Good.
If civilization isn't moving to improve quality of life, but to make sure that we keep working more and more, we have to ask ourselves what exactly is the point of technological progress.
World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
21–30 of 368 posts
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#22I would welcome this, but won't skeptics say that remote work was also touted as a huge benefit and companies are now looking to go back to office? I can see the same thing happening with 4 day work week.
> won't skeptics say that remote work was also touted as a huge benefit and companies are now looking to go back to office?
These are not mutually exclusive concepts. It isn't like companies don't routinely make bad decisions despite plenty of evidence that it is the bad decision.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#23I don't like the Four Day Work Week because most of the people who are allowed to experiment with it are working on bullshit. I'm not a big Graeber fan, but I emphatically agree with his idea that the majority of actual hours worked inside the continental US are largely useless make-work in order to justify the existence of a monied consumer class. Such a huge amount of the actual work that needs to be done so that w…
Thought-work is work. Logistical planning is work. Having conversations where everyone makes sure that the others are on the same page, is work.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#24I don't like the Four Day Work Week because most of the people who are allowed to experiment with it are working on bullshit. I'm not a big Graeber fan, but I emphatically agree with his idea that the majority of actual hours worked inside the continental US are largely useless make-work in order to justify the existence of a monied consumer class. Such a huge amount of the actual work that needs to be done so that w…
Thought-work is work. Logistical planning is work. Having conversations where everyone makes sure that the others are on the same page, is work.
Whether or not something is 'work' has no bearing on whether or not it's bullshit. I am in perfect agreement that one hour of useful work requires many hours of equally useful thought-work.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#25Why would they want to return? One you do an “upgrade” in your life, i.e. like remote work, quality family time, it’s difficult/impossible to go back. The same is true for many other life “upgrades” like fiber internet connection, smart devices, smartphones, color TVs and so on
Some people might actually like working for its own sake, just as some truly prefer going into the office despite the tradeoffs.
I am not one of those people. lol
Not that I don't have a constant drive to do something, of course. I just wouldn't engage in surrogate work in order to feel like I'm worth something.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usual counterpoint is that you're not being paid just for the things you get done, but also for availability - for being there when there's a need to handle something unexpected. This has real value to a business, so you being available for 80% of the time justifies some degree of pay cut.
Maybe for some jobs. But for the majority of software jobs? Not really.
It depends. There are some people who bring a lot of value by just being there to answer the occasional questions. When I'm oncall and I know that some colleagues are on vacation, I'm definitely more tense. In an ideal world, knowledge would be spread within the team, but with turnover it's hard to reach and maintain that state.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#27When was a mathematician, I worked as hard as I could until I was mentally exhausted. I actually calculated how much I worked per week over a period of two years. On actual "hard thinking", like working through logic, I spent about 7 hours. There was another 7 hours writing and clarifying topics, and another 6 hours or so on classes, seminars (sort of like meetings, but productive). That gives a total of 20 hours per…
I read somewhere that the 9-5 workweek was first implemented before the emancipation of women. whether it’s true or not I do not know, but it’s an interesting artifact to consider
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#28It's the one thing I miss most from working for Dutch companies: being able to take a 20% pay cut and work 20% less.
Theoretically, that should be a great deal for my employer: the extra rest, and just the way productive work is usually spread out across the week, means that my productivity definitely was not down 20% compared to now, so I was cheaper per hour.
Yet even that culturally seems to be a hard sell in a majority-North American org, let alone keeping pay the same. Shame.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#29I've had 4 day workweeks at two different times in my career. Once in my 20s, when I worked 10 hours days to get an extra day off. Didn't matter since I worked close to that anyway, and often more. The day off was flexible, so I chose Wednesday whenever possible. Two "weeks" of two days each worked great for me. Best schedule I ever had.
Another place, the salary was slightly lower (but not much due to the way they did levels), but the tradeoff was worth it. This was near the end of my time working for other people, so I was honestly on my way out anyway.
I think it's hard to make an entire company work on a 4 day schedule if you're interfacing with clients and so on. Or do the thing where half are off Monday, half off Friday.
Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back
#30It's the one thing I miss most from working for Dutch companies: being able to take a 20% pay cut and work 20% less. Theoretically, that should be a great deal for my employer: the extra rest, and just the way productive work is usually spread out across the week, means that my productivity definitely was not down 20% compared to now, so I was cheaper per hour. Yet even that culturally seems to be a hard sell in a ma…
You get healthcare 7 days a week but only work for 4. Salary is only one component of compensation