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Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

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Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#191

Post by Chestofdraw »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #181
nitrogen wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you're referring to the discussion that followed your vouch, I know people who talk like that comment in person, and their tone of voice and body language makes it clear that they're reasonable and genuine people just with a different vocabulary. But it's impossible to tell online, with only text.

The problem isn't vocabulary. It's lack of logic. We are talking about something that is nonsense. What are we talking about? People ought to be able to work no more than six hours a day. Really? Why does anyone work eight? Or ten? Or twelve? Did this 8 to 10 hour per day thing get sprung on people and forced upon them from nowhere? No. Of course not. It's something that achieved a "natural" balance over decades (cen…

> Why does anyone work eight? Or ten? Or twelve? Did this 8 to 10 hour per day thing get sprung on people and forced upon them from nowhere? No. Of course not. It's something that achieved a "natural" balance over decades (centuries?). And the balance has hundreds of variables driving it. From personal happiness to international competitiveness and productivity with even more variables across varied industries and cultures.

People work 8 hour days because left wing labour movements, unions, and politicians argued for it. Much like some people in Sweden are doing now. Some companies / countries tried it and found it to be good, so it spread. Prior to that working days would be between 10 and 16 hours, six days a week. I'm sure many people argued as you are now, 'only the lazy want to work less than 16 hours a day', 'it won't work logically', 'it will be impossible to implement'. Turns out they were wrong and you probably are too.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#192

Post by wlll »

guntars wrote: post #113
wlll wrote: post #62

My own really short story, I (sysadmin/ops/programmer) currently work remotely about 4 hours per day, and I'm way more productive than when I worked 8.

Do you mind expanding on why that is? I hear this often and I'd like it to be true, but I find it hard to believe.

I suspect it's a number of reasons.

- I work to my own schedule. There's no artificial start time. If I feel like I've got something to contribute at any point I sit down and do so. If I feel inspired or get in the zone I'll do 6 or eight hours, if I don't I'll do none, or just a couple of hours.

- Conversely, if I don't feel up to it, uninspired, tired, whatever, I can stop. Taking a break/nap and coming back to something is incredibly valuable.

- I'm so much less stressed than when I was working an 8 hour job. Way more relaxed, so my mental state overall is way better.

- If I sit down and program/operate for 4 hours I spend the rest of the day effectively letting my brain churn on problems. I'm still thinking about the problems that I am working on, I have way more "shower moments".

6 months ago I worked an 8 hour per day job (from home still) and my own personal observation is that I'm way more effective in 4 hours now than I was in 8 at my old job. I feel productive.

This might not work for other people obviously, maybe I just need/like a larger proportion of my time to be thinking time over implementation time.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#193

Post by laughfactory »

Johnny555 wrote: post #109
rebootthesystem wrote: post #58

> In a perfect situation this would have led to higher employment numbers and happier employees. What kind of hippie logic is this? Happier employees? I don't know ANYONE who would be happier if they got a 25% pay cut except for, maybe, single hippies who want to smoke dope all day and have no responsibilities. The average person, on the other hand, and particularly those with kids, would be devastated by a 25% cut i…

I don't know ANYONE who would be happier if they got a 25% pay cut except for, maybe, single hippies who want to smoke dope all day and have no responsibilities. The average person, on the other hand, and particularly those with kids, would be devastated by a 25% cut in pay. While a 25% pay cut sounds extreme, my wife took a 20% pay cut to work a 4 day week and she's never been happier. She has more time to do the th…

I'd happily take this trade-off: work less (in a professional, salaried position) and get paid proportionally less. I'd love to work a 24 or 32 hour work week at 20-40% less salary. I value my time more than I value money.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#194

Post by mattkrause »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #181
nitrogen wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you're referring to the discussion that followed your vouch, I know people who talk like that comment in person, and their tone of voice and body language makes it clear that they're reasonable and genuine people just with a different vocabulary. But it's impossible to tell online, with only text.

The problem isn't vocabulary. It's lack of logic. We are talking about something that is nonsense. What are we talking about? People ought to be able to work no more than six hours a day. Really? Why does anyone work eight? Or ten? Or twelve? Did this 8 to 10 hour per day thing get sprung on people and forced upon them from nowhere? No. Of course not. It's something that achieved a "natural" balance over decades (cen…

  Did this 8 to 10 hour per day thing get sprung on people
  and forced upon them from nowhere?
  No. Of course not. It's something that achieved a
  "natural" balance over decades (centuries?).
Nonsense.

In the United States, the eight-hour day for everyone came from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937. Australia got it state by state starting in 1916 (Victoria 8 Hours Act) and nationally in 1948. The Mexican constitution of 1917 also prescribed an 8 hour day. None of these are "centuries" old.

Obviously, individuals and unions demanded shorter working hours before these acts were passed. However, if you look at the spread of these demands, it all happened pretty fast--and at a time when communication and coordination were significantly more difficult than at present.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#195

Post by mcntsh »

ArlenBales wrote: post #100

My utopian society workweek is 4 days/8 hours. That extra day off would do far more for people than one or two less hours every day. So 4x8=32 hours, vs 6x5=30 hours. I would even bargain for 4 days/9 hours, or 4x9=36 hours. That third day is huge. It's the difference from having only enough time for some leisurely weekend activities, to having enough time to take a mini-3-day-vacation every week (short flights, etc.…

Currently working at a digital agency doing 4x8 (32 hours). It works really well for us and the extra day really does make a huge difference with work/life balance. Really huge.

It does mean the week is more compacted and there's less time spent "twirling your thumbs", but it's a much better schedule over all and we continue to produce great work.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#196

Post by dang »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #58

> In a perfect situation this would have led to higher employment numbers and happier employees. What kind of hippie logic is this? Happier employees? I don't know ANYONE who would be happier if they got a 25% pay cut except for, maybe, single hippies who want to smoke dope all day and have no responsibilities. The average person, on the other hand, and particularly those with kids, would be devastated by a 25% cut i…

Please don't start or feed any more flamewars on Hacker News. This subthread is the kind we hope to avoid, and your role has been trolling even though I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.

You have a history of breaking HN's civility rule. We've cut you a lot of slack for a long time because some of your other comments are good and interesting. But eventually we have to ban accounts that behave this way, so we'd appreciate it if you would please fix this.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13319944 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#197

Post by rebootthesystem »

mattkrause wrote: post #194
rebootthesystem wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't vocabulary. It's lack of logic. We are talking about something that is nonsense. What are we talking about? People ought to be able to work no more than six hours a day. Really? Why does anyone work eight? Or ten? Or twelve? Did this 8 to 10 hour per day thing get sprung on people and forced upon them from nowhere? No. Of course not. It's something that achieved a "natural" balance over decades (cen…

Did this 8 to 10 hour per day thing get sprung on people and forced upon them from nowhere? No. Of course not. It's something that achieved a "natural" balance over decades (centuries?). Nonsense. In the United States, the eight-hour day for everyone came from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937. Australia got it state by state starting in 1916 (Victoria 8 Hours Act) and nationally in 1948. The Mexican constitution…

Right, but the reason it was set to 8 and not 4, 7 or 6 or 10 is that this is a "natural" (using the word in quotes because it isn't quite so) balancing point that came to be understood over centuries, way before these laws were passed. The numbers were not pulled out of thin air.

I don't know the answer to this. It'd be interesting to understand how long the work day was in ancient times. Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc.

Even with slavery, there had to be a forced optimization of labor hours simply due to the fact that people would get sick or even die if subjected to unreasonable schedules.

The world somehow seems to have achieved labor balance at eight hours per day. It's interesting that this seems to be the case in most nations and cultures on the planet. That's what I mean by it being the "natural" work day.

To force something different at a national level (less or more hours) would put that particular nation at odds with other nations. It would also have detrimental effects at all levels, from the individual to the nation itself.

I insist these changes are possible but not through forced legislative approaches. This is where I think, in the long term, robotics and AI will have a positive effect on society. If less people can produce more in less time and we can figure out how to cope with the societal changes this will spur, we could be on a path where people will be able to exist with much less (in financial terms) yet have good lives and achieve balance.

I can almost see an evolutionary path towards what today looks like utopia. I just don't know how to get there. Being in robotics myself I always worry about what it means to make machines that can displace humans. Not sure where the answers on that might lie.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#198

Post by rebootthesystem »

scrollaway wrote: post #190
rebootthesystem wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know what vouching is. It sounds like I should thank you for it. Thanks. Reflecting upon these various exchanges I had a feeling that there's something odd at play. You see, people such as yourself have consistently misconstrued or misunderstood what I've been saying, both in tone and content. Your last comment is no different. At first I thought it was just people choosing to be offended for a truly silly comm…

Your comment was flagged by users due to the reasons I mentioned. Vouching makes it visible again. I'm fairly certain there is some form of language barrier at play here which is why myself and many others have been trying to engage with you rather than dismissing your messages. You have a lot of people reacting negatively to the tone and language you used in your post; insisting on phrasing such as "hippie logic" an…

I think the difference here is that my "hippie logic" term was taken completely out of context and translated into a negative tone. And, yes, I got defensive because that's not how I meant it at all and nobody seemed to want to discuss the real points being made at all. So it quickly got completely twisted into a version of that scene in the video I linked.

If we were talking face to face and I said "man, that's just a silly argument" or "you must be drunk to think that way" you'd know it was offered in a friendly tone not in a negative aggressive one.

My mistake: I should have added a happy face.

Thanks for your patience. Be well.

PS. I've pretty much given up debating theists. Not enough hours in a day (there's a pun there somewhere).

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#199

Post by sn0v »

executesorder66 wrote: post #173
imesh wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With kids I prefer 4x8 to 5x6 but my wife wouldn't.

> but my wife wouldn't. Why not? You'd get to spend more contiguous time together.

Maybe she doesn't get to work 4 days a week? I could see that cutting into their together time on weekdays.

Re: Sweden reveals results from pilot of 30-hour work week

#200

Post by mordocai »

tempestn wrote: post #147
mordocai wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason it wasn't exactly 6 was for business/logistical reasons. The person you are calling inaccurate said as much in different words. If it wasn't exactly 6 then you shouldn't call it 6.

We call a standard work day 8 even though it isn't exactly 8. If indeed the idea was to shift a standard work day from approximately 8 hours to approximately 6 hours, it seems reasonable to refer to it as the "6-hour work day". (I haven't read the report, so won't comment on whether that was indeed the focus, as opposed to a more flexible 30-hour week.)

Everywhere i've worked that has actually cared about hours meant 8 when they said 8. My current job (as stupid as I think it is) requires me to be at work and not on lunch for 8 hours a day.
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