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Comment by skeeter2020 | Hacker News Reader

skeeter2020

I don't think the push-back here is against a 4 day work week, but the idea that wages increase or stay the same as you reduce down to 4 days. I known several people who work 4 days for 80% equivalent. They seem like you who seek a more balanced, family & personal focused lifestyle. This is awesome and I agree with you that flexibility can be a huge competitive differentiator for companies that doesn't need to cost them a lot more money. It's kinda crazy that more don't seek out creative approaches like this.

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In my region, where the number of hours worked annually is 1800+ as per OECD, it's quite simply difficult. Employers expect full time availablity and would rather not have anyone fill that role than allow for this.

My friend managed to do it by boiling that frog via taking Friday afternoons off. Everyone was happy with that arrangement, so he started taking entire Fridays off. Then he switched to Mondays.

Meanwhile my SO got a hard "no" on any amount of reduction. She's looking for a part time job, but it's not something employers normally advertise.

> Employers expect full time availability

For sticky-downward values of "full time".

It would have to be less than 80% for 4 days due to insurance, administrative, and possibly office space costs. You also know as well that people seeking out these kinds of arrangements will be holding down two jobs instead of one, which cuts down on reliability for both employers.

Of course I like the idea of having more options in the workplace but sometimes the down sides are too obvious to get worked up over it. Be thankful we can work five 8 hour days (or less). We could have the 9 to 9, 6 day a week culture that exists in some places.

It would have to be more than 80% for 4 days due to the elimination of the least-productive 20% of the work week.

Who's to say that the least productive part would be cut or not? It might be that those useless meetings persist, and the actual work goes down. Certainly spreading the work out so much increases friction when it comes to collaboration. You'll often find yourself waiting at least like 4 days to get questions answered.

By "least productive 20%" I also meant the time during the week when your oomph is gone. IIRC most experiments on shortened workweeks show that motivation and productivity in general go up because workers are less stressed, better rested, happier, etc., and output does not take a big hit.

Of course it might be just an observation effect, but I think that is normally controlled for.

When AI people point to new jobs created like the industrial revolution, they are pointing to 9 to 9, 6 days a week of the 1880s industrial revolution era. The people of that era were told reducing to 5, 8 hour days was impossible, the economics wouldn't work, etc. We only arrived at our current number after the workers literally revolted, with much violence on both sides on the way to 'the perfect number' we have today that 'makes the most' sense and that totally can't be changed.

My jobs could never spare for me to take time off, I was too valuable to the company. Yet they also survived and were able to replace me once I left. 'impossible' is mainly 'inconvenient' in company speak.

I'm not saying you should put up with an intolerable vacation situation or anything else. But the simple fact of the matter is that people who work less get less done and therefore should make less. The people calling for higher salaries and much less time spent working are fooling themselves, at best.

The 9/9/6 culture is common in poorer countries and also in very highly paid professions, such as in finance. It's not some 1800s ethos, but something that a lot of people everywhere suffer with today. Some of them don't even view it as suffering. I personally wouldn't like that, but it depends on your stage in life and also your particular interest in the job.

Yes, it's a culture where the people can above can enforce it (poorer countries, people being paid so much that don't feel they can leave the job). Exactly as it was in the 1800s. Same exact 1800s ethos.

We didn't start working with 5 8 hour days from the begging. 5 8 hour days isn't some magical number. It was fought hard for, with business screaming it couldn't be done. With people killed over it. The people that fought and died for that weren't fooling themselves even though many told them they were.

I worked crazy hours when I was young. I'm not some slacker. But saying we somehow settled upon the perfect combination the very first time labor won concessions from business, and also that the human condition can never improve from where it is, it a ridiculous position.

>But saying we somehow settled upon the perfect combination the very first time labor won concessions from business, and also that the human condition can never improve from where it is, it a ridiculous position.

Good thing I never said that. What I said was, if you work less then you should get paid less. On a related note, there's also nothing about any particular job that guarantees a living wage. There are many jobs that can provably not bring in enough profit to justify paying a living wage.

If you demand a 32 hour work week for the same pay as 40 now, while people abroad can work overtime 50-60 hours for a quarter to a tenth of your salary, you're essentially claiming that an hour of your time is 20x more valuable than theirs. You can demand all you want but you ultimately can't make anyone employ you.

> When AI people point to new jobs created like the industrial revolution, they are pointing to 9 to 9, 6 days a week of the 1880s industrial revolution era. The people of that era were told reducing to 5, 8 hour days was impossible, the economics wouldn't work, etc. We only arrived at our current number after the workers literally revolted, with much violence on both sides on the way to 'the perfect number' we have today that 'makes the most' sense and that totally can't be changed.

However, pre-industrial people used to work far less than early industrial workers: around 2-4 hours a day, 3 to 5 days a week, with long break seasons.

https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

Human productivity is not linear - I would not be surprised if 32 hours of work is roughly equivalent to 40 hours of work. In a similar vein, I would imagine 80 hours of work is actually less work than 40 hours, especially if repeated.

So why not cut it down to 1 day per week then? I agree with you in a way that there is a certain amount of diminishment in each additional unit of output, especially if you piss off the workers and make them half ass it. But I think we both know that your objections are ill-founded.

Because it's not linear but there's still an equation. It's not arbitrary. Meaning, 1 day of work is obviously less productive than 4. But 4 might not be less productive than 5.

It's also not about half-assing. If you work someone 80 hours a week, and they work as hard as they possibly can, they will still likely be less productive than if they just worked 40 hours. Because they start making mistakes, which they then have to fix, and make more mistakes while they fix those mistakes...

After a certain point, your productivity might be negative. Meaning, no employee at all might be more productive than an employee working 100 hours a week.

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