331–340 of 364 posts
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.
Please people, step out of your USA bubble. I (Dutch guy) haven't had a more than 4 day workweek in the last 20 years. It is _your_ choice to "work" 5 days. The 40 hour workweek wasn't created for the worker's benefit, it was created because the owner of the factory saw that that was the most efficient. Paying people to work longer didn't give him benefit.
My company switched to 4-day workweeks at the beginning of 2021[0]. I can't imagine we'll ever go back. I guess it's one of the advantages of running a bootstrapped company with no VCs breathing down your neck... [0] https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/how-we-switched-to-4-day-we...
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I did the exact same thing. It was amazing and well worth the 4/5ths pay. My mental health was improved and the only thing that made me eventually leave was that i was offered 3x the pay to work at a FAANG. Startups trying to compete for talent should probably take note of the fact that it took 3x more pay for them to poach staff, not 20% more. I'm not saying you'll get away with paying 3x less but you also won't hav…
where can one find such 4-day work week jobs? Jobs listed on most portals are either full-time or part-time (contract basis)
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…
According to The Atlantic, religion started the weekend/5 day workweek, not the IWW. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-t... In fact, I cannot find any source at all that says the IWW caused the weekend.
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.
> I have 15 days off every 20 days instead of 8 Wait, what? How does working one day less a week get you to 15 days off?
15 days off / 20 days worked (5 weeks of 4 day workweeks)
8 days off / 20 days worked (4 weeks of 5 day workweeks)
Another way of saying it would be: in a 4 day work week you have 4/3 (1.33) ratio of work days to days off whereas in a traditional workweek is 5/2 (2.5). So although it is just one day it dramatically shifts the balance between work and time off.
My main worry about doing this personally is that it would be a form of "golden handcuffs". I'm pretty sure I could persuade my current employer to let me do a 4-day week (for a pay cut), but I'm also sure making that a negotiating point for future jobs would be problematic (at least while a 4-day week isn't standard or widespread). Also, money.
My current (and hope to stay a very long time) job is 4-day week, and so were my last 2 before that. Its easy to negotiate in my experience. The thing is, most people simply don't ask. Maybe they're scared it makes them look not committed or something. But that's easy to fix by cranking out decent work for the 4 days you're there. Its probably harder if you have line management responsibility or some other expectatio…
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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.
Consulting is a relationship business. You’ll make way more money focusing on the people rather than the work. You can cover up sloppy execution with a good relationship, but stellar execution won’t save a project where you fuck up the client relationship.
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Is it far in excess of minimum wage? A manager can be asked to be on call 24/7. But per hour, that is not much. I don’t see what it would have to do with contractors. Minimum wage laws apply to employer employer relationships. Independent contractors can charge whatever they want.
> Is it far in excess of minimum wage? A manager can be asked to be on call 24/7. But per hour, that is not much. So you want to pay someone for every hour they might get called, too? Even if that is a very rare responsibility? > I don’t see what it would have to do with contractors. It would further encourage contractor relationships, as I said. I don't see this as a good thing.
It will not encourage contractor relationships anymore than now, it will simply require businesses to pay the hourly workers more and give them steady schedules, benefits, etc.
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The stealth taxation of inflation affects the lowest 30 in the 100 the most in order to pay the lowest 10. The change in purchase power is not like taxing everyone $1. Whether it’s like taxing on a sliding scale from low to high income that is $1 to $.5 or $1 to $0, I don’t know, just $1 across the board isn’t right. There are probably second order confounders as well, for example since federal gas ax is not inflatio…
$1 across the board is, indeed, not right. In reality, people higher up on the wealth scale would pay more (as they consume more goods and services - just not 1:1 proportionately more.)
U.S. households with higher incomes spend more money on food, but the amount spent represents a smaller overall portion of their budgets. In 2020, households in the lowest income quintile spent an average of $4,099 on food (representing 27 percent of income), while households in the highest income quintile spent an average of $12,245 on food (representing 7 percent of income).
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...