In the Netherlands (Europe), where I reside there are plenty of jobs offering 36 or 32 hours. I think most employers are ok with it since they often also work 36 or 32 hrs. Quite a lot of people share the 'load' of bringing up a family, taking care of parents or sick family members & basic house chores & therefor will (have to) work a bit less than 40hrs.
Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
181–190 of 271 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely not. I would live in a beach house, and I would indeed spend many hours laying in the sand, swimming in the ocean, etc. But I wouldn't literally spend the entire rest of my life doing nothing else at all. There would be socializing with friends and family, traveling, and taking care of my affairs. I would also spend plenty of time on hobbies of all sorts. The key is that I would be living a life of complet…
So this life of total leisure is the thing we all want, and it is for that reason the capitalist system seems to work. Someone has to provide the labor that allows you to continue in a life of leisure.
Society doesn't require many people to work to sustain itself (we have the recent example of the pandemic). If we could enjoy for a while what we have built until this current moment, without inventing or creating anything new, how much time will it take for society to collapse?
Animals live a life of leisure without much work, and they don't have the infrastructure that we as humans have. They don't collapse.
How much work is essential in a society? Medical, agriculture, logistics? If we stopped creating new hardware or software for a few years, how much impact will that have on society? I would want to run a test to see the results.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
You wouldn’t get tired of the beach if you went every day?
Absolutely not. I would live in a beach house, and I would indeed spend many hours laying in the sand, swimming in the ocean, etc. But I wouldn't literally spend the entire rest of my life doing nothing else at all. There would be socializing with friends and family, traveling, and taking care of my affairs. I would also spend plenty of time on hobbies of all sorts. The key is that I would be living a life of complet…
>> I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal.
Given your profession, a capitalist society is by far the most likely way for you to get what you want. What do socialist-type EU countries pay software engineers again compared to the United States? How much money do you need to save to achieve your dream? The US is without question the best country to chase that goal.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#184My former employer mandated that everyone took days off every Friday of July. I happen to live ~2 hours away from the see and 10 minutes away from the lake and in a area with a lot of hiking to do, so that was cool. Still, I can’t picture myself doing it all year around… maybe because I don’t have kids… I would prefer a shorter workday Also, Friday off, but that it taken out of your own paid leave days!! I guess this…
Yeah that’s really not the vibe! That’s just stingy by your old boss. In NZ, loads of professional firms shut down over Xmas as it’s summer. They basically make their staff take at least two weeks leave over this time because there’s no provision in employment law to force them to find work for people who don’t want to holiday then. My wife was a lawyer so she got caught up in this, used to annoy the shit out of me b…
Most Italian companies do this for Christmas/new years eve, but also for “Ferragosto” 15th of august, some mandating even 2 weeks off!!
Italy, as a whole is basically completely shut off during the central weeks in august, with hotel prices easily doubling July prices… go figure out why hahaah
By law, there’s generally 4 weeks go paid leave, and the unwritten agreement is that the employer peeks 2 of them for you…
Tech companies generally dont do this, maybe to feel more international and modern
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#185When my kid was born I wanted to have a day off with her every week, so I just asked for 36 hours so I could work 4x9. I was so used to working 40 hours I thought the jump to 32 would be too much. How wrong I was haha.. 4x9 with a kid is not doable unless your partner can also be flexible. Asked to go down to 32 hours, was asked if I could hold on for a month since a new engineer was joining and said OK.
The cut in salary is 100% worth it to spend a day with my daughter. I feel happier.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#186I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…
Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…
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Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#187I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…
Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…
What if I'm confident that I can convince you my 32 hrs are worth just as much or even more than s.o. else's 40 hrs though?
I as an applicant would also not want to be ruled out only based on that, I would want to have a chance to present my own full offer to you as well.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#188I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…
Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…
> Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours, thats another topic)
But that is the point.
If someone believes they can do a full-time workload in 4 days, how else should they approach this in a way that works?
Put another way: How many employers, do you estimate, would not even do an interview with someone if they knew they wanted to do 4 days? How would you, as a recruiter, figure out a candidate is capable of that? How would you pitch them candidate to an employer looking for full-time?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#189I started at 24 hours a week and they negotiated me up to 32. :)
Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
#190I did a 4 day week experiment couple years back. I used the leave time to book every Friday through upcoming four months. I loved the experiment a lot. It's not only an extra day you get (50% increase in free time) but also an extra night (100% increase!). Saturdays sometimes felt like "Sundays" and it was good to remind myself there's a whole extra day to live life.
When I asked to make 4-day week a thing, at least for me, the request was rejected. The reasoning had to do with "synergy" in a team and lack of much overlap in a remote team. Example I was given: if everyone started taking 4-day weeks it might be that Bob has Mondays off, Kate is off on Wednesday, and I would be out on Friday. Fair enough.
We are trialing a longer (2-3 moths at a time)time offs. Hopefully the experiment sticks. Having loads of free time is the best!