item. "very thorough with my itemization" implying you'll just over bill your customer because they have the nerve to have you professionally account for your time ? "tipped the balance of…

I think the GP just hasn't discovered the magic of the "minimum billable increment" yet. Lawyers love this trick! Customer wants you to itemize the bill? No problem - it comes with a 15 minute minimum billable increment. The more demanding/PITA the client is, the longer the minimum. Send me a text a minute after I've finished working for the day to check on the status and it takes me a minute to read and reply? No pr…

I'm a regular employee but at a professional services org - you basically described how I generate my timesheets.

The main difference is that at the end of the day I try to just stop when I have "enough" hours, since I don't get paid for overtime like I would as a contractor.

To the original topic: roughly 40% of my week is wasted on pointless meetings or inter-meeting dead time. The other time is roughly equally split between useful meetings, actual work, and admin or training tasks.

The issue with the pointless meetings is that they are generally a series, where one 10-minute slot out of every four one-hour meetings is genuinely useful - but you don't know in advance when that slot will occur. The other kind of pointless meetings generally involve customers who are unprepared.

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

#267

Post by anonAndOn »

mlyle wrote: post #224
anonAndOn wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I pay you more than I have to if I know you're desperate and have few (or none) other options? Mind if I pay you in scrip?

I don't believe in your good faith desire to discuss. I've said above I believe there should be a minimum wage, but that it's a crappy lever for the groups that you describe and that there are better ones for different subgroups (social safety nets, reducing the supply of labor by shortening work week). Instead, I get a bunch of strawmen that have nothing to do with what I said.

You've presented a group home as a possible solution for the severely mentally handicapped. Presumably great for the few who can get it.

What you have not addressed is the extreme imbalance in power for many employers at the expense of employees. If there is no floor on what someone can get away with paying, then it is reasonable to expect the marginalized or powerless to be fully taken advantage of. Even today, some employers try to get away with not paying by having employees work "off the clock". At least with the minimum wage, litigious employees can eventually expect something for their lost time.

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

#269

Post by meetingthrower »

throwaway803453 wrote: post #27

FWH has exposed how many white-collar jobs were only full-time in the ass-in-seat sense and how many employees should have Professional Meeting Attender as their job title. I used to be the guy who would champion efficient meeting practices. Now it's the last thing I want given that I can now work-out, make breakfast, do manual labor, etc., while listening to meeting. 4 day work week in grasp you ask ? For many I'd b…

I started a management consulting job during pandemic, and quickly realized that this Big 4 firm did nothing but meetings. I had my assistant color code any non client meeting with more than 10 people.

Very quickly I got 15-20 hours a week back.

(And my hourly billing rate was in the 4 figures.)

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

#270

Post by throwaway39203 »

welshwelsh wrote: post #242
throwaway803453 wrote: post #27

FWH has exposed how many white-collar jobs were only full-time in the ass-in-seat sense and how many employees should have Professional Meeting Attender as their job title. I used to be the guy who would champion efficient meeting practices. Now it's the last thing I want given that I can now work-out, make breakfast, do manual labor, etc., while listening to meeting. 4 day work week in grasp you ask ? For many I'd b…

>I'd never hire a full time employee who can work remotely. I'd employ a contractor who has to itemize their invoice. That's not going to save you any money though. A FT developer who makes $75 an hour only accepts that pay because it's closer to $300/hr in practice (if you only count the hours they are actually productive, which maxes out at 2-3 per day for knowledge work). A freelance developer of similar skill, wh…

Time spent tethered to the computer or in the office looking busy isn't as valuable as real free time though, assuming this fully efficient job market a given dev might take $300 for real work + busywork or $250 for just the actual work
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