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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?

#281

Post by taneq »

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…

> (if you only count the hours they are actually productive, which maxes out at 2-3 per day for knowledge work).

What's "productive", though? Typing at a keyboard? For creative knowledge work (like designing stuff, not answering technical email queries) sometimes the back of your mind just needs time to chew on something.

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

#282

Post by theideaofcoffee »

cm2012 wrote: post #265
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.

This is pretty standard for organizations that see a large portion of their revenue during those months. This is especially important for ecommerce-like shopping around the US holidays, for instance. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and every intervening day between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year's holidays.

No daily/sprint code changes, release management, emergency approvals and the like. It works pretty well, no major outages and the site kept taking orders.

Source: worked on high-traffic e-commerce infrastructure around US Black Fridays/Cyber Monday shopping days.

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

#283

Post by zffr »

mjfl wrote: post #277

I've been looking for a job where I'd only have to work 3 days per week. Then my life would be only 3/7 work and 4/7 rest, which would be great for my work life balance. I also prefer a bay area salary, because of my high rental costs. Does anyone know where I could find such a job?

Build a low maintenance business that generates a profit higher than a Bay Area salary and requires less than 3 full days to keep it going.

Here’s an example: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/22807858/tiktok-influe...

The founder makes >100k per month as mostly passive income.

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

#284

Post by taneq »

The problem with this idea (and don't get me wrong, I love the idea!) is that as automation takes away the busywork, what's left requires an increasing amount of specialized domain-specific knowledge, and this kind of knowledge is expensive. Finding someone good with the right broad skillset is hard enough. Then they also need just the right combination of experience, or extensive on the job training, to be useful in the role. And once you have the right person with the right knowledge, they then need a lot of knowledge about the specific project they're working on, which also costs time and money for them to acquire.

Also as your hours worked per worker goes down, the number of workers goes up, and your communication and coordination costs for a project are at least quadratic in the number of workers on that project.

As a consequence, it costs more than twice as much to run a project with two half-time workers as it does to run the same project with one full-time worker.

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

#285

Post by ElijahLynn »

mmlkrx wrote: post #51

I have both worked 32 hours per week over 5 work days, as well as 28 hours over 4 work days. While they both have their merits, I found working 4 days better for my work life balance. I typically work on creative projects on Fridays or run errands. This frees up my weekend and I feel very rested returning to work on Monday --even during stressful times. Strangely, working on a different cycle than most of my co-worke…

I think most people here likely don't have a NYTimes subscription so it is likely most are just discussing the headline as well.

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

#286

Post by icedchai »

mrweasel wrote: post #68
icedchai wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and everyone else "working from home."

You joke, I assume. My boss was notoriously against working from home. COVID proved him VERY wrong. People where just as effective, if not more. They where much more flexible with customer. It doesn't matter that a client ask you to say a bit longer, if you're already home and have everything set up.

Most people I know never worked 5 days a week. They just pretended. Now they don't have to pretend as much (as long as that little Slack dot stays green!)

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

#287

Post by eadz »

mrtranscendence wrote: post #56
seniorsassycat wrote: post #46

I've been working 4 days a week, 32 hours, for 4 years and I will never go back. It has made me hesitant to look for other work, I'm not sure if get the same deal, but so far I'm happy where I am. As others have said the ratios are awesome. I have 15 days off every 20 days instead of 8. For a 20% pay cut, while getting full benefits.

For my geographical area, I get paid what feels like a very good salary (enough that I no longer have to worry about money at all). If my company said “hey, we’ll pay you half as much and you only have to work 20 hours a week” I’d take it in a heartbeat, even though I’d have to start being more careful with money. Sadly, I don’t see that offer ever coming, even though I could totally do my job in half as much time wi…

I think a lot are in the same boat.

Is Job-Sharing a potential solution?

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

#289

Post by Animats »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #252
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 a knee-jerk reaction that you probably already know has some serious problems ;) People who are working 40 hours a week have no capacity to take on some important task with no notice unless they go past 40 hours a week. Which generally doesn't cost any extra money. Hiring a contractor to work…

People who are working 40 hours a week have no capacity to take on some important task with no notice unless they go past 40 hours a week. Which generally doesn't cost any extra money.

Which is the problem. What we need is overtime for all. Time and a half after 8 hours in a day. Time and a half after 40 hours in a week. Time and a half after 5 days in a week. Double time on Sunday. Minimum of 4 hours of pay per workday or if called in. Those factors multiply. That's not at all unusual in union shops.

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

#290

Post by jacquesm »

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…

> 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.

That's double billing and afaik illegal, you can not (and rightly so) bill your customer twice for the same time.

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