18 ms·

Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)

264 points by joeyespo 8y ago

bbcbasic 8y ago
Hell yeah I'll drink to that. Replace it with "should be a minimum" and you're defo talking.
coolspot 8y ago
As father of two: no, please no.
- henryluo 8y ago
  As father of five: yes, please yes.
  - wincy 8y ago
    Are you me in fifteen years? Seriously though going on hikes with my three year old for three or four hours is amazing. We only hike about as many miles, but it’s amazing how great kids are if you just give them the chance.
  - bendmorris 8y ago
    I don't get this mentality at all. The number one thing I wish I had was more of in life was quality daytime hours to spend with my family. It's why I have kids. I've been spoiled by paternity leave for our new little one, and I don't know how I'll cope with having to go back to work.
    - rimliu 8y ago
      People and their needs are different is that so difficult?
      - bendmorris 8y ago
        Nah. Having kids is a choice. If you're going to view/treat them as a burden, just don't do it.
  - laumars 8y ago
    I'd wager the GP was joking. I do get his point though. Some weekends are such hard work that I look forward to Monday for a break. I find it's worst when you have chores or other jobs that need to be done in the weekend and your kids, for whatever reason, take a particular objection to cooperating. So in many ways I could see a 3 day week as potentially helping there since you'd have an extra day for chores thus could work to the children's schedule a little more. That is assuming, of course, that we don't end up with two "Sundays". (in many UK suburbs Sunday can be an absolute nightmare as everything opens late and shuts early).
- segmondy 8y ago
  2 for the kids, 3 for the parents. ;)
Nursie 8y ago
I agree. I'm thinking of moving to that model when my current contract comes up for renegotiation early next year. A 20% paycut is definitely liveable, and that extra day per week would make a lot of difference - either in terms of bootstrapping side projects, or just quality of life.
- perfunctory 8y ago
  I wish you all the best. It might be difficult if you are to set a precedent in your company.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    If they say no then I'll probably move on as the commute is a killer. I imagine that will motivate them to say yes. If not, no loss!
- omneity 8y ago
  I would be curious to know experiences of people who actually did it and what use they made of this time. Spent with family? Personal growth? Making money through freelancing or side projects?
  - waldfee 8y ago
    I switched to a four day work week (cutting weekly hours, so not working more on those four days) a few months ago. It's glorious. I just use it as an additional weekend day, meaning time with family, hobbies and household chores. But i am also not a youngster anymore, so side projects and work in general is not my prio #1 anymore
  - eertami 8y ago
    I work 3 day weeks so I can ski the other 4 days/week. My hours aren't strict so in theory it could be 7 days/week but having tried that before, it's a bit too much to try and fit work into it without any time to relax.
- fvdessen 8y ago
lolive 8y ago
The consequences would be terrible! We would have to wait 18 months between each iteration of Iphone instead of 12. Amazon would deliver at day+2. Uber Eats would answer: "No slave available. Sorry, you will have to cook". Simply unacceptable !!! Now go back to work 5 days a week!
- dasanman 8y ago
  Oh my god yes. Actually we should work 6 days a week, imagine how fast the new Iphone would come out!!
  - de_watcher 8y ago
    Is it a good thing?
    - mberger 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure parent posts are sarcastic.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Have you considered what would happen if we added meth to the drinking water? People wouldn't sleep and could work twice as long!
    - the_clarence 8y ago
      I thought we had already five that by making coffee mainstream?
      - trinitry3 8y ago
        Did we just seriously compare coffee to meth?
    - ashelmire 8y ago
      Do you want reavers? Because that's how you get reavers.
cheschire 8y ago
A few months ago I switched my time schedule from the standard "five eights" over to "four tens". I derived two benefits immediately. First, it was far easier to avoid overtime because I was already working 9 or 10 hour days before anyways. It was just how the tasks worked out. Coming in early allowed me to help get the team spun up early in the morning, and staying a little late allowed me to help the team clear any roadblocks so they could end their day too. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but that's a decent high level abstraction. Second, it allowed me to cut Mondays out of my life. According to my Automatic Labs sensor[0], my worst commuting days are Mondays with easily 25-30% longer drives each way. Additionally, Mondays are horrible as there's a higher likelihood of hangovers with colleagues, or residual homelife drama that absolutely must be described between 7 and 10am. All the worst meetings happen on Mondays. It just goes and goes. But after only a couple weeks I started to realize some other benefits. I started walking my son to kindergarten in the morning, and picking up my daughter from school in the afternoons, which allowed me many more focused hours of "play time" with them. I got several hours in the middle of the day (like right now) to read the web at my leisure, work on personal creative projects that had nothing to do with work, take some MOOC courses, etc. Now, the negatives. First, my wife who works part time 5 days a week imagines I sit at home drinking beer and watching TV at 9am. It took a while to really establish that just because I work 4 days a week doesn't mean I'm not still working 40 hours a week. I also do end up "working" on Mondays anyways, but just on education, home renovations, even if I do spend the first couple hours on HN articles. Second, I had to institute a full communications embargo with colleagues on Mondays. It was just too easy for conversations about BS to slip back into work talk because that's how we roll in a normal workday anyways, mixing business and personal anecdotes. This could be hard for others to do. Third, I find it nearly impossible to do any personal projects during the week now. Before, after an 8 or 9 hour day, I could come home and find some motivation for an hour or two of other stuff. Now, after a solid 10 hour day, I come home, decompress for about 30 mins, then it's time to start the bedtime ritual for the kids. There's no space or energy left for projects. All in all, it was a great change. I've seen others who have completely flexible schedules (40 hours in a week however they want), or simply "five nines" where they get a day off every second week, and other variations. The moral of the story is: fuck Mondays. 0: https://automatic.com https://automatic.com (not affiliated, just a customer)
biggio 8y ago
There shouldn't be weekends. People should be allowed to take any 3 days off during the week. This will reduce unemployment and increase productivity.
- mosselman 8y ago
  Things like weekends and holidays are, in some cases, the only thing that let people who do certain types of work have any time off work to begin with. Someone I know worked at a supermarket as a cashier at some point and she asked for a few days off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. She asked for this a few months in advance. Her manager looked at here puzzled and sneered "What do you want off for?" as if it was strange to want to have a few days off on Christmas. Luckily for her it was just her student job and she quit before Christmas came around, but some people are not in a position to quit/negotiate and have to put up with asshole-bosses all the time. Here in the Netherlands shops stay open longer and longer and on more days (they used to be closed on Sunday). This leaves people who don't have an education that gives them a lot of job security open to exposed to the whims of their bosses. I think ideas like having the ability to choosing your weekends (2 or 3 days) leaves those 2 or 3 days open to discussion and gives some managers a chance to wiggle them out from under you. You see a similar effect with the 'unlimited holiday'-companies out there; the effect is that people feel pressured into taking less days off than they would have had with a more traditional number of days at other companies. Also, schools are open during the week, not the weekend, so parents are pretty much stuck with the 'normal' weekend anyway.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    > but some people are not in a position to quit/negotiate and have to put up with asshole-bosses all the time. Everyone is in a position to quit/negotiate. People who tell themselves they aren't are just living in a cage they keep themselves in. Have some initiative and make a positive lifestyle change!
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      You can negotiate yourself onto the street, I suppose the fresh air could be considered a positive life change.
Animats 8y ago
One proposal has been to go to an 8-day week with a 3-day weekend. This only reduces worked days by 12%, instead of 20%.
- baxtr 8y ago
  I’d rather have every second weekend 3 days off instead. 8 days in a row sounds just awful
  - lippel82 8y ago
    I think they meant 5 day work week and 3 day weekend = 8 day week
    - fouc 8y ago
      Unfortunately that doesn't divide too nicely into the approximate 365 days rotation around the sun. A 6 day week, 4 days on, 2 days off would be much easier to devise a calendar for I think.
- jfroma 8y ago
  There was a TV AD few years back in my country about a beer. A group of friends is discussing in a bar that 2-day weekends are not enough so they decided to add a new one called Osvaldo (the name of the waiter) and they go all around the world promoting an 8-day week with 3-day weekends. Then someone named "Domingo" (Spanish for sunday) call them "guys, you are the inventors of Osvaldo" and tell the history of a group of friends inventing Sunday. It was very funny. Couldn't find a best resolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6L5-798rqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6L5-798rqA
KineticLensman 8y ago
I’m in the fourth decade of my career and I switched to a three day week almost a year ago, taking a proportional pay cut. I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the largest contiguous block of time (Thursdays and Fridays) where the places I want to go to are family/child free. If work needs me to swap a day (e.g. to go to a Thursday meeting) I’ll often do that and occasionally I'll work longer one week and then less the next. If I'm not doing anything on a non-working day I’ll answer my work phone to keep things moving along but I avoid taking on tasks that mean firing up my laptop. So far, I haven't accidentally moved back to full time working by stealth. The precedent at work for me doing this is women on post-maternity three day weeks, for which all of whom said that the company had treated them fairly. Here’s my responses to the article’s specific claims: You’d be healthier. Yes, I generally get more exercise. I’d already changed my eating habits to avoid snacking and this hasn’t changed. You’d sleep more. Not sure. Seems about the same although I can vary my sleep time to suit my own activities. You’d be less of a jerk, probably. You’d have to ask my wife that. All of that, plus, you’ll be better at your job. Not sure. I'm slightly less aware of what’s going on in the office and wider industry but in general more relaxed. On balance it’s been a really good thing. I haven't managed to progress all of the side-projects I intended to but I have definitely achieved my primary goal of improving my life-work balance. The pay cut is tolerable and in any case my wife and I were planning to scale back some of our more expensive activities (such as going camping rather than staying in hotels). It's also sent a clear message to my colleagues and management (all of whom have been supportive) about my work expectations. I still have responsibilities (e.g. for deliverables) so there is still pressure that doesn’t go away. I also tend not be the first pick for activities that require long term full-time commitment, or for the company to make an investment in my personal development (e.g. training in new skills). To date this hasn’t been a real problem – I'd made the decision to scale back because I'd gone as far up the corporate ladder as I’d wanted to. And I feel the same a year on. The way I explain my mood to people is “Monday mornings are just as crappy as they ever were. But when I leave work on Wednesday, it’s already Friday.”
- yesenadam 8y ago
  You’d be less of a jerk, probably. You’d have to ask my wife that. Could you ask her and write what she says? Tell her HN wants to know. :-)
5555624 8y ago
Based on my personal observations, I don't know that any of those "benefits" are true. For about eight months of the year, I have a 3-day weekend every other weekend. (Nine hour days with every other Friday off and eight hour days on the other Fridays.) Around September, I burn vacation days taking the opposite Fridays off, so I have at least a 3-day weekend ever weekend for the remainder of this year. I've done this for a number of years now. I don't find myself healthier. I eat the same and I'm a little more active; but, not much. Not enough to make a real difference. Increased physical activity on one day is not better than spreading it out over a week. I don't get more sleep. Numerous studies say to keep the same sleep schedule every day and one day is not going to make a difference, I'm not less of a jerk. Having Friday off does not do anything to my energy levels on Monday - Thursday. I try to sleep and eat right all week. I don't think am better at my job. While there is some less stress because I have an additional day not to think about it; I am also not around for anything that might come up on a Friday.
- the_clarence 8y ago
  Why do you do that then?
  - 5555624 8y ago
    The work schedule with every other Friday off? Because I would end up working at least nine hours anyway. It's nice if I am going out of town for the weekend. Taking the opposite Fridays off, from September/October through December? I haven't gone on a vacation and I can't carry those vacation days over to the next year.
NKosmatos 8y ago
Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%), 5 out of 7 days(71%) and 11 out of 12 months(91%), with exceptions ofcourse. All those aeons of evolution so as to come out of our caves and settle for this? IMHO we should be working less and have more free time for activities that would be good for our spirits/souls/minds. Where are the robots, AI and all the other technological wonders that we were expecting for the 21st century?
- dantheman 8y ago
  People need to work to create them.
- carlmr 8y ago
  >Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%) I always think you should look at the effective free time you have left. I can't do much in my sleep (-8h), I can't do much on my commute (-1.5h), I can't do much in my lunch break (I have to take a 45 minute lunch break by law, it's way too short to use it as actual free time, but takes another significant chunk out of your day.) I get to 24h-8h-8h-1.5h-0.75h = 5.75h of E.F.T. that's only 24% of your day you actually have for yourself, assuming comparatively reasonable western working times and pretty average commute times. 76% of your day is not effectively free time.
  - Fri31Aug 8y ago
    In what city is 1.5h the average commute time, just to make sure I'll never go there.
    - dagw 8y ago
      Washington DC according to https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longest-and-shortest-commutes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longes...
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      Seattle. I work with people who have 2hr commutes, both ways.
a-saleh 8y ago
I did this when negotiating salary at my last job. I discussed this with my wife, and we agreed, that having +20% salary wouldn't improve our lives much. Working 20% less probably would. So far it seems that it worked out :-) The extra day helps for us to actually get somewhere during the weekend, and I really appreciate both having more family-time with my wife and daughter, as well as posibility to get somewhere on my own without the guilt of "but I should have been with my family". On the other hand, I sometimes feel that I am not working enough at work and it has been tricky to align some of meetings within the team I work in, i.e. we have a lot of meetings on monday or friday :-/
- schrodinger 8y ago
  It’s plus 25%, not 20, since you’d make 5/4 the pay.
  - metabagel 8y ago
    They are correctly using the upper salary and hours as a reference point in both cases. Perhaps the language could be clearer, but it doesn’t make sense to use different reference points for comparison.
    - a-saleh 8y ago
      These are rough estimates :) while comparing offers of my previous and current employment, there was the thing of having less vacation when working part-time (only 16 days, no sick-days, compared to 25+5) but the 20% pay-rise vs 20% less work seemed like the simplest comparison to get across :)
bauc 8y ago
Even if you have a 3 day weekend, you still need to have proper long blocks off work. I used to take days off on Friday or Monday to get longer weekends in lieu of taking whole weeks. It's nice to have a long weekend but I found since taking more longer blocks (week or more) it's a lot better for you to fully switch off work (usually takes a few days to switch off completely).
- ghaff 8y ago
  It's sometimes nice to have 3, 4, or even just 2 1/2 day weekends if you want to go somewhere for a weekend trip. Which I do sometimes. But unless I have specific plans for the weekend, I'd rather have any days in excess of the usual two available for use for longer trips. People obviously vary. I've worked with people who didn't have any particular trouble taking time off but they just didn't like travel and preferred just expanded weekends. For myself, I'd rather have most of the time for longer trips with just some longer weekends here and there.
JulianMorrison 8y ago
Three is too short. Try five?
- JulianMorrison 8y ago
  I'm getting voted down but I'm serious... it is a cultural choice to feed people by paying them for work. And so work must be procured and time occupied by what is essentially walking a treadmill until the rent pops out.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    In my business, if time is just occupied by a worker, they loose a job. Their job depends on them doing something that pays for their income.
    - JulianMorrison 8y ago
      Then they are probably doing a great if slightly panicked job of pretending to be "doing something" (as in "don't just sit there, do something!!") every hour of the workday. Because their rents and ramen depend on convincing some guy who grumps at people on news.ycombinator.com that a task which will naturally have surges and lulls consists of continuous machine-like effort.
      - Fjolsvith 8y ago
        They can't pretend to produce the final product in my shed manufacturing business. Their rents and ramen depends on them filling orders that customers paid for, not the grump who retorts to nitpickers on HN.
    - kinos 8y ago
      Whats your point exactly?
      - Fjolsvith 8y ago
2sk21 8y ago
What I really need is a weekly study day: Spend a whole day just studying and reading something (which may be completely unrelated to my work). Some of my most productive ideas have come from such study.
- geertj 8y ago
  Whole heartedly agreed. My main contributions have been when bringing knowledge from disperate domains together.
- windexh8er 8y ago
  This. While I will often block off two or three hour chunks early in the week for deep dive I often relent on releasing that time to yet another meeting. Having switched employers a few times in the last 5 years I find myself taking more and more time off between. It's amazing how much you can clean off your plate of learning, catching up and self improvement in that amount of time. Ultimately I feel as though it's personal debt accumulated from not having time at work to sharpen the saw continuously. Most weeks 3 days of work and 1 of work related projects / study would net the organization I work for more meaningful relationship and production. It would also allow flexibility for weeks that needed additional stick time. When I was at my first corporate job out of college my employer did a 9/80 schedule. So 9 hour days for 80 hours which meant every other Friday off. The extra hour for 8 days and a normal 8 hour day the day before being off was awesome. But it can be even better, I believe. Does it just take a large, public display of it to be considered? Why is there still such a strong focus on 8x5?
  - cheez 8y ago
    Because most employers can get 9/10x5
    - windexh8er 8y ago
      Understood. But does it net anything positive beyond said "extra" hours? It's like the new quarterly earnings game on Wall Street: let's all report non-GAAP and make it look like we're not losing money.
redwheelbarrow 8y ago
While I support this in theory, the news source looks less than credible. On another article they suggest that medical professionals as well as IT professionals were becoming "dead career fields" which is very odd.If you look at hiring statistics in the latter at the very least, you will see that this is somewhat alarmist.
- xfitm3 8y ago
  Both “IT professionals” and “medical professionals” are incredibly vague terms. If the author is referring to corporate IT I do agree this niche is dying. Business support isn’t a great place to be. Operational roles in product typically pay better and give you a greater opportunity to make an impact.
  - redwheelbarrow 8y ago
    That's a very valid point. I was more confused by the point he was trying to make when he suggested that front-line medical workers are being less in demand however. In that respect, I was being vague, not the author. They directly mentioned that primary care workers are dying, which is demonstrably false. Front-line/primary care providers in Canada at least are among one of the most in demand members of the work force. Look at the nurse shortage for example. If you get yourself a degree in nursing, you are almost guaranteed a job. If I look at members of my generation that I know who are employed VS not, I struggle to find any who majored in a professional health program (excluding premedical programs which are non-professional programs) who were not working in their field almost immediately after graduation. In comparison, I know of a handful of people who graduated from highly in demand engineering programs and are entirely unemployed. As in, no job what so ever. Many also are not employed in their area.
village-idiot 8y ago
One of the great surprises in the 20th century is that per worker productivity has risen massively, but we still work an unnecessary 40 hours a week. Realistically 15-18 hours would probably be enough to maintain early to mid 20th century output, and 30 hours would actually increase output a bit. In my opinion we as a society are addicted to work.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  Some work doesn't happen any faster despite worker productivity. The 40 hour work week isn't determined by the output, but rather by the income the worker receives. People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    >People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't. I'm forced to work 40 hours per week no matter what I'm getting paid or I get fired, not sure how this is a 'choice'.
    - Fjolsvith 8y ago
      Exactly my point. You make the choice to engage at a job that doesn't allow flexibility. There's more than one job out there.
  - metabagel 8y ago
    In most cases, the employer establishes the hours worked. Working fewer hours would have to be negotiated with the employer.
  - NeoBasilisk 8y ago
    >People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't. Not if you live in the US and want health insurance.
    - Fjolsvith 8y ago
Fri31Aug 8y ago
Those are all advantages for workers. What are the advantages for businesses?
- francisofascii 8y ago
  You can pay employees less and retain them longer.
- danilocesar 8y ago
  It's interesting that people are not considering the business point of view... I read some people mentioning about working 10-hours a day and work from Monday to Thursday. If I was a business owner I wouldn't allow that. I would rather offer 5~6 hours work per day than allow him to work more for 4 days. In my field of work (engineering) as a regular worker, I see people working 8 hours but they are not 8 hours productive. Discussing this with some friends we concluded that usually an average developer can focus for around 5 to 6 hours, tops. Then, by adding two hours a day, he won't be 7~8-hours-productive. My bet (and that's a my own point of view) is that an average developer will keep being 5~6 hours productive. That's because the development process leads to mental exhaustion. After some time people will be much more distracted, leading to mistakes, etc. Of course there are some folks that will argue that they can do 10~12h work per day. While this is true, usually they don't do it for long without being burned out. A very few exceptions can do that without getting stressed. So, If I'm a business man and I want my employees to have more free time without affecting my business, I would reduce the hours per day rather then do 10 hours x 4 days a week. * btw, that's about software engineering only. I don't think the mechanics of other business would work that way.
  - nickjj 8y ago
    It really depends on the profession I think. Sometimes you're forced to work really long hours just based on your business. For example a dentist might choose to work 3-4 days a week, but be open to seeing patients from 9am to 8pm to compensate for people unable to go during normal business hours due to their own work schedules. Then again I think that business is a lot different than software development. Technically we could sit there and work on 1 thing for 12 hours, where as a dentist is hopping between patients and has a bunch of small breaks through out the day in between patients. It might not be "goof off time" breaks, but it's something that breaks up the day.
strictnein 8y ago
I'm surprised we haven't seen more of the mixed compromise: Monday - Thursday: 10 hour days Friday - Monday: 4 day weekend Tuesday - Friday: 10 hour days Saturday - Sunday: 2 day weekend and then it repeats. Same hours worked overall. Work longer days, but get 4 day weekends every other week. The people I've known who've had this setup would generally work 6am-4pm.
- dionidium 8y ago
  My strong impression is that this is a waste of time. You can keep people in their seats for 10 hours, I guess, but you're not going to consistently get 10 hours of productivity. If we want to give people an extra day off -- and I think we should! -- then we should just do it. You can't really make up the time somewhere else.
  - amelius 8y ago
    Yes, and after hundreds of years of technological progress, it seems a bit silly to still force people to work the same amount of time.
  - strictnein 8y ago
    > My strong impression is that this is a waste of time. Have you done it or worked with people who have? Worked really well for the people who I knew who did it. Highly productive and the two 4 day weekends a month seemed great. My point wasn't that this was better than an additional day off and less work. My point is that this should be acceptable today, and I'm surprised there isn't more buy in for flexible schedules like this.
    - jartelt 8y ago
      I worked somewhere that did 9 hour days with every other Friday off. It basically made Fridays unproductive because half the company was off every Friday and it seemed like you always ended up needing to talk to someone who was off that Friday in order to make progress. I certainly liked the Fridays off. But, I'd say the 9 hours part was not optimal. Salaried employees typically already put in that much time so it didn't affect them. Hourly employees didn't seem to be that much more productive. They were just there longer and probably took slightly longer lunches... I feel like just instilling a hard working culture and giving the whole company every other Friday off would have been better for productivity.
knodi123 8y ago
I just got a 20% raise to go with a promotion. I wished I had an opportunity to negotiate a 20% reduction in working hours instead- perhaps even along with a slight reduction in pay.
- Taylor_OD 8y ago
  Did/have you asked? I know a handful of people who have asked and successfully accomplished this. I know a lot more people who wish they could but don't want to ask for fear of being seen as a low performer or something.
  - knodi123 8y ago
    Um, actually no I didn't think to ask. That's a good point. I'm traveling to meet my distributed team next month, maybe I'll delicately broach the subject.
    - refoundglory 8y ago
      You might find it easier to get agreement on "taking unpaid leave" rather than "reducing work hours and salary". It seems to fit into people's mental frameworks more easily.
- itamarst 8y ago
  You can! I've done it, it's great. Here's someone who has been working 4 days a week for the past 15 years: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer...
combatentropy 8y ago
If you work less, you'll be less stressed! Although this article superficially looks like it's full of facts, it's a bit thin on anything beyond what can be guessed through common sense. The interesting questions are: what length of work-week best balances everything? "Every weekend should be a 7-day weekend, because studies show that workers will be less stressed." What length of week would be good for workers, good for the economy, etc., etc.? One thing that I've realized, having become an adult, is that just because your job makes you work 40 hours, doesn't mean you only work 40 hours. There are many other things in your life that you have to do that are also work: running errands, parenting, cleaning, cooking, etc.
danny8000 8y ago
I think we should switch to a six-day week (just drop Wednesday). Two day weekend, four day week: http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/60-Week_Calendar http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/60-Week_Calendar
- andromedavision 8y ago
  I don't know why, but the idea of just dropping a day, though plausible, cracked me up.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  We could go partial French Revolutionary, and have 36 10-day weeks at +3-1+3-3, plus an intercalary partial week at -5 or -6. Since we're not [all] French, the days of the week would be renamed as follows: Workday, Bluesday, Grindsday, Humpday, Schmerkday, Slogsday, Highday, Lazyday, Gamesday, and Chillsday. This would be referred to as the "Bactrian week", and the previous +5-2 week a "Dromedary week". The partial week shall be "Festivus Week". For essential personnel, they cover all days of the week by working a rotating schedule of 9-day cycles (+3-1+3-2) plus one vacation week of 9 days off in a row, which adds to the previous 2-day weekend for a total of 11 consecutive days off. Festivus has staggered 3 on, 2 off, at double pay. Employees draw straws at 60% probability for working a leap day. There's no need to rename the months. Years start on January 1st and follow Gregorian leap day rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar ~

264 points by joeyespo 8y ago

bbcbasic 8y ago

Hell yeah I'll drink to that. Replace it with "should be a minimum" and you're defo talking.

coolspot 8y ago

As father of two: no, please no.

henryluo 8y ago
As father of five: yes, please yes.
- wincy 8y ago
  Are you me in fifteen years? Seriously though going on hikes with my three year old for three or four hours is amazing. We only hike about as many miles, but it’s amazing how great kids are if you just give them the chance.
- bendmorris 8y ago
  I don't get this mentality at all. The number one thing I wish I had was more of in life was quality daytime hours to spend with my family. It's why I have kids. I've been spoiled by paternity leave for our new little one, and I don't know how I'll cope with having to go back to work.
  - rimliu 8y ago
    People and their needs are different is that so difficult?
    - bendmorris 8y ago
      Nah. Having kids is a choice. If you're going to view/treat them as a burden, just don't do it.
- laumars 8y ago
  I'd wager the GP was joking. I do get his point though. Some weekends are such hard work that I look forward to Monday for a break. I find it's worst when you have chores or other jobs that need to be done in the weekend and your kids, for whatever reason, take a particular objection to cooperating. So in many ways I could see a 3 day week as potentially helping there since you'd have an extra day for chores thus could work to the children's schedule a little more. That is assuming, of course, that we don't end up with two "Sundays". (in many UK suburbs Sunday can be an absolute nightmare as everything opens late and shuts early).
segmondy 8y ago
2 for the kids, 3 for the parents. ;)

Nursie 8y ago

I agree. I'm thinking of moving to that model when my current contract comes up for renegotiation early next year. A 20% paycut is definitely liveable, and that extra day per week would make a lot of difference - either in terms of bootstrapping side projects, or just quality of life.

perfunctory 8y ago
I wish you all the best. It might be difficult if you are to set a precedent in your company.
- Nursie 8y ago
  If they say no then I'll probably move on as the commute is a killer. I imagine that will motivate them to say yes. If not, no loss!
omneity 8y ago
I would be curious to know experiences of people who actually did it and what use they made of this time. Spent with family? Personal growth? Making money through freelancing or side projects?
- waldfee 8y ago
  I switched to a four day work week (cutting weekly hours, so not working more on those four days) a few months ago. It's glorious. I just use it as an additional weekend day, meaning time with family, hobbies and household chores. But i am also not a youngster anymore, so side projects and work in general is not my prio #1 anymore
- eertami 8y ago
  I work 3 day weeks so I can ski the other 4 days/week. My hours aren't strict so in theory it could be 7 days/week but having tried that before, it's a bit too much to try and fit work into it without any time to relax.
fvdessen 8y ago

lolive 8y ago

The consequences would be terrible! We would have to wait 18 months between each iteration of Iphone instead of 12. Amazon would deliver at day+2. Uber Eats would answer: "No slave available. Sorry, you will have to cook". Simply unacceptable !!! Now go back to work 5 days a week!

dasanman 8y ago
Oh my god yes. Actually we should work 6 days a week, imagine how fast the new Iphone would come out!!
- de_watcher 8y ago
  Is it a good thing?
  - mberger 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure parent posts are sarcastic.
- adrianN 8y ago
  Have you considered what would happen if we added meth to the drinking water? People wouldn't sleep and could work twice as long!
  - the_clarence 8y ago
    I thought we had already five that by making coffee mainstream?
    - trinitry3 8y ago
      Did we just seriously compare coffee to meth?
  - ashelmire 8y ago
    Do you want reavers? Because that's how you get reavers.

cheschire 8y ago

A few months ago I switched my time schedule from the standard "five eights" over to "four tens". I derived two benefits immediately. First, it was far easier to avoid overtime because I was already working 9 or 10 hour days before anyways. It was just how the tasks worked out. Coming in early allowed me to help get the team spun up early in the morning, and staying a little late allowed me to help the team clear any roadblocks so they could end their day too. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but that's a decent high level abstraction. Second, it allowed me to cut Mondays out of my life. According to my Automatic Labs sensor[0], my worst commuting days are Mondays with easily 25-30% longer drives each way. Additionally, Mondays are horrible as there's a higher likelihood of hangovers with colleagues, or residual homelife drama that absolutely must be described between 7 and 10am. All the worst meetings happen on Mondays. It just goes and goes. But after only a couple weeks I started to realize some other benefits. I started walking my son to kindergarten in the morning, and picking up my daughter from school in the afternoons, which allowed me many more focused hours of "play time" with them. I got several hours in the middle of the day (like right now) to read the web at my leisure, work on personal creative projects that had nothing to do with work, take some MOOC courses, etc. Now, the negatives. First, my wife who works part time 5 days a week imagines I sit at home drinking beer and watching TV at 9am. It took a while to really establish that just because I work 4 days a week doesn't mean I'm not still working 40 hours a week. I also do end up "working" on Mondays anyways, but just on education, home renovations, even if I do spend the first couple hours on HN articles. Second, I had to institute a full communications embargo with colleagues on Mondays. It was just too easy for conversations about BS to slip back into work talk because that's how we roll in a normal workday anyways, mixing business and personal anecdotes. This could be hard for others to do. Third, I find it nearly impossible to do any personal projects during the week now. Before, after an 8 or 9 hour day, I could come home and find some motivation for an hour or two of other stuff. Now, after a solid 10 hour day, I come home, decompress for about 30 mins, then it's time to start the bedtime ritual for the kids. There's no space or energy left for projects. All in all, it was a great change. I've seen others who have completely flexible schedules (40 hours in a week however they want), or simply "five nines" where they get a day off every second week, and other variations. The moral of the story is: fuck Mondays. 0: https://automatic.com https://automatic.com (not affiliated, just a customer)

biggio 8y ago

There shouldn't be weekends. People should be allowed to take any 3 days off during the week. This will reduce unemployment and increase productivity.

mosselman 8y ago
Things like weekends and holidays are, in some cases, the only thing that let people who do certain types of work have any time off work to begin with. Someone I know worked at a supermarket as a cashier at some point and she asked for a few days off on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. She asked for this a few months in advance. Her manager looked at here puzzled and sneered "What do you want off for?" as if it was strange to want to have a few days off on Christmas. Luckily for her it was just her student job and she quit before Christmas came around, but some people are not in a position to quit/negotiate and have to put up with asshole-bosses all the time. Here in the Netherlands shops stay open longer and longer and on more days (they used to be closed on Sunday). This leaves people who don't have an education that gives them a lot of job security open to exposed to the whims of their bosses. I think ideas like having the ability to choosing your weekends (2 or 3 days) leaves those 2 or 3 days open to discussion and gives some managers a chance to wiggle them out from under you. You see a similar effect with the 'unlimited holiday'-companies out there; the effect is that people feel pressured into taking less days off than they would have had with a more traditional number of days at other companies. Also, schools are open during the week, not the weekend, so parents are pretty much stuck with the 'normal' weekend anyway.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  > but some people are not in a position to quit/negotiate and have to put up with asshole-bosses all the time. Everyone is in a position to quit/negotiate. People who tell themselves they aren't are just living in a cage they keep themselves in. Have some initiative and make a positive lifestyle change!
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    You can negotiate yourself onto the street, I suppose the fresh air could be considered a positive life change.

Animats 8y ago

One proposal has been to go to an 8-day week with a 3-day weekend. This only reduces worked days by 12%, instead of 20%.

baxtr 8y ago
I’d rather have every second weekend 3 days off instead. 8 days in a row sounds just awful
- lippel82 8y ago
  I think they meant 5 day work week and 3 day weekend = 8 day week
  - fouc 8y ago
    Unfortunately that doesn't divide too nicely into the approximate 365 days rotation around the sun. A 6 day week, 4 days on, 2 days off would be much easier to devise a calendar for I think.
jfroma 8y ago
There was a TV AD few years back in my country about a beer. A group of friends is discussing in a bar that 2-day weekends are not enough so they decided to add a new one called Osvaldo (the name of the waiter) and they go all around the world promoting an 8-day week with 3-day weekends. Then someone named "Domingo" (Spanish for sunday) call them "guys, you are the inventors of Osvaldo" and tell the history of a group of friends inventing Sunday. It was very funny. Couldn't find a best resolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6L5-798rqA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6L5-798rqA

KineticLensman 8y ago

I’m in the fourth decade of my career and I switched to a three day week almost a year ago, taking a proportional pay cut. I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the largest contiguous block of time (Thursdays and Fridays) where the places I want to go to are family/child free. If work needs me to swap a day (e.g. to go to a Thursday meeting) I’ll often do that and occasionally I'll work longer one week and then less the next. If I'm not doing anything on a non-working day I’ll answer my work phone to keep things moving along but I avoid taking on tasks that mean firing up my laptop. So far, I haven't accidentally moved back to full time working by stealth. The precedent at work for me doing this is women on post-maternity three day weeks, for which all of whom said that the company had treated them fairly. Here’s my responses to the article’s specific claims: You’d be healthier. Yes, I generally get more exercise. I’d already changed my eating habits to avoid snacking and this hasn’t changed. You’d sleep more. Not sure. Seems about the same although I can vary my sleep time to suit my own activities. You’d be less of a jerk, probably. You’d have to ask my wife that. All of that, plus, you’ll be better at your job. Not sure. I'm slightly less aware of what’s going on in the office and wider industry but in general more relaxed. On balance it’s been a really good thing. I haven't managed to progress all of the side-projects I intended to but I have definitely achieved my primary goal of improving my life-work balance. The pay cut is tolerable and in any case my wife and I were planning to scale back some of our more expensive activities (such as going camping rather than staying in hotels). It's also sent a clear message to my colleagues and management (all of whom have been supportive) about my work expectations. I still have responsibilities (e.g. for deliverables) so there is still pressure that doesn’t go away. I also tend not be the first pick for activities that require long term full-time commitment, or for the company to make an investment in my personal development (e.g. training in new skills). To date this hasn’t been a real problem – I'd made the decision to scale back because I'd gone as far up the corporate ladder as I’d wanted to. And I feel the same a year on. The way I explain my mood to people is “Monday mornings are just as crappy as they ever were. But when I leave work on Wednesday, it’s already Friday.”

yesenadam 8y ago
You’d be less of a jerk, probably. You’d have to ask my wife that. Could you ask her and write what she says? Tell her HN wants to know. :-)

5555624 8y ago

Based on my personal observations, I don't know that any of those "benefits" are true. For about eight months of the year, I have a 3-day weekend every other weekend. (Nine hour days with every other Friday off and eight hour days on the other Fridays.) Around September, I burn vacation days taking the opposite Fridays off, so I have at least a 3-day weekend ever weekend for the remainder of this year. I've done this for a number of years now. I don't find myself healthier. I eat the same and I'm a little more active; but, not much. Not enough to make a real difference. Increased physical activity on one day is not better than spreading it out over a week. I don't get more sleep. Numerous studies say to keep the same sleep schedule every day and one day is not going to make a difference, I'm not less of a jerk. Having Friday off does not do anything to my energy levels on Monday - Thursday. I try to sleep and eat right all week. I don't think am better at my job. While there is some less stress because I have an additional day not to think about it; I am also not around for anything that might come up on a Friday.

the_clarence 8y ago
Why do you do that then?
- 5555624 8y ago
  The work schedule with every other Friday off? Because I would end up working at least nine hours anyway. It's nice if I am going out of town for the weekend. Taking the opposite Fridays off, from September/October through December? I haven't gone on a vacation and I can't carry those vacation days over to the next year.

NKosmatos 8y ago

Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%), 5 out of 7 days(71%) and 11 out of 12 months(91%), with exceptions ofcourse. All those aeons of evolution so as to come out of our caves and settle for this? IMHO we should be working less and have more free time for activities that would be good for our spirits/souls/minds. Where are the robots, AI and all the other technological wonders that we were expecting for the 21st century?

dantheman 8y ago
People need to work to create them.
carlmr 8y ago
>Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%) I always think you should look at the effective free time you have left. I can't do much in my sleep (-8h), I can't do much on my commute (-1.5h), I can't do much in my lunch break (I have to take a 45 minute lunch break by law, it's way too short to use it as actual free time, but takes another significant chunk out of your day.) I get to 24h-8h-8h-1.5h-0.75h = 5.75h of E.F.T. that's only 24% of your day you actually have for yourself, assuming comparatively reasonable western working times and pretty average commute times. 76% of your day is not effectively free time.
- Fri31Aug 8y ago
  In what city is 1.5h the average commute time, just to make sure I'll never go there.
  - dagw 8y ago
    Washington DC according to https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longest-and-shortest-commutes.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longes...
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    Seattle. I work with people who have 2hr commutes, both ways.

a-saleh 8y ago

I did this when negotiating salary at my last job. I discussed this with my wife, and we agreed, that having +20% salary wouldn't improve our lives much. Working 20% less probably would. So far it seems that it worked out :-) The extra day helps for us to actually get somewhere during the weekend, and I really appreciate both having more family-time with my wife and daughter, as well as posibility to get somewhere on my own without the guilt of "but I should have been with my family". On the other hand, I sometimes feel that I am not working enough at work and it has been tricky to align some of meetings within the team I work in, i.e. we have a lot of meetings on monday or friday :-/

schrodinger 8y ago
It’s plus 25%, not 20, since you’d make 5/4 the pay.
- metabagel 8y ago
  They are correctly using the upper salary and hours as a reference point in both cases. Perhaps the language could be clearer, but it doesn’t make sense to use different reference points for comparison.
  - a-saleh 8y ago
    These are rough estimates :) while comparing offers of my previous and current employment, there was the thing of having less vacation when working part-time (only 16 days, no sick-days, compared to 25+5) but the 20% pay-rise vs 20% less work seemed like the simplest comparison to get across :)

bauc 8y ago

Even if you have a 3 day weekend, you still need to have proper long blocks off work. I used to take days off on Friday or Monday to get longer weekends in lieu of taking whole weeks. It's nice to have a long weekend but I found since taking more longer blocks (week or more) it's a lot better for you to fully switch off work (usually takes a few days to switch off completely).

ghaff 8y ago
It's sometimes nice to have 3, 4, or even just 2 1/2 day weekends if you want to go somewhere for a weekend trip. Which I do sometimes. But unless I have specific plans for the weekend, I'd rather have any days in excess of the usual two available for use for longer trips. People obviously vary. I've worked with people who didn't have any particular trouble taking time off but they just didn't like travel and preferred just expanded weekends. For myself, I'd rather have most of the time for longer trips with just some longer weekends here and there.

JulianMorrison 8y ago

Three is too short. Try five?

JulianMorrison 8y ago
I'm getting voted down but I'm serious... it is a cultural choice to feed people by paying them for work. And so work must be procured and time occupied by what is essentially walking a treadmill until the rent pops out.
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  In my business, if time is just occupied by a worker, they loose a job. Their job depends on them doing something that pays for their income.
  - JulianMorrison 8y ago
    Then they are probably doing a great if slightly panicked job of pretending to be "doing something" (as in "don't just sit there, do something!!") every hour of the workday. Because their rents and ramen depend on convincing some guy who grumps at people on news.ycombinator.com that a task which will naturally have surges and lulls consists of continuous machine-like effort.
    - Fjolsvith 8y ago
      They can't pretend to produce the final product in my shed manufacturing business. Their rents and ramen depends on them filling orders that customers paid for, not the grump who retorts to nitpickers on HN.
  - kinos 8y ago
    Whats your point exactly?
    - Fjolsvith 8y ago

2sk21 8y ago

What I really need is a weekly study day: Spend a whole day just studying and reading something (which may be completely unrelated to my work). Some of my most productive ideas have come from such study.

geertj 8y ago
Whole heartedly agreed. My main contributions have been when bringing knowledge from disperate domains together.
windexh8er 8y ago
This. While I will often block off two or three hour chunks early in the week for deep dive I often relent on releasing that time to yet another meeting. Having switched employers a few times in the last 5 years I find myself taking more and more time off between. It's amazing how much you can clean off your plate of learning, catching up and self improvement in that amount of time. Ultimately I feel as though it's personal debt accumulated from not having time at work to sharpen the saw continuously. Most weeks 3 days of work and 1 of work related projects / study would net the organization I work for more meaningful relationship and production. It would also allow flexibility for weeks that needed additional stick time. When I was at my first corporate job out of college my employer did a 9/80 schedule. So 9 hour days for 80 hours which meant every other Friday off. The extra hour for 8 days and a normal 8 hour day the day before being off was awesome. But it can be even better, I believe. Does it just take a large, public display of it to be considered? Why is there still such a strong focus on 8x5?
- cheez 8y ago
  Because most employers can get 9/10x5
  - windexh8er 8y ago
    Understood. But does it net anything positive beyond said "extra" hours? It's like the new quarterly earnings game on Wall Street: let's all report non-GAAP and make it look like we're not losing money.

redwheelbarrow 8y ago

While I support this in theory, the news source looks less than credible. On another article they suggest that medical professionals as well as IT professionals were becoming "dead career fields" which is very odd.If you look at hiring statistics in the latter at the very least, you will see that this is somewhat alarmist.

xfitm3 8y ago
Both “IT professionals” and “medical professionals” are incredibly vague terms. If the author is referring to corporate IT I do agree this niche is dying. Business support isn’t a great place to be. Operational roles in product typically pay better and give you a greater opportunity to make an impact.
- redwheelbarrow 8y ago
  That's a very valid point. I was more confused by the point he was trying to make when he suggested that front-line medical workers are being less in demand however. In that respect, I was being vague, not the author. They directly mentioned that primary care workers are dying, which is demonstrably false. Front-line/primary care providers in Canada at least are among one of the most in demand members of the work force. Look at the nurse shortage for example. If you get yourself a degree in nursing, you are almost guaranteed a job. If I look at members of my generation that I know who are employed VS not, I struggle to find any who majored in a professional health program (excluding premedical programs which are non-professional programs) who were not working in their field almost immediately after graduation. In comparison, I know of a handful of people who graduated from highly in demand engineering programs and are entirely unemployed. As in, no job what so ever. Many also are not employed in their area.

village-idiot 8y ago

One of the great surprises in the 20th century is that per worker productivity has risen massively, but we still work an unnecessary 40 hours a week. Realistically 15-18 hours would probably be enough to maintain early to mid 20th century output, and 30 hours would actually increase output a bit. In my opinion we as a society are addicted to work.

Fjolsvith 8y ago
Some work doesn't happen any faster despite worker productivity. The 40 hour work week isn't determined by the output, but rather by the income the worker receives. People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  >People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't. I'm forced to work 40 hours per week no matter what I'm getting paid or I get fired, not sure how this is a 'choice'.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago
    Exactly my point. You make the choice to engage at a job that doesn't allow flexibility. There's more than one job out there.
- metabagel 8y ago
  In most cases, the employer establishes the hours worked. Working fewer hours would have to be negotiated with the employer.
- NeoBasilisk 8y ago
  >People are free to work 15-18 hours a week, but they don't. Not if you live in the US and want health insurance.
  - Fjolsvith 8y ago

Fri31Aug 8y ago

Those are all advantages for workers. What are the advantages for businesses?

francisofascii 8y ago
You can pay employees less and retain them longer.
danilocesar 8y ago
It's interesting that people are not considering the business point of view... I read some people mentioning about working 10-hours a day and work from Monday to Thursday. If I was a business owner I wouldn't allow that. I would rather offer 5~6 hours work per day than allow him to work more for 4 days. In my field of work (engineering) as a regular worker, I see people working 8 hours but they are not 8 hours productive. Discussing this with some friends we concluded that usually an average developer can focus for around 5 to 6 hours, tops. Then, by adding two hours a day, he won't be 7~8-hours-productive. My bet (and that's a my own point of view) is that an average developer will keep being 5~6 hours productive. That's because the development process leads to mental exhaustion. After some time people will be much more distracted, leading to mistakes, etc. Of course there are some folks that will argue that they can do 10~12h work per day. While this is true, usually they don't do it for long without being burned out. A very few exceptions can do that without getting stressed. So, If I'm a business man and I want my employees to have more free time without affecting my business, I would reduce the hours per day rather then do 10 hours x 4 days a week. * btw, that's about software engineering only. I don't think the mechanics of other business would work that way.
- nickjj 8y ago
  It really depends on the profession I think. Sometimes you're forced to work really long hours just based on your business. For example a dentist might choose to work 3-4 days a week, but be open to seeing patients from 9am to 8pm to compensate for people unable to go during normal business hours due to their own work schedules. Then again I think that business is a lot different than software development. Technically we could sit there and work on 1 thing for 12 hours, where as a dentist is hopping between patients and has a bunch of small breaks through out the day in between patients. It might not be "goof off time" breaks, but it's something that breaks up the day.

strictnein 8y ago

I'm surprised we haven't seen more of the mixed compromise: Monday - Thursday: 10 hour days Friday - Monday: 4 day weekend Tuesday - Friday: 10 hour days Saturday - Sunday: 2 day weekend and then it repeats. Same hours worked overall. Work longer days, but get 4 day weekends every other week. The people I've known who've had this setup would generally work 6am-4pm.

dionidium 8y ago
My strong impression is that this is a waste of time. You can keep people in their seats for 10 hours, I guess, but you're not going to consistently get 10 hours of productivity. If we want to give people an extra day off -- and I think we should! -- then we should just do it. You can't really make up the time somewhere else.
- amelius 8y ago
  Yes, and after hundreds of years of technological progress, it seems a bit silly to still force people to work the same amount of time.
- strictnein 8y ago
  > My strong impression is that this is a waste of time. Have you done it or worked with people who have? Worked really well for the people who I knew who did it. Highly productive and the two 4 day weekends a month seemed great. My point wasn't that this was better than an additional day off and less work. My point is that this should be acceptable today, and I'm surprised there isn't more buy in for flexible schedules like this.
  - jartelt 8y ago
    I worked somewhere that did 9 hour days with every other Friday off. It basically made Fridays unproductive because half the company was off every Friday and it seemed like you always ended up needing to talk to someone who was off that Friday in order to make progress. I certainly liked the Fridays off. But, I'd say the 9 hours part was not optimal. Salaried employees typically already put in that much time so it didn't affect them. Hourly employees didn't seem to be that much more productive. They were just there longer and probably took slightly longer lunches... I feel like just instilling a hard working culture and giving the whole company every other Friday off would have been better for productivity.

knodi123 8y ago

I just got a 20% raise to go with a promotion. I wished I had an opportunity to negotiate a 20% reduction in working hours instead- perhaps even along with a slight reduction in pay.

Taylor_OD 8y ago
Did/have you asked? I know a handful of people who have asked and successfully accomplished this. I know a lot more people who wish they could but don't want to ask for fear of being seen as a low performer or something.
- knodi123 8y ago
  Um, actually no I didn't think to ask. That's a good point. I'm traveling to meet my distributed team next month, maybe I'll delicately broach the subject.
  - refoundglory 8y ago
    You might find it easier to get agreement on "taking unpaid leave" rather than "reducing work hours and salary". It seems to fit into people's mental frameworks more easily.
itamarst 8y ago
You can! I've done it, it's great. Here's someone who has been working 4 days a week for the past 15 years: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer...

combatentropy 8y ago

If you work less, you'll be less stressed! Although this article superficially looks like it's full of facts, it's a bit thin on anything beyond what can be guessed through common sense. The interesting questions are: what length of work-week best balances everything? "Every weekend should be a 7-day weekend, because studies show that workers will be less stressed." What length of week would be good for workers, good for the economy, etc., etc.? One thing that I've realized, having become an adult, is that just because your job makes you work 40 hours, doesn't mean you only work 40 hours. There are many other things in your life that you have to do that are also work: running errands, parenting, cleaning, cooking, etc.

danny8000 8y ago

I think we should switch to a six-day week (just drop Wednesday). Two day weekend, four day week: http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/60-Week_Calendar http://calendars.wikia.com/wiki/60-Week_Calendar

andromedavision 8y ago
I don't know why, but the idea of just dropping a day, though plausible, cracked me up.
logfromblammo 8y ago
We could go partial French Revolutionary, and have 36 10-day weeks at +3-1+3-3, plus an intercalary partial week at -5 or -6. Since we're not [all] French, the days of the week would be renamed as follows: Workday, Bluesday, Grindsday, Humpday, Schmerkday, Slogsday, Highday, Lazyday, Gamesday, and Chillsday. This would be referred to as the "Bactrian week", and the previous +5-2 week a "Dromedary week". The partial week shall be "Festivus Week". For essential personnel, they cover all days of the week by working a rotating schedule of 9-day cycles (+3-1+3-2) plus one vacation week of 9 days off in a row, which adds to the previous 2-day weekend for a total of 11 consecutive days off. Festivus has staggered 3 on, 2 off, at double pay. Employees draw straws at 60% probability for working a leap day. There's no need to rename the months. Years start on January 1st and follow Gregorian leap day rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar ~