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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

#41

Post by GordonS »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #13
GordonS wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you work 6 hours "for the man", and then work on a project of your own choosing, for whatever reason you wanted? (a side project, the next unicorn, some spare cash, something OSS, something for charity, or just because)

It's exactly what I do, but I suspect that the spirit of this 6 hour initiative isn't necessarily in line with what you're alluding to but rather the idea that working less hours is better for all of us. Correct me if I'm wrong about this.

I think perhaps you're reading too much into what was a non-sarcastic comment? I genuinely mean I haven't come across a widespread (or existent) official 6-hour working day in Scandinavia.

In Norway at least, it's true that lots of people finish work relatively early - but only because they start work really early (6-7am)!

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

#42

Post by bborud »

IGotThroughIt wrote: post #29
notJim wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Area capitalist opposes increased rights for labor

I've been a laborer too so I'm not arguing against laborers' rights. Labor and capital are symbiotic; one without the other would not function as efficiently as they do now. We're doing okay with what we have is all I'm saying. Perpetually being in a state of revolution doesn't help anyone especially when things are going great. 40 hours seems fair to me; 24 hours doesn't. I'm hard pressed to believe work would get c…

Depends on the work.

Based on experience I would rather have a happy, well-rested developer working for me who is aching to get to work in the morning and who has the brains to leave for home as soon as he or she feels tired or unfocused. If that happens at 2pm or 4pm, I don't actually care. If people are still at the office at 6pm, or if I see people are tired, unfocused or are only goofing off, I ask them to go home.

To the degree that I care about the hours they work I only care if they spend too long doing something (they're stuck and need help perhaps?) or if they work too many hours (they'll write shit code we have to fix later so I get to pay for it 2-4 times over).

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

#43

Post by Apocryphon »

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 in Silicon Valley working long hours are not toiling for missions remotely related to those utopian visions.

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

#44

Post by decebalus1 »

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…

Do you think working more would get us to that place? Purely from an hourly perspective, we're already working 'more'. Way more than the technological progress would allow us to focus on the problems that you mentioned. The problem IMO is who benefits from the extra value produced by that work. Unfortunately it's not society.

The anti-work movement is not 'anti-work' in general. It's anti-meaningless degrading work which allows me to make ends meet while enabling a small number of people to become unbelievably rich.

This book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs outlines some of the issues you mentioned. Technological advancement allowed for a lot of jobs to disappear which should theoretically allow us to have more leisure time or time invested in other directions. However, we need to keep 'the machine' going, so..

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

#45

Post by kerpele »

meerita wrote: post #33

Why not leave people work as much as they want if they agree with their employees?

Most people don’t have any leverage for these kinds of negotiations and would fairly likely get shafted if there were no laws to protect them

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

#46

Post by [deleted] »

bborud wrote: post #34
IGotThroughIt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#47

Post by kerpele »

Entalpi wrote: post #3

” Perhaps following the lead of other Scandinavian countries, where a six-hour workday is common.” Not in Sweden. 40h per week here means fulltime.

Nobody has six hour workday and nobody thinks anybody has that. It’s only in the imagination of the writer of this marginally factual article.

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

#48

Post by findjashua »

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…

but what percentage of the workforce is actually working in jobs related to solving these problems?

i'd argue that the "anti-work" sentiment here is more to do with lack of fulfillment due to an epidemic of bullshit jobs, rather than not wanting to work.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bullshit_Jobs

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

#49

Post by larnmar »

_vertigo wrote: post #39
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+.

If this were really true, you’d expect to see most people with full freedom to set their own hours gravitate towards that 30-hour mark.

Professors working 30-hour weeks would write more papers than their harder-working colleagues. Business owners would show up for 30 hours a week and go home. Fruit pickers, paid by the bucket, would pick more fruit in 30 hours than their colleagues could pick in 50. Professional athletes who spent less time training would beat their harder-working competitors.

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

#50

Post by Proven »

_vertigo wrote: post #39
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+.

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