Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#111

Post by jqm » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 12:18 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #52

jqm wrote: post #31

I don't think many people work more than six hours a day. Most work probably considerably less, the fact that they are at work for 8 hours notwithstanding. If they could remove some of these inefficiencies and return the time to employees it would be great.

They wouldn't work for net 6 hours either. It's not like the exchange is 8 hours including coffee breaks, Facebook checking and staring at the ceiling to 6 hours pure net uninterrupted work. It's 8 hours with distractions to 6 hours with distractions.

Good point.

There absolutely would still be distractions.

But possibly less per hour in a 6 hour day than an 8, and so still a more efficient. Some studies on this would be interesting.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#112

Post by laxatives » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 3:37 AM UTC

heuan wrote: post #87

laxatives wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading all of these comments with personal hours is kind of blowing my mind. I always thought people in tech had easy cushy jobs? Personally, I am at the office 5-6 hours a day (at a major company). Sure there are some rough weeks, but even then, 50 hours at most. Just today I was at the office from 1030 and left at 3, spending a half hour at lunch. On average, probably 35-40 hours at the office, with an hour spent…

Thanks for the comment - I wanted a little more information about your work - did you have to search extensively/move a far away for this type of employer? Also what kind of words would the employer use to describe these working conditions (looks like its beyond normal "flexitime" arrangements) so that others might find them too?

This is my first fulltime job, having just graduated in December and spending most of January traveling. It was actually the only job I got an offer -- it was near the top of my list of choices but I was still pretty disappointed. I probably applied to maybe 300 places over the course of a year, but after getting an offer (following an internship over the summer) I probably only applied to 3-5 places I was serious about.

The employer doesn't use any words to describe it, its just part of the culture I guess. Just get your work done, no one cares when you're in the office. We have a scrum meeting we're expected to attend and a few sprints meetings/allhands, but everything else we are free to schedule whatever suits us best. Initially I was a little disappointed about how little vacation time I was getting, but I've taken a few days off and have never been docked days from my balance.

Re: Sweden: The New Laboratory for a Six-Hour Work Day

#113

Post by antjanus » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:06 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #96

antjanus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's what annoys the crap out of me. A 9-5 week means you worked 7 hours a day. That's a 35 hour week. :/

Huh, why does that annoy you? Too little or too much? That seems kind of normal to me (well less and less so). Anywhere between 35 and 40 hour week I would class as normal (though the trend is towards 40).

Oh, it's totally normal. What's annoying is that the saying is "nine to five" which is supposed to represent "full time" while it doesn't whatsoever.

In the US (at least for office jobs), full time is 40 hours, either 8-5, 9-6, or somewhere in between. Because of the 1 hour break.

I think that 9-5 is a total acceptable amount of time to work.