I would sacrifice >20% of my pay for a 4-day work week.
You shouldn't, though. Negotiate the same pay but 4-days a week instead of 5.
As workers, we shouldn't lower our expectations or standards for employers. It hurts us all.
Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
121–130 of 229 posts
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#122Young people don't want to work hard because there's little incentive. No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live. You can afford everything comfortably beside housing & health care (which you don't need much of when you're young) on a relatively low wage in the US. So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?
Probably the same as it's ever been. Out of three random employees, you have one who's just going through the motions, one who's working hard, and one who's actively hostile. Which one gets the money when review time rolls around? That, and what's the long term strategy? Do they turn 30 and flip from working part time at Pizza Hut to a professional salaried career? Good luck getting an interview with that CV. I'm not…
GP's point is that the extra money has little value, because your spending options are becoming bimodal in distribution: all the trinkets are priced at "approximately anyone with a job can afford some of it", while the important bits like housing are priced at "an order of magnitude more than people typically earn", and this gap just cannot be crossed by working hard to get salary raises.
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#123Should be fighting for a 3 day work week by now, not a 4.
3 days? Why settle for so little? Ask for 2, he'll 1 day work week!
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not for everybody, but if you can find a way to not play the rigged game, you can get ahead. I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $200…
> My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $2000 on taxes each month, completely legally and above board. Can you elaborate?
There's no income tax on foreign source income here.
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not for everybody, but if you can find a way to not play the rigged game, you can get ahead. I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $200…
Where at? Are you Hispanic or white?
Which would a Spanish person be?
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#126Young people don't want to work hard because there's little incentive. No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live. You can afford everything comfortably beside housing & health care (which you don't need much of when you're young) on a relatively low wage in the US. So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?
Why is wanting an improved work life balance (and thus improving things like health (mental/physical) and family and happiness) seen as not wanting to “work hard”?
Gone are the days of 10x emps, power badasses doing laundry and eating 3 meals a day on campus. It never was healthy for the emps anyway - it only ever benefits the owners.
Unless you own, the only incentive is to work as hard as you are paid for as we all exchange labor and limited lifetimes for wages that ensure someone else’s profit still meets its owners set marks.
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#127Young people don't want to work hard because there's little incentive. No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live. You can afford everything comfortably beside housing & health care (which you don't need much of when you're young) on a relatively low wage in the US. So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?
So you're not going to be able to live where most people want to live . That's far different from having no house. "Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did. See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they…
Your take is from a tech worker perspective or you're a boomer.
You're assuming it's still possible to buy when saving 5k/year (what my median friend is able to do). It really isn't, or requires complete sacrifice of much of what makes life worth living anyway.
Re: location, there are cheaper places but they're far enough away it's like asking most people to move a plane ticket away from everyone they know (and likely all jobs they have experience in) to restart life.
Instead, most of my friends just accept the studio apartment they live in which costs half their cash flow, and spend the other half on essentials and therapy to cope. It's hard to see this from a $1M house in the burbs
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously irrelevant
Oh. Do say more. People don't want to work hard because, in general, people don't like to work.
Your fable states that there is a time for work and a time for play, and contrasts a worker that did nothing vs workers that did work and can survive.
The premise of the relevant discussion is that the marginal value of additional work and wages beyond the basic requirements is largely nothing. You cannot accrue meaningful savings, but still probably have enough disposable income to live comfortably enough, so it’s just a bad deal to work more.
Very simply, the marginal utility of additional wages is much lower than the cost of working them at the rates being paid.
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#129I give myself a fixed number of "hands on keyboard" hours that I need to meet each week and track my time to the second. If I hit my number in four days, hey, three day weekend. If I don't hit it by Friday, I'm working Saturday. I love it. I want to keep doing this for as long as I can.
Re: Young people would sacrifice other perks for a 4-day workweek
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an Australian, the only metric that matters for me is >80% of all semi-competent developers, designers, and founders I knew (including myself) left AU because they hit a career ceiling normalized by that culture. Zero local innovation, and the relatively healthy economy is mostly due to exporting stuff to Asia (education, tourism, and resources).
Australia innovates plenty, it's just the innovation mostly happens in fields Australia does well, like mining.
And, boomerang tossing.