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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

#151

Post by techdmn »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #72
joe_fishfish wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. As a parent, I both want my kids to learn, and I want care for them so I can work. I think if we were more honest about both these needs, we could do better at both. I have seen a certain mania that schools are only for education, and it leads to crazy things like expecting five year olds to spend 45 minutes per day writing, or otherwise asking kids to sit and learn for a lot more of the day than they can really tolerate - as opposed to more outside time, more play time, more movement. It's ok to be a school and a daycare!

Semi-related, I know I'm responsible for deciding to have kids, but the ongoing functioning of society relies on a continuous supply of people to keep it running. I sure hope some people are still working after I retire! It would be nice if the U.S. could support parents more than we currently do.

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

#152

Post by llimos »

It was recently reported that Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, wanted to rein in wage growth. Encouraging part-time work is surely the best way to achieve that. Many people will be happy to accept shorter hours in place of a raise, which will have the desired effect of slowing down inflation without harming the workers.

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

sofixa wrote: post #61
egourlao wrote: post #18

Besides the benefits or drawbacks of the 4-day workweek on its merits, it's worth remembering that behind the headlines such as "$COUNTRY tests $SOCIAL_CHANGE", it's usually some entity in $COUNTRY on a mission rather than an organization that's representative of the opinions of its population. Same thing has been happening with Scandinavian countries too – there's always a rotating cast of Sweden, Finland and Norway…

Minor nitpick - Finland is not a part of Scandinavia, which is a cultural/historical/linguistic concept, and is generally understood to mean Denmark, Sweden, Norway. If you want to include Finland, which is quite different linguistically historically, and to a lesser extent culturally , the correct term is Nordics. As for the main point in your comment, yes and no. In Finland for instance, the UBI pilot was an offici…

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by khazhoux »

blamazon wrote: post #141
khazhoux wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting to account for sleep time, time to eat, and at least one bathroom break a day.

Yes, I was sarcastically pointing out that working oneself to death is not a competitive advantage.

Yes, and I was sarcastically replying to you in earnest ;-)

But I think you're making a slippery-slope argument. We're not actually talking about increasing the workweek, but whether to shorten it. In fact, there is simply no denying that there is a non-zero correlation between productivity and # hours worked, so finding the right balance is key.

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

#155

Post by khazhoux »

ramblerman wrote: post #116
khazhoux wrote: post #97

I love a three-day weekend as much as the next guy, but I don't understand how people are pushing for shorter workweeks, and even for universal basic income, meanwhile all the Starbucks near me close at 7pm because they're short-staffed. And restaurants and grocery stores and everywhere you look, there's still a labor shortage.

It's a bit disingenuous to conflate working less or part-time with universal basic income. The first can be done by choice for some people, and doesn't always imply government subsidy. Also why pick 4 days as being closer to UBI, when you could make the same argument about 5 days vs 6.

I don't think it's disingenuous at all. They both have in common the fairly-recent idea that it's time to work less: whether a shorter week for the same pay, or in the case of UBI you get money for no work at all. These two are not the same, but they're in the same space of recent re-examinations of the relationship between work and money.

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

#156

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

yakubin wrote: post #104
CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me like you actually don't want to be a parent?

To me it seems he doesn't like spending time with toddlers. It's a big jump from here to conclude that he doesn't want to be a parent. Toddlerhood is just a temporary state.

He literally said he cares more about things than people and his parental leave was a nightmare. To me it seems he just hates toddlers more than other people.

But even if what you say is true I'd still say he doesn't want to be a parent. You don't pick and choose with parenthood.

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

#158

Post by seanmcdirmid »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #156
yakubin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems he doesn't like spending time with toddlers. It's a big jump from here to conclude that he doesn't want to be a parent. Toddlerhood is just a temporary state.

He literally said he cares more about things than people and his parental leave was a nightmare. To me it seems he just hates toddlers more than other people. But even if what you say is true I'd still say he doesn't want to be a parent. You don't pick and choose with parenthood.

Many new parents always go through some depression when their first kid is just born, the life changes are drastic and sacrifices have to be made. My wife got hit with more of this than me, so I took a couple of years off of work to take care of our (then) baby so she could go back to work earlier (she just moved to the USA and was unemployed, and I just got laid off from YCR, so we got to make a choice). Always got to look out for the mental health of your partner, and judging isn’t very useful.

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

#159

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

_fat_santa wrote: post #134

I've worked for a number of tech companies in the US and many of them could easily move to a 4 day workweek. Reason I say that is at every place, there was a culture of slacking off on a Friday. Not in an overt way but you could tell, meetings wouldn't be scheduled after 10AM on Friday, any meeting would be short and sweet. Any longer meetings would be pushed off to Monday. Slack is usually pretty quiet, and the gree…

This has been my experience as well, but during busier periods people do actually work full days on Fridays. It might only add up to a few weeks per year.

This is much better than the alternative, though (working on weekends a few weeks a year).

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

#160

Post by nickd2001 »

Tycho wrote: post #157

Careers are about opportunity. Come into the office less, and you’ll come across fewer opportunities. As someone said, “eighty percent of success is just showing up.”

I'd argue the tech industry provides enough good opportunities that its worth going for better quality of life from WFH and 4 day weeks without worrying what one loses by not being in the office every day. The more people that do WFH or 4 days, the less anyone is hurt if not physically there every day, so this opportunity cost diminishes. So we should encourage our coworkers to do the same :). Also consider that you might perform more impressively in your work if you've had lower stress from WFH/4 days, and that could get noticed too by your boss.
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