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A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

nytimes.com

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Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#71

Post by gommm »

djpr wrote: post #50
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally find my weekends a bit exhausting because of my 5 year old, and get to relax at just doing my professional job on Monday when he is back to school. I fear that 3 day weekends every week (since we shouldn’t leave day care workers and teachers out of this) would be the end of me. I’m sure my perspective will change after we are out of the needy kid stage, but even before my son was born, I liked working (I…

I've got a toddler and already work 4 days week (Friday off). Daycare is 5 days a week, so it's great to have Fridays free to work on my side projects, read, go on small hikes - and when my wife is free - we take long lunches together etc. As long as daycare / schooling remains 5 days a week, I think 4 days a week of work for parents is a fantastic idea.

I was going to comment on that, I'd love to have a 3 days weekend but only if one of those weekends was to reconnect with my wife without the toddler.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#72

Post by bigDinosaur »

joe_fishfish wrote: post #53
bigDinosaur wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how the most honest groups of people with respect to the purpose of schooling is parents with young kids. Basically what you want is daycare and it just so happens that school fulfills that on Monday. Not judging, I think that's a very common perspective, but amused.

I guess it's amusing to you because you don't have children.

I think wanting daycare is totally reasonable though. I just think it'd be nicer if it didn't have to be school. Traditionally, multigenerational households would have helped with child rearing but now it's often pretty much entirely on the shoulders of the parents which I know would be extremely draining.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#73

Post by gommm »

hapiri wrote: post #56
jokethrowaway wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people, me included, (males and/or high performance in particular) care more about things than people and will find extremely tiring to talk to people or take care or their kids. Coding doesn't tire me, dealing with kids does. There are people who have the opposite experience and people who feel ok with both. This idea that parents should uniquely and equally be caretaker for their kids is absolutely agains…

Mandated paternity leaves is to provide an equal part contributions towards children for both the mother and the father. Otherwise the mother take most of the hit ( as evidence in countries without it ).

It's also to create gender equality in the work place. If there's only maternity leave then hiring a woman of childbearing age has a higher risk for an employer than hiring a man. This leads to discrimination in the workplace with women having lower salaries, less access to interesting projects etc.. because the thinking goes that she is likely to become pregnant and have maternity leave.

In countries where men have mandatory paternity leaves that are significant this imbalance is greatly reduced.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#74

Post by chrismatheson »

paulpauper wrote: post #14

Also a lot of jobs have enough flex hours and vacation that it's close enough to 4 days/week anyway. The downside of shorter workweeks is it may cause a loss of productivity at the endpoints of the week. For example, there is often a marked slowdown on the Thursdays and Mondays before and after 3-day weekends. So you are not just losing an extra day but more like 1.5 days due to slowdowns and loss of productivity.

Not that I disagree with what your saying, for me however there is a difference between feeling like your "skiving" and having real time off.

I may duck out a bit sooner than 5pm on a Friday afternoon, but its not the same as taking Friday and going for a walk somewhere with no reception sort of thing.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#75

Post by bobsmooth »

donatj wrote: post #38
brokenmachine wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us have a life and interests outside work.

That sounds like a recipe for disappointment.

What a soul-crushing outlook on life. I work a 3 day week and I've never been happier.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#76

Post by bobsmooth »

srb24 wrote: post #48

Nice for employees but most succesful Hackers/entrepreneurs I know work 6-7 days a week. Availability is often key rather than actual total hours worked.

Unless I have a big a chunk of equity I'm working for a paycheck, not the company. I know the sacrifices entrepreneurs make: no thank you. Unless you want communism where everyone has equity.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#77

Post by concordDance »

sofixa wrote: post #60
xyzzyz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also why the “remote learning” during Covid was such an infuriating joke: the main purpose of schooling (which is daycare) was destroyed, and the learning was marginal at best. This is all while the elementary school children were at no risk from the disease, and while plenty of other “essential workers” were busy working their jobs in person. What a joke.

> This is all while the elementary school children were at no risk from the disease First, that's untrue: https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/ Of course it's not even close to the death rate in adults, especially older ones, thankfully, but it isn't "no risk". Second, the main reason for school closures was that the kids, even if there's very little risk for them, can transmit the disease to family…

That link is a very complicated one that could mislead people due to the first numbers they see. The number of direct deaths of under 10s in developed countries who did not suffer from a serious congenital condition is essentially 0 (e.g. in the UK about 1 in 20k deaths were of a child under 10 and as far as I know they all had serious health conditions).

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#78

Post by semi-extrinsic »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #37
rektide wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really just want escape from life, then maybe more personal time is bad & lots of work time is good. But I'd hope that for many parents, having a day with neither work nor childcare might be an opportunity, might be appreciated, might be a time, finally, where you can rediscover & do some you.

I love spending time with my kid, but it really is hard work. Taking care of my kid is my real job, the one I work for money is much easier to do. Weekends are exhausting, not really about rest, the week is much more relaxed. Many parents would say similar, is that surprising? Daycare is great for the kid. The teachers can provide much more attention and direction on things that I simply can’t, and he really gets a l…

Semi-off-topic, but did you try taking your kid to play ice hockey? It is one of the best sports for kids that have a lot of energy and need to shake it off. And they have so much padding it is really safe. Where I live we have lots of 5-6 year olds (and a few 3-4 year olds) who really enjoy it. Usually clubs have old kids equipment that you can borrow for the first couple of months while you try it out.

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#79

Post by Termitiono »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #41
rektide wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really just want escape from life, then maybe more personal time is bad & lots of work time is good. But I'd hope that for many parents, having a day with neither work nor childcare might be an opportunity, might be appreciated, might be a time, finally, where you can rediscover & do some you.

Plenty of people, me included, (males and/or high performance in particular) care more about things than people and will find extremely tiring to talk to people or take care or their kids. Coding doesn't tire me, dealing with kids does. There are people who have the opposite experience and people who feel ok with both. This idea that parents should uniquely and equally be caretaker for their kids is absolutely agains…

Holy shit. Your motivation to spend time with your kid sounds terrible.

You could actually spend time on thinking what you could do with your kids.

Why did you get kids in the first place?

Re: A six-month program in Britain will assess the effects of a shorter workweek

#80

Post by DocTomoe »

kule wrote: post #70
jen729w wrote: post #3

Some time last year I stopped working Mondays. I’m a contractor and I know my boss well, so I just said that I didn’t want to work Mondays any more. The difference is remarkable. You go from spending three quarters of your days at work to just over half. The weekend is actually relaxing. You can do chores, relax, and really unwind before the work week starts again. We use Mondays to work on our side projects. You can…

I see a lot of people go for Monday or Friday when going down to 4 days a week. There's definitely some advantages to that, however as an alternative suggestion I prefer Wednesdays off. I find even in the best jobs, there's a general level of stress that builds up at work over consecutive days. There's a great feeling being a bit stressed on Tuesday and thinking "ah it's ok I've got tomorrow off". It's like that "Fri…

A short exploration of that concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw
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