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Can we have the day off?

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Re: Can we have the day off?

#111

Post by cm11 »

Cakez0r wrote: post #68
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

The reality is that most people are paid for their time, not for their output. I think most contracts for salaried employees are along the lines of "work n hours a week". If you want to get paid for output, you can't be a salaried employee.

I don't think this is the reality. It is part of it, but people get paid different salaries, why? Some are more productive than others. Aside from leadership's (and society's) biased ability to determine value, these people theoretically get more because they contribute more.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#112

Post by bruce511 »

lorecore wrote: post #34
bruce511 wrote: post #29

I get where the writer is coming from, but it misses one very important point. >> If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week. You are thinking of productivity as "code written". And certainly that part of your job will get more productive. But that is just someth…

AI definitely helps with attending meetings and writing documents that no one will read (both of which are huge parts of any modern job). The AI notes from any given meeting give you all of the content in 1/10th of the time.

I don't disagree that AI tools around meetings are cool. But they don't help you to "not attend the meeting". (not yet anyway).

Many meetings have 0% content "that applies to you". But that doesn't stop you being "added to meetings".

Re: Can we have the day off?

#113

Post by markive »

lmm wrote: post #42
krashidov wrote: post #22

> If AI is going to 10x our productivity across the board, that means that I should be able to produce the same amount of output by midday on Monday that, in the before times, would have taken all week. That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you…

> That would be true if you and only you are 10x more productive than anyone else. Since everyone is now 10x more productive it just means you have to work just as much as before since you're competition can outwork you. Why? I don't need 10x more stuff. I'd far rather spend 10x less time working. If we're talking about an actual productivity increase, let's just produce the same amount of stuff in 10x less time.

Because your competitor can now produce 10x more work with the same resources that your company can only produce 1x, therefore in short order your company isn't competitive and will cease to exist.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#114

Post by Cakez0r »

hexis wrote: post #93
kbar13 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this not backwards? salaried employee means you get paid the same amount no matter how many hours you work.

typically there is a floor, at least de facto.

The contracts I've seen have an explicit floor, not a de facto one. I.E. The contract says the minimum number of hours you need to work. Some countries also have overtime laws which create a ceiling.

Either way it doesn't change that being paid for your output is the realm of entrepreneurship and submitting bids for project work.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#115

Post by rootusrootus »

ux266478 wrote: post #70
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

> Or when our paycheck is going to be multiplied accordingly. That doesn't increase shareholder value, so it would be a violation of the c-suite's fiduciary responsibility. Sorry, the extra capital will instead be used on stock buybacks.

No post body was provided.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#116

Post by swatcoder »

chipsrafferty wrote: post #49
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

Right. If I am producing 10x more output then I expect to be getting paid about 8x more or working 8x less.

You should talk to your union rep about that, because renegotiations like that won't happen on the individual basis just because you think its right. And almost all lack the leverage, individually, to make it happen.

Of course, until just recently, Big Tech workers were so proud to be on top of the world that they didn't think unions made sense for them.

Were you among them? Has that changed?

Re: Can we have the day off?

#117

Post by hx8 »

madrox wrote: post #65

The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. It's funny how underappreciated it is how the five day work week is powered by norms...at least in the US. People assume there are laws about it. The only laws dictate compensation past certain thresholds, a…

By this logic you could get promoted if you worked six day work weeks.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#119

Post by yadaeno »

bigbuppo wrote: post #64
yadaeno wrote: post #19

You can have the day off. Don't think for a million years you will be paid for it.

Exactly. In the four days that you worked you produced 40 days of output, so you should get 40x the pay. It would be unreasonable for the company to pay you 50x what you were getting before... they do have shareholders to think about after all.

I can promise you this is not how the MBAs are reading the situation.

Re: Can we have the day off?

#120

Post by majormajor »

whatshisface wrote: post #100
cattown wrote: post #33

This article is kind of playful, but I think there’s a serious point here that’s not discussed enough. We’re being asked to usher in huge productivity gains by introducing AI to our workflows, but we’re not asking how does it help us? Not a lot of us stand to directly gain from our employers becoming more productive. I know everybody is afraid of getting fired and replaced with AI or whatever right now. But we should…

Working out why the workweek is 5 days, non-negotiably, even if you'd be willing to be paid less in proportion, comes down to realizing that it's being maximized subject to the constraint that everybody would flip out if it was 6, and then working out why it's being maximized. What it's telling you is that a company would rather have 4 people working 5 days a week than 5 people working 4 days a week. The reason for t…

> Working out why the workweek is 5 days, non-negotiably, even if you'd be willing to be paid less in proportion, comes down to realizing that it's being maximized subject to the constraint that everybody would flip out if it was 6, and then working out why it's being maximized.

This ignores a lot of historical fighting (sometimes literally!) to get it down to 5 in the first place.

If everyone sufficiently "flips out" about it being 5 then the problem of "reduce the context switching problem" is something the owner can try to figure out.

Cause otherwise, you could find a perfect solution to that problem, and still not have leverage to make ownership actually change anything vs just raise expectations that much higher.

(Meanwhile, some companies are trying to import 996 and push it past 5 for white-collar work anyway, so any sort of non-political, non-disruptive action seems doomed to fail since the status quo is moving the wrong direction.)

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