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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

#271

Post by birksherty »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #205
Retric wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Once in a while it might be true. But this post is about job. Doing that for 8-16 hrs often will burn out and later I'd avoid such jobs.

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

#272

Post by nivenkos »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #31
Vinnl wrote: post #28

It'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…

In the 90s my girlfriend worked for the American office of a Danish industrial design company that closed at noon on Fridays. They claimed it was how everyone in Denmark worked, but I had no way to confirm it at the time.

Some companies do this in Spain too, especially in the summer.

Likewise in Sweden, but it's a minority of companies I'd say.

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

#273

Post by nivenkos »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #102

I think a four day, 32h work week is a good idea, though I'd be concerned if companies were so restrictive around their contracts that they banned people from working elsewhere with their free time and extra day off. That should not be allowed to happen. Older employees that are established and have met various life goals (eg. owning a home) may be very satisfied to only work four days and to use their time for hobbi…

My company even bans us from working outside of the 40h work week...

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

#274

Post by birksherty »

bavila wrote: post #118
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…

> 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…

> came out somewhere between 38~39 hours

Also worked more than 40 hrs full concentration work for few weeks, but that soon burned me out. Now I can't do that more than a day and don't ever want in future.

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

#275

Post by goodpoint »

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…

> Lol for almost all human history working all a day was the norm.

The complete opposite.

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

#276

Post by goodpoint »

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”?

The fact that you cannot imagine meaningful and beneficial activities to do outside work should ring a big alarm bell in your mind.

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

#277

Post by goodpoint »

renewiltord wrote: post #236
np- wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be pedantic, the US has never been a democracy, it has always been a republic and it was built in to give land equal or more power than individuals. Though I don’t deny that it seems to be either in or approaching a failure mode (though perhaps the observant may notice it never worked as it was advertised even from Day 1, there was never really a success mode).

What exactly is pedantic about that? The US is a constitutional democracy and a republic. Just like India. Unlike the UK that's a constitutional democracy and a monarchy. It's like saying something is "technically not a car, it's electric".

Correct! This thing about "republic not a democracy" is so absurd. Don't people learn this stuff in middle school?

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

#278

Post by goodpoint »

lmm wrote: post #216
ghiculescu wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make this claim about the US is to overlook that basically all western countries have 40 hour work weeks. Are they all failing democracies too? Its a shame how many Americans are too busy hating America to look outside the border and see how good they have it, but also how most of their “uniquely American” problems are not unique at all. (My perspective is as an Australian living in America. And my comment doesn’t…

US working hours are legitimately higher than most of the developed world.

And worker rights are objectively much worse.

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

#279

Post by wizofaus »

lukevp wrote: post #180
mettamage wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands I also take a 20% gross pay cut. So net, that's more like a 10% pay cut. It doesn't pay to work 5 days in NL.

This doesn’t make sense to me unless it moves you into a lower tax bracket or something. Eg. If you made $100k and were taxed at 30%, you’d get paid net $70k. If you took a 20% gross pay cut, you’d get paid $80k gross and $56k net. 56k is 20% less than 70k.

There's very few countries in the world with tax systems like that - even Estonia I believe has some tax free threshold, such that the first $x of your income is not taxed (then a flat rate of 20%). Sure, if your income was massively above that threshold then a 20% cut is pre-tax income would be pretty close to a 20% cut in take-home income, but I'd think for most here on HN it wouldn't be anything like that much (though probably not as low as 10%).

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

#280

Post by keyraycheck »

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…

+1

That is true for deep work like:

- solving mathematical problems

- coding non-trivial stuff

- teaching non-trival stuff

The challange is shallow work e.g.

- replying to emails

- meetings

- scheduling meetings

And than there is no-work:

- checking your phone

- lunch

- walking and chatting before the next meeting

Shallow and no-work can easily eat anywhere between 20 and infinity :)

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