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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

#331

Post by pjungwir »

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…

A trick I've used for 20+ years that I think helps me put in ~8 hours of real work per day is to reserve some easy tasks for "after lunch work". It doesn't have to be literally after lunch, but whenever your brain is tired or doesn't want to try too hard. That's when you write a couple of the boring tests or do some easy refactoring. When you're in that kind of mood, doing those kinds of familiar low-friction tasks is relaxing and refreshing. Pretty soon you're ready for something harder. And it's a way to fit in the "hygiene" jobs that are easy to neglect. It helps to keep a little list in a text file somewhere, so you don't have to go searching for them.

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

#332

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

ChickenNugger wrote: post #116
skellington wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When would God rest? It's crazy when you think about how much of society is aligned around the totally arbitrary idea of a 7-day week. It would be hard to switch because so many things are aligned to it.

The thing is it's completely non-existent in nature. Not to get too into the Naturalistic Fallacy, but we're biological organisms that evolved in nature and have acclimated through evolution to it the things that do exist. That is we have a circadian rhythm, because for millions of years we couldn't see much at night, so we just went to sleep. And all sorts of animals including us start getting frisky in spring becau…

The 7 day week predates the bible mate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week It's all because the ancient saw 7 wandering stars (aka planets) and assigned 7 days them.

My proposal, let's dump Saturday. Saturns mythology is trash and it doesn't deserve a day.

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

#334

Post by sleton38234234 »

metabagel wrote: post #206
sleton38234234 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

cost controls are a form of rationing and a good one, at least for the field of healthcare.

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

#335

Post by weaksauce »

vidarh wrote: post #204
weaksauce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't see how anything of what you said is incompatible with the article. the unions got 10 hours, probably wanted better but that's all they could negotiate. ford wanted the most profit he could get and he found that through 8 hour work days it would be the most profitable for him. he, of course like much of the capitalist class(of course not all but most of the ultra-wealthy capital owners are sociopaths), didn't care that much about workers.

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

#336

Post by llbeansandrice »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #110
nerdbert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, then there should be a clear understanding that I am completely unavailable from the moment I leave the office for the day.

That's usually the understanding everyone has by default, unless you're doing some specific job that requires greater availability (and are compensated for it), or... you're eroding this understanding yourself by doing something unwise, like replying to company e-mails or IMs after hours. One rule I learned to stick to: never install apps for company e-mail and IM chats on your personal smartphone. Just don't. Otherw…

Plenty of places just assume you can do on-call or it's required, including high-tech companies. I'm not compensated outside of normal salary/equity for on-call hours. If I don't get paged, great. But if it's a heavy week I don't get anything extra.

I'd love to join a union to be able to reasonably bargain against this.

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

#337

Post by renewiltord »

withinboredom wrote: post #283
renewiltord wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a fully functioning representative democracy. People in small groups always overestimate the popularity of their cause. Quite simply there are other people. And those people often have other opinions.

As someone who moved out of the US and goes back to visit family every year ... I'd say it is barely functioning. Functioning, but barely. I had to go to the US consulate a few weeks ago. I was literally facepalming at the inefficiencies of it. It was laughable.

Haha, right, the government is kind of incompetent, but it is the government we elect so it functions as a democracy. It just doesn't function very well as a government.

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

#338

Post by vidarh »

zdragnar wrote: post #326
vidarh wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

On if you treat it as ok for the board not to be up to date on the call.

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

#339

Post by nehal3m »

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.

An employer that not only requires years and years of primary, secondary and tertiary education, the majority of your waking hours, the responsibility to deliver what you promised and all the pain and stress that implies, but on top of all that, requires you to be passionate about the whole thing sounds like hell on earth to me.

Employment is a transaction. You get my honest effort, experience and an amount of time agreed upon beforehand. In return I get money so I can live the life I want. That's the end of it.

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

#340

Post by vidarh »

weaksauce wrote: post #335
vidarh wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't see how anything of what you said is incompatible with the article. the unions got 10 hours, probably wanted better but that's all they could negotiate. ford wanted the most profit he could get and he found that through 8 hour work days it would be the most profitable for him. he, of course like much of the capitalist class(of course not all but most of the ultra-wealthy capital owners are sociopaths), didn't…

The article says "The first demand of organized labor was 10 hours - the 10-hour movement. " This is at best wildly misleading. The first demands for 10 hours was not for 10 hours labour, but for 8 hours work broken up with 2 hours for meals, and that dates back to the late 1700's. And the demands for the 8 hour day then became prominent at a time where 12, 14 or even 16 hours, and 6 day work weeks was still not uncommon.

It then implies that the 8 hour work day then suddenly came about after "businesses begin studying how to increase worker productivity. And they start to find a downside to even the 10-hour day."

But by the time Ford made his change, it had been one of the key rallying cries of organised labour had been demanding for a century, and Owen had tried it at New Lanark a century before, and Ford was by no means the first, just one of the most high profile.

It's a common trend in the US of trying to write unions out of the history of the eight hour day. People died fighting for the eight hour day. Pinkerton - who to this day are involved in anti-union efforts - and police more than once shot workers demonstrating for it.

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