World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #316

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping PMs to remind people on slack to update their tickets? In my previous job we had a task blocked in our calendar every Tuesday 10AM to 12 PM just for updating Jira and Gitlab tickets. Having people gather in circles physically or jumping on calls every single day just for this bullshit that can be done async is absolutely insane.

There are plenty of things you can try, some of which might even work better for some teams, and worse for others. The point is not that you can't do without a standup, but that whether or not you individually perceive the standup as a benefit isn't necessarily relevant. The relevant question is really whether or not the standup is the least disruptive tool to ensure your team keeps everything up to date. As I said i…

To answer your question, no, the daily stand-up is not the least disruptive tool. There's much better alternatives that can be tried and tailored to each team but nobody does because the stand-up is so entrenched in the industry nobody bothers.

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

#322

Post by pwpw » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

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…

> I think if you are truly just doing productive, meaningful technical work, beyond 3 full days most people can't do it. People can do it for short periods of time, but more than 3 days leads to universal burnout.

This is similar to my experience.

Back in 2020 I decided to make a career switch from accounting to software engineering. I began studying in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening while working a full-time job. I quickly discovered that I could only study in the morning with a lighter review in the evening.

Eventually, I got to the point where I had to walk away from work and study full-time because it was so mentally exhausting. Around that time, I started learning Greek as well. I attended classes once per week and observed that I had to lighten my CompSci studying workload on days I had Greek class. Otherwise, I would have a high degree of difficulty learning Greek that evening.

I was hitting my mental exhaustion limit after 5 hours of intense, technical learning every day. If I tried to push past that point, I would burn myself out and become noticeably less productive. This was something I had never realized while in school with frequent built in breaks (and perhaps more energy from being younger).

When I was studying for the CPA exam in the library for 8 hours per day, I thought I was being highly efficient the entire time. However, looking back on it, I was spending a good portion of that time taking breaks and doing lighter review of material I already knew, which was not too taxing (pun intended) on my mental energy.

Now, I’m well aware of my upper limits of hard work and find that forcing myself past that point isn’t worth the trade-off of mental exhaustion. I realistically believe that I could switch to a 4 day work week and accomplish the same amount while being more energized in the long-run. I’d love to get the opportunity to test my hypothesis.

As a side note: I found when I was studying full-stack material, switching between backend and front end work when I began to tire of one slowed the rate of my mental exhaustion.

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

#323

Post by ghiculescu » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #313

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…

>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? If said populations voters in general think otherwise and its viable to execute, then yes. If not, then no. The point has very little to do with 40-hour work weeks and almost everything to do with the lack of policy reflecting reasonably implementable wants and needs of…

> almost everything to do with the lack of policy reflecting reasonably implementable wants and needs of the population at large

And there’s my point. I think your claim is that most Americans want a 32 hour work week, and that the fact it doesn’t exist at large is proof of a failure of democracy. My claim is that by that logic every country in the world is a failed democracy since there’s always something that hasn’t been implemented by government that the people say they want in a poll.

I don’t think that all democracies are failed democracies (and I doubt you do either), which means you should rethink your criteria for what makes a democracy successful.

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

#324

Post by ed25519FUUU » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #210

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.

It has to be company wide. If you take 80% and everyone else does 100% you end up missing important meetings or just having to make up the work when you get back.

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

#325

Post by vidarh » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #321

vidarh wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of things you can try, some of which might even work better for some teams, and worse for others. The point is not that you can't do without a standup, but that whether or not you individually perceive the standup as a benefit isn't necessarily relevant. The relevant question is really whether or not the standup is the least disruptive tool to ensure your team keeps everything up to date. As I said i…

To answer your question, no, the daily stand-up is not the least disruptive tool. There's much better alternatives that can be tried and tailored to each team but nobody does because the stand-up is so entrenched in the industry nobody bothers.

I've tried many, over 25+ years of managing teams, and for some teams there are better alternatives, for some the stand-up works best. I absolutely agree with trying and tailoring options, and I have and I have ended up both with and without daily standups as a direct consequence of testing what works for a given team.

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

#326

Post by zdragnar » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #290

zdragnar wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have JIRA etc for tracking work. That should always be the single source of truth; verbal communication isn't useful in the long run (someone might have missed standup, people forget, etc). Even so, I've had daily stand-ups at the last several companies for years now. It is a consistently pointless exercise. To make it worse, several companies have also required posting our daily statuses in slack channels, just s…

"Should be" being the operative term. I've yet to work anywhere where tickets consistently up to date, and often ceremony like standup is where we find out that something was left out. If you consistently manage to do so across your team without it, then, hey, that's amazing.

The thing is, the daily standup is the reason why your board isn't up to date. People don't bother being strict about it because every single day they can just mention that they need to update it yet and it's okay because that's why we have standup- so only the select people who attend get the real status of things.

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

#327

Post by therealdrag0 » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 4:09 PM UTC

lmarcos wrote: post #263

therealdrag0 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support it, as long as you’re well compensated and you like it. I think due to wanting to “stick it to the man” there can be too much anti-work sentiment. It’s okay if it’s a throw away side project but not okay if it’s for your employer? Wat. Seems like a silly distinction and backward if anything. I definitely don’t work as much as you but I also love my work and work random odd hours and sometimes voluntarily ex…

It's not anti-work sentiment. It's like the people who drink too much alcohol or smoke everyday: is it bad for your body? Probably, but you definitely can go ahead and do it, no one is going to stop you.

There’s a lot of anti work sentiment going around. For example, in threads about “what if I finish my sprint work early” at least half of commenters say “lie and pretend you didn’t finish so you can not work”.

You’re analogy only works if the activity is bad for your health but I’m not suggesting anything bad for health.

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

#328

Post by cko » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

I still play World of Warcraft Classic. A lot of my guildies are playing while at work.

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

#329

Post by therealdrag0 » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 4:17 PM UTC

I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #246

therealdrag0 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your conclusions don’t follow. Most people are not doing exclusively mentally demanding technical work, which you admit, so why would you limit the work week based on that? And non strenuous work takes a nontrivial amount of time? I’m regularly solidly productive for 30-40 hours a week (tracked with RescueTime app). Today I did around a dozen PRs (among other things like design reviews) that were tiny changes (cleanu…

A lot of time spent doing "hard" things is unproductive. So many times I've worked on a hard bug long fruitless hours just to come back the next day and spotting the problem almost immediately. Quick cleanup tasks are important yes, but most of the time you can delegate those to newer employees that can actually learn from them.

Just because the journey feels unproductive doesn’t mean you can cut the journey in half and get to the destination. Who says your brain would have still found the bug without the time invested in it that you’re interpreting as “unproductive”? Who says if you r brain didn’t need that investment in the big just a break that a break working on other productive things wouldn’t have been just as good as a day at the beach?

Also I do give my newer employees smaller easier tasks, but they still need review, mentoring, etc. which is just another “not hard activity that takes time”. One again the idea that you can just cut work hours with no impact seems silly unless you’re working like 70 hours, or unless you’re already just a voluntarily unproductive worker. Maybe that’s an underdiscusssd angle to this; some people just don’t know how to productively organize their time.

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

#330

Post by andrei_says_ » Wed, Feb 22, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

mlrtime wrote: post #306

kitd wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! When you lie on your deathbed, will you say "I wish I'd spent more time at the office"?

“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I personally find it much more rewarding figuring out a technical problem than watching a crying baby.

“A crying baby” you imagine for the sake of being contrarian != your son.

Also toddler, not a baby. A toddler spends most of their time exploring and learning, discovering the world. A perfect example of a still free, undomesticated human being. A perfect spiritual teacher, in the body of the closest human being you’ll ever have :)

By the way, the job quote is one of the broken propaganda stories of capitalism. Even when you like your job you’re still slaving away for money. You believing that’s a great outcome is the point.