The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
thenextweb.com
The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#2It is strange that the author attributes the eight-hour workday to Henry Ford's business strategy. It had been a demand raised by workers themselves from much earlier: “Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#3What you do is important, not the hours I agree, but do you know what changed my life for the better with respect to work and home without changing the hours?
I stopped watching television.
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#4It is strange that the author attributes the eight-hour workday to Henry Ford's business strategy. It had been a demand raised by workers themselves from much earlier: “Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
But at that time it was relatively rare. Moving to an 8 hour day and only 5 days a week was unheard of at companies as large as Ford.
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#5The article makes it sound as though the eight hour work day was a gift from the bosses to the workers; or an attempt to make them better consumers.
The truth is that thousands of workers died in a world wide struggle for humane working conditions during the 19th century.
In Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
In 1921 bombs were dropped on striking coal miners in West Virginia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#6What you do is important, not the hours I agree, but do you know what changed my life for the better with respect to work and home without changing the hours? I stopped watching television.
[deleted]
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#7What you do is important, not the hours I agree, but do you know what changed my life for the better with respect to work and home without changing the hours? I stopped watching television.
I do a less extreme version of this. I don't own a TV, but I still watch a few selected shows on my computer. Doing it that way means I can watch when I want, and also has the benefit of fewer commercials. In total, I probably watch about 4 hours of mindless TV a week, when many people watch that much in a day.
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#8What you do is important, not the hours I agree, but do you know what changed my life for the better with respect to work and home without changing the hours? I stopped watching television.
Also, 8 hours of "work" vs. 8 hours of productivity is quite different. I use pomodoro timers to track my level of productivity and when they add up to 8 hours, my brain is totally done. I'd have to squeeze in a long run to shake myself out of it.
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#9It is strange that the author attributes the eight-hour workday to Henry Ford's business strategy. It had been a demand raised by workers themselves from much earlier: “Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
I think he was attributing the 5 day working week to Ford rather then the hours/day. 8/8/8 could result in a 48 hour week if you work six days, as many factory workers used to.
Re: The Surprising Reason We Have a 40-Hour Work Week
#10In small settings, e.g. just yourself, or you and your co-funder, of just a few employees, I guess this article makes sense for everyone. But the problem is with growing, bigger scheme.
It seems like as businesses grow and add more and more employees, they move to a more repetitive and uniform way to organize. Everybody should have the same schedule, losing an employee or hiring a new one isn't felt as much as a problem, they start to receive less feedback from employees and treat them more as repleceable workers.