4 ms·

No, not a surprising result. A perfectly expected result. Working 40 hours a week is too much. "Working" 50 hours a week is absurd. Occasional crunches are ok

by vesak 8y ago

No, not a surprising result. A perfectly expected result. Working 40 hours a week is too much. "Working" 50 hours a week is absurd. Occasional crunches are ok of course, but as a constant minimum, those are just idiotic numbers, and people who support this sort of work ethic should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired.

pdonis 8y ago
> Working 40 hours a week is too much. "Working" 50 hours a week is absurd. Occasional crunches are ok of course, but as a constant minimum, those are just idiotic numbers, and people who support this sort of work ethic should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired. Really? What makes 40 hours the magic number? What number of hours a week isn't too much? 30? 20? 10? 1? A few minutes? How many hours of work is required depends on the job. To say that anyone who supports working 40 hours a week "should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired" is way, way, way too strong a statement. How the heck do you know what is required by every single job?
- ghosterrific 8y ago
  In my experience, there is a big difference between working about 30 hours a week vs. 40 hours as a 100% remote worker. It "feels" the best at around 25 hours with pushing up to 30 hours of pure billable, concentration. The irony... is that pure concentration/development of 30 hours a week makes me about 2 or 3 times more productive than working in an office at the previous startups that I was employed at. Let the free market decide...
- tribby 8y ago
  I could be wrong, but I interpreted OP to mean that the "constant minimum" of 40 hours is what doesn't make sense, in contrast with a flexible work week where coming and going is fine as long as the work is getting done.
- mayniac 8y ago
  The average work week in the 1920s was about 50 hours. The 40 hour work week was only standardised in the 30s, mainly as a response to huge increases in productivity. We've had decade upon decade of substantial increases in productivity since then. Why hasn't our weekly working hours since the 30s ever been reduced?
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    > The average work week in the 1920s was about 50 hours. Apply that to a household and the average family didn’t have 2 parents working 100 hours in paid labour. The typical breakdown was likely a male in paid labour and a female mostly doing household chores. There was about 60 hours per week of household chores in 1900, and that was down to just under 8-15 by the 1980s [1, 2]. The number of hours that are spent at work would appear to have declined for males and females, through when unpaid work is factored in, a household consisting of a male and a female shows a much less dramatic decline. This brings us to a household work week total back at somewhere around 100 hours. Sort of what you said, but sort of not. [1] Table 7. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ [2] https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours
- watwut 8y ago
  There were studies on that, will simplify it a bit. Long term, 30 hours per week produced less then 40. 40-50 makes no difference in how much you produce, anymore then that lowers product. Original studies were done with factory work. It is harder to evaluate mental work.
- some_account 8y ago
  8 hours are too much because with travel time, you have to get up very early and you come home very late. 6 hours would be ideal since you would have time outside work for family, kids and hobbies. It would create a society where people are happier and have more energy, which benefits us all.
  - Inthenameofmine 8y ago
    That’s more of an economic problem though. If you are further than 20min each way from your work place, monopolists are screwing you on income, cost of living, time, etc. Furthermore, you can work remotely.
- Jedd 8y ago
  > Really? What makes 40 hours the magic number? I think that's the question that TFA, and parent, and a lot of other people in between, are asking. The answer tends to be 'because that's how it's been for a while'. Or, if you like, it's what mum and dad taught us, and various governments & employers advocate. Parent was suggesting this is an unnaturally high number, but you're right that coming up with a replacement number - if indeed that's the best approach - is not as straightforward as just picking another one and making forcing everyone else to agree with it. > How many hours of work is required depends on the job. ... > How the heck do you know what is required by every single job? I think this is a dangerous, though obviously prevalent, way of thinking. That every job currently requires ~40 hours a week to perform is, objectively, a ludicrous claim to make. It suggests a massively tightly coupled relationship between scheduling, specific personnel, and output. I'd suggest that's a fallacy because western societies have typically settled upon ~38hr of 'being at work' per week ... and apologists try to work backwards from that number on the assumption it's normal / sensible / just right / tenable forever.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > That every job currently requires ~40 hours a week to perform is, objectively, a ludicrous claim to make. And that's not what I was saying. I was simply suggesting that there might be some jobs where 40 hours a week is needed, since, as I said explicitly, how many hours is required depends on the job. Therefore the blanket statement the post I responded to made about what a proper "work ethic" is, was way too strong.
    - Jedd 8y ago
      > ... how many hours is required depends on the job. My point was that this way of thinking requires that the job is done in a certain timeframe, can't be split between multiple people, etc. It's probably some jobs have genuinely tight timeframes and a focus that can only be satisfactory obtained by engaging a single person to perform the role for short periods, and quite possible some number of jobs are much easier to manage with this thinking. But given the time, resources, and scope triangle, it's hubris to assume three of those are fixed (and fixed at 40hr/week) in (m)any cases.
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
  The number of hours that isn't too much is 0. Work is dumb and bad for people. I don't mean labor, which is activities performed for its own sake, not because a boss demands it or you do it because you need money. Job requirements, especially working hours, aren't part of some natural law. They are set as high as possible by bosses as they can get away with.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > Work is dumb and bad for people. Really? How do you propose to support yourself without working? Or do you just mean work is dumb and bad for you, so you'll live off the work of other people?
hsljekskfh 8y ago
apparently the 40 hour a week thing came from a idea of symmetry: 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of off time and 8 hours of work. it’s very weird to me that it isn’t challenged often in practice. but it’s probably the same reason every country adopts american business suits. there’s no reason to diverge from the norm, and there are lots of reasons to fit in with the dominant world power.
ekianjo 8y ago
Who decretes its too much. Actually some people like working more than others. Are you going to restain them with a one size fits all standard? I am rather on the other end, let people work as little or as much as they want, but of course dont expect the salary to be identical at the end of the day.
- watwut 8y ago
  Salary should more about how much you produce then about butt-in-office time. If working 30 hours a week makes you more productive then 60, the 60 should get less money in fair world.
  - fvdessen 8y ago
    In most European countries it is actually forbidden to pay people by how much they really produce, or it is highly regulated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work
    - watwut 8y ago
      You made up both informations in your comment. The 80/20 split is made up. Also, it would suggest terminally incapable leadship. And also, different people on the same position and with same work have routinelly deferential salaries in all eu countries. It is truly something between you and management.
      - fvdessen 8y ago
        If you measure worker productivity, different workers at the same position will have 2x to 4x productivity differences. If you organise pay or working time based on that measure you will run into huge social issues. Do you think that if Bill & Joe find out that John earns 4 time their salary at the same position they will think “oh well it’s only fair, he sorts 4 times as many packages as we do”. Or what if john is paid the same but can leave at 10 ? Do you think people will be happy with that setup ? That’s one of the reason why piece-work is usually forbidden

by vesak 8y ago

pdonis 8y ago

> Working 40 hours a week is too much. "Working" 50 hours a week is absurd. Occasional crunches are ok of course, but as a constant minimum, those are just idiotic numbers, and people who support this sort of work ethic should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired. Really? What makes 40 hours the magic number? What number of hours a week isn't too much? 30? 20? 10? 1? A few minutes? How many hours of work is required depends on the job. To say that anyone who supports working 40 hours a week "should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired" is way, way, way too strong a statement. How the heck do you know what is required by every single job?

ghosterrific 8y ago
In my experience, there is a big difference between working about 30 hours a week vs. 40 hours as a 100% remote worker. It "feels" the best at around 25 hours with pushing up to 30 hours of pure billable, concentration. The irony... is that pure concentration/development of 30 hours a week makes me about 2 or 3 times more productive than working in an office at the previous startups that I was employed at. Let the free market decide...
tribby 8y ago
I could be wrong, but I interpreted OP to mean that the "constant minimum" of 40 hours is what doesn't make sense, in contrast with a flexible work week where coming and going is fine as long as the work is getting done.
mayniac 8y ago
The average work week in the 1920s was about 50 hours. The 40 hour work week was only standardised in the 30s, mainly as a response to huge increases in productivity. We've had decade upon decade of substantial increases in productivity since then. Why hasn't our weekly working hours since the 30s ever been reduced?
- lostlogin 8y ago
  > The average work week in the 1920s was about 50 hours. Apply that to a household and the average family didn’t have 2 parents working 100 hours in paid labour. The typical breakdown was likely a male in paid labour and a female mostly doing household chores. There was about 60 hours per week of household chores in 1900, and that was down to just under 8-15 by the 1980s [1, 2]. The number of hours that are spent at work would appear to have declined for males and females, through when unpaid work is factored in, a household consisting of a male and a female shows a much less dramatic decline. This brings us to a household work week total back at somewhere around 100 hours. Sort of what you said, but sort of not. [1] Table 7. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ https://eh.net/encyclopedia/hours-of-work-in-u-s-history/ [2] https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours
watwut 8y ago
There were studies on that, will simplify it a bit. Long term, 30 hours per week produced less then 40. 40-50 makes no difference in how much you produce, anymore then that lowers product. Original studies were done with factory work. It is harder to evaluate mental work.
some_account 8y ago
8 hours are too much because with travel time, you have to get up very early and you come home very late. 6 hours would be ideal since you would have time outside work for family, kids and hobbies. It would create a society where people are happier and have more energy, which benefits us all.
- Inthenameofmine 8y ago
  That’s more of an economic problem though. If you are further than 20min each way from your work place, monopolists are screwing you on income, cost of living, time, etc. Furthermore, you can work remotely.
Jedd 8y ago
> Really? What makes 40 hours the magic number? I think that's the question that TFA, and parent, and a lot of other people in between, are asking. The answer tends to be 'because that's how it's been for a while'. Or, if you like, it's what mum and dad taught us, and various governments & employers advocate. Parent was suggesting this is an unnaturally high number, but you're right that coming up with a replacement number - if indeed that's the best approach - is not as straightforward as just picking another one and making forcing everyone else to agree with it. > How many hours of work is required depends on the job. ... > How the heck do you know what is required by every single job? I think this is a dangerous, though obviously prevalent, way of thinking. That every job currently requires ~40 hours a week to perform is, objectively, a ludicrous claim to make. It suggests a massively tightly coupled relationship between scheduling, specific personnel, and output. I'd suggest that's a fallacy because western societies have typically settled upon ~38hr of 'being at work' per week ... and apologists try to work backwards from that number on the assumption it's normal / sensible / just right / tenable forever.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > That every job currently requires ~40 hours a week to perform is, objectively, a ludicrous claim to make. And that's not what I was saying. I was simply suggesting that there might be some jobs where 40 hours a week is needed, since, as I said explicitly, how many hours is required depends on the job. Therefore the blanket statement the post I responded to made about what a proper "work ethic" is, was way too strong.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    > ... how many hours is required depends on the job. My point was that this way of thinking requires that the job is done in a certain timeframe, can't be split between multiple people, etc. It's probably some jobs have genuinely tight timeframes and a focus that can only be satisfactory obtained by engaging a single person to perform the role for short periods, and quite possible some number of jobs are much easier to manage with this thinking. But given the time, resources, and scope triangle, it's hubris to assume three of those are fixed (and fixed at 40hr/week) in (m)any cases.
FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
The number of hours that isn't too much is 0. Work is dumb and bad for people. I don't mean labor, which is activities performed for its own sake, not because a boss demands it or you do it because you need money. Job requirements, especially working hours, aren't part of some natural law. They are set as high as possible by bosses as they can get away with.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > Work is dumb and bad for people. Really? How do you propose to support yourself without working? Or do you just mean work is dumb and bad for you, so you'll live off the work of other people?

hsljekskfh 8y ago

apparently the 40 hour a week thing came from a idea of symmetry: 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of off time and 8 hours of work. it’s very weird to me that it isn’t challenged often in practice. but it’s probably the same reason every country adopts american business suits. there’s no reason to diverge from the norm, and there are lots of reasons to fit in with the dominant world power.

ekianjo 8y ago

Who decretes its too much. Actually some people like working more than others. Are you going to restain them with a one size fits all standard? I am rather on the other end, let people work as little or as much as they want, but of course dont expect the salary to be identical at the end of the day.

watwut 8y ago
Salary should more about how much you produce then about butt-in-office time. If working 30 hours a week makes you more productive then 60, the 60 should get less money in fair world.
- fvdessen 8y ago
  In most European countries it is actually forbidden to pay people by how much they really produce, or it is highly regulated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work
  - watwut 8y ago
    You made up both informations in your comment. The 80/20 split is made up. Also, it would suggest terminally incapable leadship. And also, different people on the same position and with same work have routinelly deferential salaries in all eu countries. It is truly something between you and management.
    - fvdessen 8y ago
      If you measure worker productivity, different workers at the same position will have 2x to 4x productivity differences. If you organise pay or working time based on that measure you will run into huge social issues. Do you think that if Bill & Joe find out that John earns 4 time their salary at the same position they will think “oh well it’s only fair, he sorts 4 times as many packages as we do”. Or what if john is paid the same but can leave at 10 ? Do you think people will be happy with that setup ? That’s one of the reason why piece-work is usually forbidden