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'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

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Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#61
post #57

I’ve been working 4 days a week informally for a decade. Everyone checks out on Fridays with the exception of the rare fire. I suspect it’s the same for other information workers.

Historically, when the working week was six days, people informally took Mondays off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Monday

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#62

Last Sunday, I was walking down the street with my kids when a man bumped into me trying to cross the street. He turned around to apologize and we had a discussion at the red light. He was working a 12 hour shift and was now on his break which he had to rush to get to the store. He said memorial weekend was extremely busy. "After that we will go back to regular busy." When we talk about 4 day workweek, it's for some…

> Ex: wouldn't it be better if the bank was open after work? Wouldn't it be better if USPS would show up on Sunday? Isn't it annoying that Chick-fil-A is closed on sunday?

Of course. But that has nothing to do with 4-day work week. There are classes of jobs that should be desynced from each other - like e.g. stores and banks and barbershops, etc. should be open outside of core office hours, etc. We just can't figure out how to force society into running on shifts.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#63
post #24

Last Sunday, I was walking down the street with my kids when a man bumped into me trying to cross the street. He turned around to apologize and we had a discussion at the red light. He was working a 12 hour shift and was now on his break which he had to rush to get to the store. He said memorial weekend was extremely busy. "After that we will go back to regular busy." When we talk about 4 day workweek, it's for some…

You don't have to have individuals working 24/7 to have things open 24/7.

I think there's a trade off between keeping business open for longer hours with more staff working on smaller shifts vs keeping business open 9-5 with one shift of workers to worry about. Managing more workers is costly, plus you pay more expenses in utilities etc when business is running longer than 9-5.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#64
post #25
post #15

I’m curious what the logical extreme of this is. Why 4 days? Why not 3 days? 2 days? 1 day? No days? When do we hit the equilibrium level between less work resulting in meaningfully less output? Were these jobs ever needed?

A friend of mine has this at her workplace and she loves it. She works 9 hours a day Monday through Thursday which at 36 hours isn't that far off from the 40 hours I put in over 5 days. I think anything beyond that starts to get ridiculous. Imagine working 11 to 12 hours a day for a three day work week, seems like that would just result in a lot of foot dragging to me.

But why should we work 36-40 hour weeks? I'm only productive for about 5 hours per day of concentrated thought.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. I don’t see why that’d be necessarily true. In that scenario, it’s kind of like a part time worker and I can see many businesses finding appeal in that.

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. Cost of living doesn't magically drop 20% just because you're not working that 5th day.

> Cost of living doesn't magically drop 20% just because you're not working that 5th day

Nobody living at their cost of living is in the ballpark for a 4-day workweek in the near future.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. I don’t see why that’d be necessarily true. In that scenario, it’s kind of like a part time worker and I can see many businesses finding appeal in that.

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. Cost of living doesn't magically drop 20% just because you're not working that 5th day.

But the amount of work you're able to do is. And companies need to make money, they're not s charity. I took a 20% paycut to work only 4 days a week. And I think that is fair, because my output definitely did decrease by 20%. This might not be true for everyone, but all of the "working more efficiently" thing doesn't really help you if you were already working pretty efficiently 5 days a week.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#67

> great as a retention tool. Until it becomes standard then its 3 days a week. Im all for it, if you can increase productivity, but it's likely too many people won't be able to.

well how long ago was the 5 day work week established as the standard? how long do you reckon it'll be before a 4 day work week is standard? do you think an additional day off takes less time than the prior one took to get? the same time as the prior one? more time than the prior one? i feel like you're getting way ahead of yourself and remarking on events that have only taken place in your mind.

> how long ago was the 5 day work week established as the standard?

We work unusually hard compared to our ancestors [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo&t=1482s

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#68
post #43
post #10

I wonder if productivity is ever going to increase to the point where we work one day a week.

Waiting six days to finish something because you didn’t get it done last time… that’s not gonna work.

> Waiting six days to finish something because you didn’t get it done last time… that’s not gonna work

You'd hand off work, to humans and machines, with a bit of overlap to sync expectations. With enough automation, it becomes plausible. But not in the near future.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#69
The point is not the productivity, the point is giving something to workers in exchange NOT pretending WFH, for me the answer is NO. In 2024 all jobs done at a desk should be REMOTE, I do not care about how many days per weeks or hours per day, I do REJECT to be geographically bound just to keep up the keynesian circus of digging a hole today, fill it tomorrow and dig again that is the modern city.

In the past we have had paper archives, expensive office machines to handle paper and so we are bound to the office, this is not true anymore and there is NO REASONS behind the desire of human slavery to keep up the dense city model, needed only by surveillance capitalism and big real estate businesses, practically incompatible with the Green New Deal.

4-day work week, benefits and so on are this: gift in exchange to remain bound to the office. Not something else.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#70
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there are multiple ways this could be implemented, but the thing I'm hearing most is you'd probably work longer hours during those 4 days, which is a tradeoff I might be cool with. Otherwise, just chopping a day off the work week and not reducing my pay sounds great, too. I'm less motivated and productive on a Friday as it is, because my cherished 48 hours is finally within reach.

Daycare closes at 5-6, and schools even earlier. That will greatly limit amount of people who can sustain longer hours.

Not only that but also the reason why eight is popular is because it evenly divides 24. Which ten hours you pick starts getting hard.
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