Why Not a Three-Day Week? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#71

Post by pfranz » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 8:53 PM UTC

wlievens wrote: post #58

odonnellryan wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say no one is pursuing it. I think it just has yet to become considered as a real possibility for many. I believe there may be a certain point in the development of society where there has to be a shift from the economic/capitalist model into a model based on human betterment or an effort directly focused on increased capability to sustain and improve our quality of living. Capitalism worked to get us wher…

But without a personal incentive, nobody will want to do the stuff that isn't fun, or is very risky. How about that?

You seem to be implying that cash/capitalism is the only incentive. People are still becoming teachers, aid workers, and pursuing the arts even though the financial incentives are terrible. All of those fields aren't all fun and can be risky endeavors.

Let's say we have a basic income. There will probably be less maids so people will have to spend more of their own time cleaning. Your office might have less janitors, part of your job might be to empty trash outside. Maids and janitors will still be around. Their roles would be diminished and they'll just get paid more.

We don't have a purely capitalistic model right now. Whatever we move toward won't be a "pure" anything, either.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#72

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 8:54 PM UTC

fab13n wrote: post #36

PaulWillis wrote: post #16

Yes, let's work 3 days a week in the West. China will continue to work 6 or 7 days. Fast forward 10 years and the reserve currency will be the yuan.

> China will continue to work 6 or 7 days [...] and the reserve currency will be the yuan. You suppose that wealth production is proportional to the number of hours worked. This used to be an oversimplification, and now becomes simply false. Countries lead by people who keep counting on this falsehood will fail.

Imagine three companies doing equivalent work in the same sector.

Company A has 3-day work weeks; it's running Monday - Wednesday and then it's inactive for four days.

Company B is like A, but instead of not working 4 days a week, it doubles the staff and has people working 3-day work weeks in two groups.

Company C has employes working 6 days a week.

You can see that companies B and C will be strictly more productive than A and they will outcompete it quickly. As for B vs. C, it all depends on whether costs associated with additional employees (benefits, etc.) outweight the marginal productivity bonus company B has over C by virtue of employees being less tired and having a life. Apparently, the costs are greater, since most companies look more like C than B.

And hence, if you switch to 3-days workweek, you'll lose to the ones who work 6 days/week.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#73

Post by tptacek » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #67

dang wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Comments like this are stronger when they stay with the specific content of the article. They're weaker when treating it merely as a platform for some generic position ("obsession with the free market"). It isn't that the rhetoric is false, it's that it's impossible for it to be substantive here. Grand claims need grand substance, which there isn't room for in a mere comment post. People compensate for this…

I don't care to post this, but meta begets meta... Your (and tptacek's) meta comments seem unhelpful and clearly favor HN's status quo. I've successfully demanded a shorter workweek from capitalist bosses, and helped coworkers fight theirs. And that comment you both meta-criticize is pretty sensible, in my view. If you're going to hack a system, it's worth getting familiar with the subversive lit. (Though their last…

The story about how you helped workers organize shorter work weeks would be interesting.

The framing of advocacy for post-capitalist society isn't, because of the nature of the site.

The only people who will pay attention to the latter conversation either (a) are doing so because they are intractably opposed to your idea and enjoy pushing back on it or (b) are already on your side.

That doesn't mean there's no group (c) of receptive, persuadable people, just that the venue you've chosen doesn't reach them effectively.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#74

Post by titter » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 8:59 PM UTC

PaulWillis wrote: post #30

georgemcbay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you really believe it is as simple as being a pure numbers game then based on population counts we're going to have to find a way to work 24 to 28 days a week to keep up with the Chinese. So either your premise is horribly flawed or we're fucked no matter what we do.

I agree it will eventually happen, but of course it will happen faster if we're less productive.

So the reason for working longer hours is to ensure that the Chinese people have to work longer hours (which ensures that Westerners have to work longer hours)?

Seems like a pretty bad prisoner's dilemma - and a pointless exercise if you already accept that China will ultimately win.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#75

Post by chillingeffect » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #67

dang wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Comments like this are stronger when they stay with the specific content of the article. They're weaker when treating it merely as a platform for some generic position ("obsession with the free market"). It isn't that the rhetoric is false, it's that it's impossible for it to be substantive here. Grand claims need grand substance, which there isn't room for in a mere comment post. People compensate for this…

I don't care to post this, but meta begets meta... Your (and tptacek's) meta comments seem unhelpful and clearly favor HN's status quo. I've successfully demanded a shorter workweek from capitalist bosses, and helped coworkers fight theirs. And that comment you both meta-criticize is pretty sensible, in my view. If you're going to hack a system, it's worth getting familiar with the subversive lit. (Though their last…

> I've successfully demanded a shorter workweek from capitalist bosses,

Can you please explicate a bit? I have tried and failed. I tried to move to four days @ 8 hours/day from a a five days @ 8 h/d.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#76

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 9:07 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

Sharlin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a horribly short-sighted viewpoint to not take into account the effect teachers (are supposed to) have on whole new generations of people! Teachers raise people who may get billion-dollar ideas in the future, and should be paid accordingly.

They should, but they aren't and this is the reality. Capitalism sucks at valuing things that don't give immediate profit. Education is such a thing - it has extreme ROI... 20 years down the line. Which is too long a time and it gets valued less than small changes that will bring in a little bit of money next month.

There's also a bit of a principal-agent problem. The people who make decisions about the educational system are state bureaucrats, teachers, and parents, in roughly that order. The one person who's most affected by it - the kid - has basically zero say in anything.

I suspect that education would be a much higher priority and teachers would be paid much more if children could vote.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#77

Post by kleiba » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 9:09 PM UTC

exstudent wrote: post #48

Xcelerate wrote: post #41

I find the whole economic system to be quite bizarre. Nobody's salary seems to correlate with much except their skill at getting a high salary. For instance, my sister (elementary education) makes even less than I do as a grad student. The difference is that she wakes up at 5:00 AM and works all day teaching and taking care of little kids until 7:00 PM, whereas I wake up whenever I feel like it, head to a coffee shop…

I think there are two separate issues in your comment... You make more than your sister doing "less" work because knowledge and high level skills are a value multiplier. You may come up with a world changing idea that generates billions of dollars. No kindergarden teacher could achieve that. Pay matches accordingly. Your second point is that there seems to be a lot of people with useless jobs and I couldn't agree mor…

You make more than your sister doing "less" work because knowledge and high level skills are a value multiplier. You may come up with a world changing idea that generates billions of dollars. No kindergarden teacher could achieve that. Pay matches accordingly.

Except this argument doesn't seem to apply globally: I have a good friend over here in Europe who's got a PhD in computer science. He works as a researcher in a renouned university. His sister is not a kindergarden, but elementary school teacher.

She makes (slightly) more money than he does. Her work day starts at 8am and most of the time ends at 2pm. She's got around 10 weeks of vacation per year. She cannot legally get fired if she performs badly.

So in this country, my friends knowledge and high level skill levels certainly weren't a value multiplier when compared to his sister.

Granted, he might be able to get a higher paid job with his background, but that brings us back to the grandparent's original point: your education is not a good predictor for your salary.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#78

Post by kyllo » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #19

edroche wrote: post #3

This is the biggest thing I miss from my consulting days. I would never work a 5-day week. It would either be a 3-day or 4-day week, leaving lots of time for travel, family and hobbies. Sadly, I could never see our clients accepting any business day where we are not available during regular business hours.

Clients are surprisingly willing to deal with that. It may be less of a hard constraint than you think it is, particularly if you train your clients to expect that type of working relationship. I had an interesting call with a doctor client recently. "I didn't notice a number on your website." "That's correct." "So how am I supposed to get in touch with you?" "I recommend email." "But you only respond to email a day…

Kind of ironic that a doctor would say that to you. Just try getting a doctor's direct line or cell. It's almost impossible, they have receptionists because they'd be overwhelmed with patients calling them with stupid questions all day if they didn't.

Of course, you could also just hire a remote assistant to field phone calls for you if you wanted.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#79

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

rch wrote: post #6

Haven't tried it myself, but I like the idea of working a 9/80 with every other Friday off. One interesting effect is that those who are in the office on Friday end up feeling more productive or relaxed since there are fewer people around. I also wonder if every other Monday off might be better in some cases.

My sister did 9/80s. They were pretty nice when she first moved to the area, but the problem is that you have to take them off on a Friday and it's use-it-or-lose-it. Now that she's married, it's pretty rare that her husband gets time off when she does, and so the extra Friday was basically just a "sit at home in front of the TV day and veg", while the 9 hour days meant that it was an hour less time to spend with her husband in the evenings. I think she's switched back to a regular schedule now.

I have some former coworkers that effectively did 9/80s as well, since they maxed out their vacation and started taking every other Friday off so they wouldn't lose it. It usually worked better, ironically, for people without many hobbies, since they were okay with just sitting at home and vegging for Friday.

4-day weekends could be great if all of society moved to them, but they're tricky when it's just some employers because the people you love aren't around to hang out with. I actually tend to prefer taking Wednesday off; a veg-day to break the week in half seems much more relaxing than a 3-day weekend where you can't do anything fun for one of the days.

Re: Why Not a Three-Day Week?

#80

Post by padobson » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 9:21 PM UTC

Economists of yore were wise to see that productivity would increase dramatically, but they were wrong in believing that surplus productivity would translate into leisure time.

I look at Google and Ycombinator as the model for the future economy, if economic systems are left unchecked by the threat of physical force.

How many people are working at Google everyday on a product that will never produce one red cent? Hundreds? Thousands? How many funded YCombinator startups will never provide a return on investment? 60%? 80%?

These days, the smart money is taking all their surplus productivity and putting it into long-shots to create even more surplus productivity. This explains why industries like software development, that have such an enormous productivity surplus, are paying such high wages right now. One could even argue that the shortage of skilled individuals in such an environment will lead to an increase in demand for those who can train such people - leading to something like a more organic education system.