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"I thought it would be really fun, but it felt kind of stressful," says Gabriel Peres, as he slots a Petri dish inside one of the 3D printers he's built for the

"I thought it would be really fun, but it felt kind of stressful," says Gabriel Peres, as he slots a Petri dish inside one of the 3D printers he's built for the company. "It's a process and it takes time and when you don't have all that [much] time it kind of feels like skipping homework at school, things are always building up." That's a perspective I hadn't considered. Maybe the 6 hour work day makes more sense for service-based work like nursing, fast food, etc. For us techies it could actually be a nuisance (depending on how the individual works).

creshal 10y ago
Additional nurses were brought in to spread the workload for the official study, and the general feedback was positive. In the private sector that informally participated, apparently no staff adjustments were made (or at least not mentioned). I'm not sure it depends on the sector.
omouse 10y ago
it kind of feels like skipping homework at school, things are always building up There's always more work to do! No surprise! This is why we automate so that the amount becomes smaller and that's why we cut things we don't need.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I'm "salaried", technically hourly but guaranteed 40-hours/week. They haven't approved us for overtime or comp time so I'm done when I hit 8. That hard stop has motivated a great deal of my automation at work. Projects I got pulled into had me doing 2-3 hours of busy work a couple times a week. Things that occupied my PC and attention for way too long. A handful of scripts later, I cd to the right directory, type the right command, and get back to whatever I'm supposed to actually be working on and that work that used to take almost a full day a week is done in the background in 20-30 minutes (less once they replace my computer with a new one, hopefully soon).
balabaster 10y ago
For me, some days it would be awesome, on others it would be stressful as shit. What I would prefer is to work as long as I need to and when I come to a logical breaking point, I go home. Some days that may be 4 hours, other days that may be 12. Some things I can't easily break down into chunks that easily fit into 8 hours and not have me lose my place by going to sleep. Some days I get into a flow and I don't even realize I'm hungry until it's dark again and I suddenly realize everyone's gone to bed and left me on my own. Other days I struggle to figure out what I'm doing and the more I fight it, the harder the struggle becomes. It's not because of a lack of discipline or lack of want to work, it's just that I struggle to connect dots that when I'm on form just connect themselves. On days when I'm on form, I'm unstoppable, a machine that just churns out working, tested, simple, elegant solutions to problems. When I'm not on form, I can't figure out how chew gum without gagging. This seems to hinge on how much sleep I've had, which directly impedes the amount of time I have in a day... finding the balance between enough sleep and enough time to get work done to a high degree of quality is a constant struggle So I don't think changing the length of the work day for me even enters in to my psyche. It's always either far too long or nowhere near long enough... it would be the same if the work day was 2 hours long or 22 hours long. That's what it's like for me, I can't speak for everyone else.
- morinted 10y ago
  This rings quite true with my experience. There are days where I leave early because I'm not being productive due to…you know, just the brain being weird.
- Sharlin 10y ago
  It doesn't really make much sense to talk about the length of a work day except on average. "Six-hour work day" should just be interpreted to mean "120 hour work month" or similar.
  - gbhn 10y ago
    I think many of us on this site have jobs where presence and productivity are pretty elastic. Many workers have jobs where human presence is a key part of the job function. Being a cashier, or a nurse, or driving -- it isn't as though these things happen unless you are physically there. The quantum of human presence is "one human" :-) so even if there are no customers, the driving is boring, or the patients are asleep, it still requires you to be there on the job.
wavefunction 10y ago
Perhaps tech workers could instead work three ten-hour days instead, if indeed it's not just a symptom of deeply ingrained conditioning towards work-a-holic behavior.
xherberta 10y ago
I suppose it depends whether six hours is a hard maximum. If you're being kicked out of the building in six hours, that could be stressful. But if six hours from now you have the option of leaving with no one looking askance, that's nice. (Until everyone tries to prove they're more hard-core than the next guy.) It seems like the tech sector _was_ starting to realize that people can get more done in five hours of "flow" than eight hours of forced confinement to a desk.
- gerbilly 10y ago
  >If you're being kicked out of the building in six hours, that could be stressful. With proper handover procedures it would be an interesting experiment to actually implement a hard maximum in my opinion.
mdekkers 10y ago
I'd go with a 4 day workweek instead
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
criddell 10y ago
> For us techies it could actually be a nuisance (depending on how the individual works). I doubt very many people can regularly engage in 6+ hours of deep work, day after day after day. I think a more common pattern is 3-4 hours of deep work, then a similar amount of time processing email, playing code janitor, going to meetings, and screwing around on the web.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  For some jobs, that might be the case. Other jobs... well, it doesn't matter if you work for 6 or 8 hours, you work just as hard. You don't get email breaks, just a couple 10-15 minute breaks (if you are lucky) plus a lunch, which can be as little as 30 minutes. Those two extra hours make a huge difference in energy levels. Cashier, nurse, CNA, janitorial work,factory workers and likely construction crews to a point. Teachers, in a way, have this as well, only theirs is counted in number of classes they teach and the amount of kids in the classroom. Teaching 6 periods of class is different from 7, for example.
jahaja 10y ago
I have a hard time accepting "please just let us work longer again" as the only viable option, or even close to the most popular one among a group of employees.

creshal 10y ago

Additional nurses were brought in to spread the workload for the official study, and the general feedback was positive. In the private sector that informally participated, apparently no staff adjustments were made (or at least not mentioned). I'm not sure it depends on the sector.

omouse 10y ago

it kind of feels like skipping homework at school, things are always building up There's always more work to do! No surprise! This is why we automate so that the amount becomes smaller and that's why we cut things we don't need.

Jtsummers 10y ago
I'm "salaried", technically hourly but guaranteed 40-hours/week. They haven't approved us for overtime or comp time so I'm done when I hit 8. That hard stop has motivated a great deal of my automation at work. Projects I got pulled into had me doing 2-3 hours of busy work a couple times a week. Things that occupied my PC and attention for way too long. A handful of scripts later, I cd to the right directory, type the right command, and get back to whatever I'm supposed to actually be working on and that work that used to take almost a full day a week is done in the background in 20-30 minutes (less once they replace my computer with a new one, hopefully soon).

balabaster 10y ago

For me, some days it would be awesome, on others it would be stressful as shit. What I would prefer is to work as long as I need to and when I come to a logical breaking point, I go home. Some days that may be 4 hours, other days that may be 12. Some things I can't easily break down into chunks that easily fit into 8 hours and not have me lose my place by going to sleep. Some days I get into a flow and I don't even realize I'm hungry until it's dark again and I suddenly realize everyone's gone to bed and left me on my own. Other days I struggle to figure out what I'm doing and the more I fight it, the harder the struggle becomes. It's not because of a lack of discipline or lack of want to work, it's just that I struggle to connect dots that when I'm on form just connect themselves. On days when I'm on form, I'm unstoppable, a machine that just churns out working, tested, simple, elegant solutions to problems. When I'm not on form, I can't figure out how chew gum without gagging. This seems to hinge on how much sleep I've had, which directly impedes the amount of time I have in a day... finding the balance between enough sleep and enough time to get work done to a high degree of quality is a constant struggle So I don't think changing the length of the work day for me even enters in to my psyche. It's always either far too long or nowhere near long enough... it would be the same if the work day was 2 hours long or 22 hours long. That's what it's like for me, I can't speak for everyone else.

morinted 10y ago
This rings quite true with my experience. There are days where I leave early because I'm not being productive due to…you know, just the brain being weird.
Sharlin 10y ago
It doesn't really make much sense to talk about the length of a work day except on average. "Six-hour work day" should just be interpreted to mean "120 hour work month" or similar.
- gbhn 10y ago
  I think many of us on this site have jobs where presence and productivity are pretty elastic. Many workers have jobs where human presence is a key part of the job function. Being a cashier, or a nurse, or driving -- it isn't as though these things happen unless you are physically there. The quantum of human presence is "one human" :-) so even if there are no customers, the driving is boring, or the patients are asleep, it still requires you to be there on the job.

wavefunction 10y ago

Perhaps tech workers could instead work three ten-hour days instead, if indeed it's not just a symptom of deeply ingrained conditioning towards work-a-holic behavior.

xherberta 10y ago

I suppose it depends whether six hours is a hard maximum. If you're being kicked out of the building in six hours, that could be stressful. But if six hours from now you have the option of leaving with no one looking askance, that's nice. (Until everyone tries to prove they're more hard-core than the next guy.) It seems like the tech sector _was_ starting to realize that people can get more done in five hours of "flow" than eight hours of forced confinement to a desk.

gerbilly 10y ago
>If you're being kicked out of the building in six hours, that could be stressful. With proper handover procedures it would be an interesting experiment to actually implement a hard maximum in my opinion.

mdekkers 10y ago

I'd go with a 4 day workweek instead

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

criddell 10y ago

> For us techies it could actually be a nuisance (depending on how the individual works). I doubt very many people can regularly engage in 6+ hours of deep work, day after day after day. I think a more common pattern is 3-4 hours of deep work, then a similar amount of time processing email, playing code janitor, going to meetings, and screwing around on the web.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago
For some jobs, that might be the case. Other jobs... well, it doesn't matter if you work for 6 or 8 hours, you work just as hard. You don't get email breaks, just a couple 10-15 minute breaks (if you are lucky) plus a lunch, which can be as little as 30 minutes. Those two extra hours make a huge difference in energy levels. Cashier, nurse, CNA, janitorial work,factory workers and likely construction crews to a point. Teachers, in a way, have this as well, only theirs is counted in number of classes they teach and the amount of kids in the classroom. Teaching 6 periods of class is different from 7, for example.

jahaja 10y ago

I have a hard time accepting "please just let us work longer again" as the only viable option, or even close to the most popular one among a group of employees.