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World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

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Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#201

Post by ambrose2 »

dheera wrote: post #55
vouaobrasil wrote: post #13

When 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…

There's also that we once had a society where one person in a household worked 8 hours a day and one did house chores (including raising kids) for 8 hours a day. In a modern, fair society, that should translate into both people working 4 hours a day and house chores 4 hours a day. Unfortunately the reality right now is we're pushing both people to each work 12 hours a day AND do 4 hours of chores on top of that.

There’s also the argument that you could live off of one salary and downsize / live frugally (two-income trap), but things are more expensive (e.g. the world is more safe now, but that also makes it more expensive).

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#202

Post by askvictor »

askvictor wrote: post #137
freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #38

Instead of 3 day weekends, why don't we go to a 6 day week? The only reason we have 7 days is because of the 7 classical planets.

A lunar month (28 days) is a slightly useful and easily measured unit of time, but a bit too long for a lot of purposes. But it only splits into 4 7 and 2 14, so a shorter measure would be 2 days (not so useful), 4 days (maybe), 7 days (maybe) and 14 days (too long). A seven day measure aligns nicely with the moon's quarters as well. That's what I had always assumed was the reason for a 7 day week; I wonder if the ce…

Gah; markdown seems to have ruined my calculations; should read 4x7 and 2x14

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#203

Post by Auracle »

Retric wrote: post #168
bavila wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My conclusions after observing a ton of people in technical and nontechnical jobs is that beyond working 20-25 hours a week, having people do more is useless... I'm not so sure about this. I was working in a remote "full-stack" (but really 90% front-end role) for 14 months from the start of January 2021 to the end of February 2022. I tracked my hours religiously the entire time I was employed there (not required, b…

Where these discussions trip up is different kinds of programming tasks vary in how mentality draining they are. Some days I can spend 10 long hours working through straightforward problems and come home energized. Other days I mentally check out after spending 3-4 hours beating my head against a really difficult problem then go home and have little desire to do anything but zone out and recover.

There’s a thing in the wedding photography gig called a wedding hangover. Basically most of us are absolutely dead the next day after “just” an 8-12 hour wedding.

It seems stupid to a lot of people, but that many hours being hyper vigilant and stressed wrecks you. I did landscaping work as a teen on very hot days and that’s nothing compared to a wedding.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#204

Post by vidarh »

weaksauce wrote: post #122
vouaobrasil wrote: post #13

When 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…

> the only reason why we have 9-5, Monday to Friday jobs is because of infantile narcissists who have no other purpose in life than to go to work and push people like machines. the current system is mainly because henry ford decided that it was the most he could make people do line work before productivity decreased and injuries increased. that of course was better working conditions of 10 hour days that the labor un…

That article is whitewashing. There were demands for 8 hour work days decades before Ford. 10 hours had become widespread, sure, and some only asked for 10, but Robert Owen's slogan "eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest" dates to 1817, and had been picked up by unions and socialist groups over the following decades.

May 1st as an international day for workers demonstrations even came about as a result of the aftermath of the Chicago Haymarket Massacre in 1886 during one of the demonstrations for the 8 hour day. The then AFL proposed May 1st demonstrations as part of relaunching the fight for the 8 hour day.

That some employers saw the writing on the wall and cut it to 8 with less pressure applied than others was in large part because the multiple decades long, sometimes bloody, fight for earlier cuts had shown it did not affect production anywhere near as much as opponents had claimed.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#205

Post by rebeccaskinner »

Retric wrote: post #168
bavila wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My conclusions after observing a ton of people in technical and nontechnical jobs is that beyond working 20-25 hours a week, having people do more is useless... I'm not so sure about this. I was working in a remote "full-stack" (but really 90% front-end role) for 14 months from the start of January 2021 to the end of February 2022. I tracked my hours religiously the entire time I was employed there (not required, b…

Where these discussions trip up is different kinds of programming tasks vary in how mentality draining they are. Some days I can spend 10 long hours working through straightforward problems and come home energized. Other days I mentally check out after spending 3-4 hours beating my head against a really difficult problem then go home and have little desire to do anything but zone out and recover.

Funnily enough, I find myself the exact opposite. Give me a really hard engaging problem and I can work 16 hours and barely realize any time has passed, but spending even 1-2 hours on something rote saps my energy for the entire day. My tolerant is even lower for the particularly challenging combination of tasks that are both uninteresting but also tedious.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#206

Post by metabagel »

sleton38234234 wrote: post #105
ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You get healthcare 7 days a week but only work for 4. Salary is only one component of compensation Thinking of healthcare as compensation is what got America into the healthcare mess it's in today.

well, it's not the root cause. there's many reasons why healthcare is way too expensive in america. the fact is that employers pay a huge sum for healthcare in the US and this makes up a sizable portion of your compensation. if you earn 50K and the health insurance for your family costs 20K per year, that's pretty big. the solution of course is to get those healthcare premiums lowered: that's going to require some ki…

Cost controls, not rationing. The problem is that capitalism fails in the case of healthcare. How much is your health worth? Every last cent you’ve got.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#207

Post by blakesley »

lettergram wrote: post #172
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s baffling. Nobody should have to work 60 hours a week and be happy about it, doesn’t matter when the hours are

Lol for almost all human history working all a day was the norm. I don’t necessarily have to do that much work, but I want to get ahead. Most people I grew up with work 40-70hrs a week, often two to three jobs. It’s natural for me to work that much. I don’t even blink at it. What else would you do? Play video games, watch tv, “party”? I can accomplish and build things and spend the rest of the time with family and fr…

> What else would you do? Play video games, watch tv, “party”?

Sorry, but this is such a sad statement to me. I mean, unless you absolutely love the field you work in, in which case that's amazing, go for it! But if you're like the rest of us, there's so much to see & do in life besides work! As an example, I'm reading, learning to cook, traveling, and trying to get fit. These provide their own satisfaction & meaning in ways that work doesn't.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#208

Post by vidarh »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #183
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing I would go to the office for are sprint ceremonies. On my best functioning teams, we would plan and make sure everyone knew what was needed and solutions brainstormed until we had an agreed approach. Then you stay at home and just execute. And you can used your best hours to smash stuff out and then enjoy the rest of the day.

Hot take: Sprint ceremonies are what I hate the most about our profession. In-office sprint ceremonies make it even worse. Please end this madness. One guy from customer success I had lunch with once told me: "wait, so you guys have team meetings every morning, every single day? but why? that sounds terrible. I would hate that" And yeah! I agree! but this has been the norm in the entire industry for the last ~10 year…

Stand-ups aren't really for devs, but for the team leads and PMs trying to track work. If they take more than ~5 min or so, people aren't prepared and that should be a red flag for team leads. That said, every day is often overkill, and most of the value can be gotten by keeping tickets up to date. But "ceremony" is often a tool to get people to keep things up to date by formalizing the expectation that it'll get picked up if they're not. The more disciplined a team is, the less you need that ceremony.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#209

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

lumost wrote: post #66
vouaobrasil wrote: post #13

When 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…

It’s Curious, I wonder if as the portion of time people spend on hard problems increases the rate of burnout increases. 10 years ago a much larger percentage of my day was spent on non-taxing activities that have since been automated.

This speaks to the "labor" argument made above. More efficiency means harder work, but it must also be less work, unless we are trying to extract more from workers.

OTOH, it might not be so bad to extract more from workers. More money and all.

Re: World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

#210

Post by habosa »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #103

I work at a FANG now. There’s really no job openings I’m interested in, but if a recruiter dropped by and said they needed an expert and had a company-wide 4-day workweek I’d probably take their call. That’s a perk that can not be matched at FANG. Truly a way to set yourself apart.

Google (and maybe some of the others) does let some employees do a 4-day work week for 80% pay. I’ve met more than one such person, but they are rare.
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