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Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

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Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#31

Post by bborud »

Chinjut wrote: post #15
IGotThroughIt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for myself as a mobile and wed dev so I have my clients who pay my bills and several apps I'm working on in parallel.

The number of hours you volunteer to put into working for yourself is, frankly, completely irrelevant to the issue of hours demanded by a boss from their employees, who surely have things in their life they'd rather be doing with their time. Using the former as a way to argue that the latter should be kept high is an uncharitable mentality.

If you are a programmer and your boss demands hours from you rather than results, your boss has no idea what she/he is doing.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#32

Post by Jedd »

SuddsMcDuff wrote: post #14

I don't think it should be assumed that less time at work is necessarily preferable. What will people do with all their additional spare time? Sure, they might spend their days learning art, history, philosophy. They might take up writing poetry, painting or learning the piano. Or, they might vegetate in front of the TV, take up drinking as a hobby, argue with strangers online and slowly decay into existential nihili…

Well, the devil doesn't exist, but I think I get your allusion.

If you go back a century, people in Britain, Europe, USA, Australia etc were probably working 70 hours a week.

If you asked a random selection of people in those countries now if they think we should all move back to that figure as a standard work week -- you know, to save society from itself -- I'm guessing you wouldn't get a lot of support.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#34

Post by bborud »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #20
generalpass wrote: post #8

Just looking over her Wikipedia article it's not clear to me she's ever been involved in managing a business.

This is exactly my point. I honestly don't know how anything would ever get done with this kind of attitude. I'm not saying that we should overwork our labor force but what we have now seems fairly optimal.

Do you manage people?

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#35

Post by avz »

When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it.

If people work less, especially if engineers, scientists, doctors etc work less, then technological progress will be taking place slower than it is currently. The disappointment of my teenage self with 2030 will then be even greater than that with 2020.

I'm genuinely puzzled by the general anti-work sentiment I perceive on HN (maybe my perception is simply incorrect). I'd expect that most folks here work as engineers or in a similar field that rewards with interesting and meaningful problems and that a substantial fraction had once been sci-fi-imbued teenagers like myself and possibly feel the same disappointment with the pace of technological progress.

I'm very worried that the anti-work movement is (inadvertently?) pushing on the breaks of technological progress :-(

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#37

Post by Spooky23 »

avz wrote: post #35

When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…

In doubt it. Most jobs are operations or a function that is mostly hours applied to complete tasks, not product development.

Reducing working hours would likely improve output and employment.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#38

Post by frequentnapper »

avz wrote: post #35

When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…

on the other hand, it gives motivated people enough free time to tackle difficult problems that they're interested in.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#39

Post by _vertigo »

avz wrote: post #35

When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…

Some people believe that we'd be more efficient if we work 30 hours a week instead of 40+.

Re: Finland's Prime Minister Suggests a Four-Day Workweek and Six-Hour Days

#40

Post by kerpele »

avz wrote: post #35

When I was a nerdy teenager I imagined that by a date like 2020 humankind would have cured cancer, built a base on the Moon or Mars, eradicated infectious diseases and taken control over climate and weather. It turns out that in the real world progress is a lot slower than in the imagination of a sci-fi-imbued teenager. It turns out that solving problems takes work. A lot of it. If people work less, especially if eng…

Most people probably aren’t willing to sacrifice themselves for the possible slight advancement of mankind. Especially laborers who are the ones most affected by work time limits.
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