The three-day weekend: a dream deferred | Hacker News Reader

The three-day weekend: a dream deferred

theglobeandmail.com

51 pointsrfugger29 comments

It is fairly well established that how wealthy you feel is established by how visibly wealthy you are compared to your fairly immediate neighbors. I think the core fallacy of the idea that as prosperity increased, we'd work less, is that obviously if we work less then we'll be less visibly wealthy compared to our neighbors. Our ancient hindbrains do not perceive leisure time as a visible sign of wealth.

I would suggest the continued popularity of the five-day work week is an effect, not a cause.

Work-as-religion strikes me as an explanation that flatters the biases of certain people, but I'm not seeing a lot of evidence for it. In fact as I sit here trying to dissect the idea so that I can attack it, it's just coming apart in my hands. Sure, there's some small segment of the population that may feel that way, lawyers and financiers and others making a lot per hour, but I just don't hear very many other people complaining that they can't work more. As a societal explanation for a 5-day work week it's so silly it can't hardly be attacked without the attacks sounding equally silly.

I think you nailed it in the first paragraph. I wish everyone interested in discussing economics would understand acknowledge that idea.

You might be taking the "work as religion" theory too literally, though. It's not about what you think of workaholic lawyers. If you're North American (or East Asian, etc), you should take into account that what's "normal" there might be regarded as workaholic-ish by someone in (say) Latin America or Southern Europe.

If your thesis were correct, then if employers freely offered 4-day weeks for 80% pay for everyone, then no-one would take them up. I don't believe that: but in any case, there'd be no reason for them not to try the experiment.

"I don't believe that:"

I don't either, but I think that the reasons that would occur are themselves second-order effects of what I cited, rather than the root cause. The offer would be unstable and tend to collapse back into the usual workweek, which is rather close to what has been established as the maximum amount you can work at a job sustainably. The way in which it would probably collapse is that the employer would get an offer from somebody to work the full normal workweek and the employer would tend to take it. It's difficult in a conventional employee/employer to buck the trend precisely because it comes from something fundamental to human psychology that no amount of tech is going to solve.

I've worked a 4x10 shift for most of my years at my current employer and wouldn't have it any other way. My day is already "ruined" by going to work, even for 9 hours (8+lunch), that I'd rather get more hours out of a day and have the extra day off. The three-day weekend allows short trips without having to use vacation days, and having a day off during the week allows more time for errands.

It's amazing how this work culture is more or less limited to North America. I was in Munich a week ago and it's mind-blowing how relaxed the culture is for a strong economy. Leisure time, which for Germany is drinking time, is highly valued and not interrupted by work.

What I find amazing is that I would love more leisure time, yet I feel guilty when I'm not working. It's not even a case of having a boss looking over my shoulder, because I have my own business.

Anyone else struggle with this and has found a way to deal with it?

Yeah, I solve the guilt by working more.

This is definitely more so the case when you run your own business. I do too and I have the same feelings, so I end up working all evenings and sometimes all weekend too.

But then I get other guilts, like not spending enough time with my wife, visiting my parents, or getting enough sleep. My brain doesn't have chance to switch off and my output is probably considerably lower than if I just stopped and took a proper break from all the tech and work

This is the main reason why I'm mandating a 4-day work week for my employees. But this is balanced... I don't then want them to feel the pressure to fit that elusive 5th day into the remaining four.

The biggest hindrance to this is that the rest of society generally works 5 days. And in the web world, people want you 24/7. But we're balking against it. Eventually, I'll get down to 4 days myself :) I can feel it

I lived in Germany a while ago. I was astonished when I first found out that you get 6 weeks paid holidays a year, and if you are sick during this time and manage to get a doctors cert to prove it you will get those holidays again. That time off is considered essential to your well being, and if you have been unable to benefit from it by being ill then you simply get to take them again when you can benefit from them. Also, the healthcare was excellent.

I hate getting political on HN, but, more than anything else, at least in the USA, healthcare costs are a huge cause of this. That health coverage is tied to employment creates a fixed cost on employers per-employee, rather than a transferrable marginal cost. It is nonsensical that we manage to have both high unemployment and long work-hours, but yet, it's cheaper for this to be the hiring pattern.

All of that said, within the scope of software development (more relevant to this board), a major factor is Brooks' law, which leads to the startup culture of 80-hour weeks being "how things are done".

I think your rant is slightly misplaced. I agree that it's a huge problem that the US employment-related healthcare system prevents a free or fair market in health insurance. But the specific problem you describe (and other fixed per-employee costs which would persist even without healthcare) can be addressed by externalizing the cost: pay the four-day employees less than pro rata.

The company where I work gives "surprise" four day weekends by giving Friday off for several of the three day weekends, a nice bonus.

The article is really about the 4 day workweek: 4 10-hour days, which makes a lot of sense for most people. Of course most HNers would be at a loss at what to do with all the free time.

Work on their own projects, of course!

My company agreed to let me work 4x10 hour days a few years ago. My salary was under the market rate, and they couldn't afford any additional money (public sector). So I requested the compressed schedule, and have been able to work on my startup much more effectively in the interim.

It also paved the way for my recent shift to 21 hours / week with them. For a guy like me, the extra time was worth more than marginal income.

It's not deferred by that much. The Four Hour Workweek has been a super-duper bestseller for a reason: Many people are actively working toward the goal of periodic mini-retirements. For those who can earn and save, leisure is quite possible today.

A second diversion of leisure, I believe, has been the priorisation of "a job you love". This is a reasonable tradeoff. Imagine you have the choice to work 4 days a week in a tar pit, or work 6.75 days a week to make it as a photographer. The Blackberry leash isn't so terrible viewed that way.

i heard that some people say that in europe there are too many holidays, especially in those countries that are not very rich. those people say, that these vacations, holidays and other evidences of socialism (or even laziness) are the cause of their problems.

i dont know, just wanted to hear thoughts...

Too many holidays means you always have someone in the team who is in holidays and that's not good for projects.

For a lot of jobs though, it doesn't matter.

Holidays tend to clump up in the summer, so there are a few weeks there are almost no activity, and full activity the rest of the year.

When you have six weeks of holidays, the summer isn't enough...

The states with some of the longest holidays (e.g. France (30 days per year), Germany (24 days per year)) are the economically strongest states in the EU. It's France and Germany that can afford to bail out the countries with less working time, e.g. Ireland (20 days), Greece (20 days), Portugal (22 days).

(for the record 20 days is the legal minimum under the European Working Time Directive)

In contrast, the US federal government observes 10 holidays, and most businesses probably only close for 5 - 7 of those.

http://www.opm.gov/operating_status_schedules/fedhol/2011.as...

When you're an American in Europe for an extended period of time, you feel like everything is always closed (short business hours plus so many holidays). I hear that business hours have been expanding, though.

Note that the numbers stated by rmc2 are not the number of public holidays, but the number of vacation days you, as an employee, has a year. Typically this is on top of public holidays. Of course, most European countries, IIRC, do not shift holidays that fall on weekends to the preceding or following work days.

Yes there are on average about 8 public holiday 'everyone gets a day off work' days per year on top of those annual leave entitlement (which you can usually take at any time of the year for your own holidays).

And AFAIK European countries do shift days to the next weekend, in fact in some countries (Ireland) that's the legal requirement.

I currently live in Vienna, Austria. Besides lots of public holidays you get 25 vacation days per year and unlimited sick days independent from the vacation days. If you don't take your vacation days your employer must pay you for them, so most (all) employers require their employees to take their vacation days. As your vacation days don't expire, you can also "add them up" and take a longer vacation in one of the following years. You typically work 38.5 hours per week, and while for some areas (paid) overtime is common, it is definitely not the norm for the generic employee.

As for the "not very rich" part: According to Mercer's annual study Vienna is worldwide the most livable city - see: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2010/gb2010... - but yes - I guess that the quality-of-life would be much better without those vacation days.

(Saying all that, I still plan to move to SF in the following months...)

I have been living and working in France for almost three years now. I enjoy an effective 45 days of vacation a year, since the 35 hour work week is translated to vacation. The pay is not very good compared to the rest of the world, but it is a very good deal. My time is more valuable to me than the things I can buy. It is easy to make fun of the lazy French, but at times they seem to have a better grasp of what is important in life.

I have 10 days of holiday here in Canada. At my previous job in the UK I had 21 (excluding bank holidays). A few months after I moved here the enormity of the situation hit me and I nearly cried. Sure, the average salary is much higher, but I've realised that a day off is worth much more to me than my daily wage.

People are no more productive here than there; work tends to take up the time you give it. Burnout rates seem to be much higher in North America, people are more tired and less traveled.

Because companies here have more control over when an employee can take a holiday, team members take holidays in groups "when it's good for the team", meaning that there are a couple of weeks when absolutely nothing can get done even for those who aren't on vacation.

Another closely-related issue is sick leave. In the UK the occasional sick day isn't usually subtracted from your holiday allowance. Here no-one wants to be off sick because they lose a valuable day off, so they come in to work and spread viruses around to everyone else.

Having said that, I don't think the 3-day week would help. I feel that to improve productivity, one needs a period of time to completely wind down and three days isn't enough for that. I think more week-long vacations would be a better solution.

In the UK the occasional sick day isn't usually subtracted from your holiday allowance

In Canada (& I assume USA), your sick leave is take out of your holidays?! Madness!

capitalism! )

Causes of the current problems are bad fiscal policy and believing that economic growth is forever sustainable. If there are too many holidays in those countries, then how is the U.S. economy in the place it is now (with the least vacation days in the world)?

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