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Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

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Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#31

Post by quietthrow »

mbell wrote: post #13

Meh, I think this lacks perspective. Maybe you 'worked' less in that era in the sense that you provided a smaller portion of your time to a third party for pay. But, you worked more overall. You didn't work for a few hours then order food for dinner; You probably worked a few hours, then spent the next many hours either harvesting and/or creating all the requirements for life. Maybe you spent 2 hours hunting a deer,…

May be same could be said of your perspective and the comment thereof. It’s all relative. Your idea of you and you working is totally relative too. You are nothing but a collection of cells which never stop working until they all do together. By that logic nobody ever had free time.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#33

Post by atq2119 »

Areading314 wrote: post #12
zik wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common usage indicates that "than us" is just fine. Remember English grammar doesn't come from a grammar book - grammar books are merely imperfect attempts to describe common English usage.

Imagine writing this in a code review

Why not? Programming language grammar is fixed by the compiler, but idioms and stylistic preferences change over time based on usage as well.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#35

Post by libraryatnight »

ericmcer wrote: post #30
flatline wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recently read Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods to the kids. The parents’ life was non-stop work from sun-up to sundown and beyond, and while there was some downtime in the winter, everyone was basically homebound. It did not seem like a bad life at all, but then I think there is an eternal virtue to hard work that is only tangentially related to sitting at a desk in the modern era.

The closer your work is to the actual benefit it provides, the more gratifying it is.

I post this quote a lot, but I your point made me think of it again: "It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well, - this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of society as a whole." - Ursula K LeGuin

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#36

Post by hairytrog »

Sure, many spend 8 hours at the office. But do they do 8 hours of work? Probably not. There are diminishing returns on time spent working, and it probably starts around the third hour.

https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/978019087...

Many industries would probably suffer negligible losses (and maybe gains) by transitioning to 20 hour work weeks.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#37

Post by dcolkitt »

hairytrog wrote: post #36

Sure, many spend 8 hours at the office. But do they do 8 hours of work? Probably not. There are diminishing returns on time spent working, and it probably starts around the third hour. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/978019087... Many industries would probably suffer negligible losses (and maybe gains) by transitioning to 20 hour work weeks.

I don't disagree with you. The average eight hour office worker probably only does do four hours of work a day. But I think the problem is that that nearly everyone has internalized that cadence.

If every office worker had their schedule cut to a 20 hours a week, I strongly suspect that only 10 hours of work would actually get done. It's just too much of the low efficiency is culturally ingrained on every level from the cultural to the organizational. It would probably take a generation for things to change.

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#39

Post by anovikov »

hairytrog wrote: post #36

Sure, many spend 8 hours at the office. But do they do 8 hours of work? Probably not. There are diminishing returns on time spent working, and it probably starts around the third hour. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/978019087... Many industries would probably suffer negligible losses (and maybe gains) by transitioning to 20 hour work weeks.

With coders, that's clearly not the case right? Coding requires immersion. Same person working on same thing 60 hours per week will make a lot more progress per hour than if he worked 20 hours.

In the freelance world, this is name of the game: recruiters want people to work as much per week as possible for this reason, freelancers want to work as little as possible (that improves their skills quicker by working on many things at same time, plus provides job security of having 3-4 clients at same time so they are unlikely to all fire at same time).

Re: Preindustrial workers worked fewer hours than today's (2009)

#40

Post by bryanrasmussen »

ericmcer wrote: post #30
flatline wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recently read Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods to the kids. The parents’ life was non-stop work from sun-up to sundown and beyond, and while there was some downtime in the winter, everyone was basically homebound. It did not seem like a bad life at all, but then I think there is an eternal virtue to hard work that is only tangentially related to sitting at a desk in the modern era.

The closer your work is to the actual benefit it provides, the more gratifying it is.

Then why do I hate cooking?
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