Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week • Hacker News Board

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#111

Post by bananaboy » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 11:54 AM UTC

sdf131 wrote: post #48

908B64B197 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal understanding is that instead of increasing the pay, they are betting that by cutting a day, people will stay and keep the same level of crunch time. How's the option package? A credible company will have most employees in the core business getting the majority of their revenue from the stock performance. Switching to 4 days a week should lower the number of release they can have per year...

Stock options aren’t a thing in the game industry

That's not true. They are available if you work for the bigger publishers.

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#112

Post by Waterluvian » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #64

Waterluvian wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I don’t want compression. I want five days a week of 3-8 hours of work each day. I fill the rest with family stuff, piano, hobbies when they pique my interest, chores, etc. That is, I think the flexibility is more valuable than concentrated time off. It enables me to follow the flow of life.

How can you enjoy life after work? I have ADHD, and all the time before and after work is dead. I'd be happier working 40 hours in 3 days.

I’m not sure I understand the question. I have pretty nasty ADHD and do not struggle to shut off from work.

I’m not working for free so when I hit 35 hours I stop paying attention to it.

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#113

Post by Darmody » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 12:35 PM UTC

ornornor wrote: post #97

Darmody wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that happens for 2 reasons. 1. Video games are really hard and costly to make and unless you're a big known company, nothing assures you'll get your money back 2. It's a dream job for a lot of young programmers, so they'll accept anything.

I’m sure they have very good reasons for exploiting people, whatever these reasons may be it doesn’t change the fact that video game companies are not good places to work at for the most part.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending them. I'm just giving the reasons I think there's so much crap in that industry.

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#114

Post by EduardoBautista » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

philmcp wrote: post #110

whichdan wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I would easily take a 20% paycut to have Fridays off forever.

Me too - but there are now companies offering a 4 day week with 0% drop in salary https://4dayweek.io/

0% drop compared to what company? Stripe? Uber? Google?

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#115

Post by edzillion » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

If Eidos Montreal is the same as the game companies I have worked for they'll all be doing a ton of unpaid overtime. Work hours as stated on the contract meant nothing

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#116

Post by ProZsolt » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

breuleux wrote: post #75

rtpg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You're cutting productive and unproductive hours at the same time" is perhaps true, but it's about the ratio. Obviously at the extremes (cutting the last day of work vs going from a 7-day to a 6-day) there's going to be differences. Acting like unproductive hours are some random result goes against loads of companies who have been doing actual trials of 5 => 4 day weeks. Having time off is actually helpful, and the…

I don't think unproductive hours are random, but I suspect that for mental work the productivity ratio decreases more dramatically in the last hour of each day than the last day of a week. Basically, from a pure productivity standpoint, it may be more efficient to go from 5x8 to 5x6 (or even 5x4) than to go from 5x8 to 4x8. Most people might prefer 4x8 because a full day off is more flexible, however.

You need to calculate the productivity boost on Mondays after an extra day of rest.

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#117

Post by OneTimePetes » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #85

oarabbus_ wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are not robots. If most people do 2 "work days" of work in 5 a 5-day week, it doesn't logically follow that people would accomplish 2 "work days" of work in a 2-day week. If we could find a VC with too much money and a gambling problem, I'd be happy to simultaneously start competing companies in the same sector; my employees can work 4 days/week and yours can work 2 days and we'll see how each business does ;)

>a VC with too much money and a gambling problem Isn't that a bit of a tautology? :P (I kid, please don't kill me VCs)

As someday it may happen, that a victim must be found, i got a little list, of proprietary offenders who might as well be underground..

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#118

Post by ladyattis » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

akersten wrote: post #8

In the spirit of always starting your negotiation high and working toward a palatable middle, I'd like to propose a 2-day work week and 5 days off. You may think that sounds crazy, but how many hours of dedicated, actual work do you do in a week? If you work a "9-5" and are reading this comment at work right now, I can give you a hint: it's not 40 ;) I think we'd all be less distracted and more focused if we forced t…

I think over-asking for that sort of work week isn't productive to be honest. And I'm an anti-work kind of person. The real problem is that modern work doesn't reflect the actual labor involved. I don't know how many hours I've wasted on meetings where a simple email and a 15 minute follow-up for questions would've been sufficient to get any issues out of the way. I'll grant that some labor is just meetings to debate the course of a business but beyond that as a software developer my job really should be about what is getting priority and then doing that priority queue. The meeting schedule for me should be 1 or 2 meetings a week total (not exceeding 45 minutes total) to set the work queue for said products then the rest should be me doing the work with some time to get help from other developers who have expertise in something I'm unfamiliar with. The total hours for that? Probably 30-40 a week tops. Anything past 40 is just screaming for contractors.

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#119

Post by philmcp » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

EduardoBautista wrote: post #114

philmcp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too - but there are now companies offering a 4 day week with 0% drop in salary https://4dayweek.io/

0% drop compared to what company? Stripe? Uber? Google?

Compared to the salary the company offered before they switched to a 4 day work week

Re: Eidos-Montréal Offices shifting to the 4 day work week

#120

Post by haliskerbas » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

breuleux wrote: post #72

akersten wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hypothesis is that most of our "unproductive time" in the 40h workweek is just filler time spent warming seats, a direct result of there actually not being all that much work that a human can consistently accomplish in a week. So, by removing the expectation that you have your butt in a chair 8 hours a day 5 days a week, the new model is "get everything you were already painfully stretching across 5 days done in o…

The main issue, at least for me, is that I simply cannot focus for 8 hours in a single day. If I was to work 2 hours a day for four days, I would likely get more done than if I "worked" 8 hours one day.

I do 1 hour chunks of work 8 times a day, between 8am and 11pm. Some work Gets blocked by other work, or other people being busy, pr some infra needing to be fixed.