6 ms·

> The 40 hour work week is tyrannical. If you are stating this seriously, I often wonder why there isn’t a great movement toward a reduction in working days/ho

> The 40 hour work week is tyrannical. If you are stating this seriously, I often wonder why there isn’t a great movement toward a reduction in working days/hours in the modern workplace. It’s kind of mind boggling to me why we have to trade most of our waking hours for the majority of the prime of our life to make a living wage. Modern society should be solving for this.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> I often wonder why there isn’t a great movement toward a reduction in working days/hours in the modern workplace. There are voices saying that. You can find some on almost every HN thread about work. This is a tricky topic, though, because our society has a deeply ingrained sense of deriving one's self-worth and status from the job they perform. A sentiment that was once critical to our survival - now, arguably, less so. > Modern society should be solving for this. There are attempts. 4-hour workweek. People (like myself) switching to remote work to reclaim time spent commuting. Individuals seeking FU money. Proposals of UBI. Regulations around paid vacations and parental leave. It's messy and slow-going, and things probably won't change until there is a cultural shift in our relationship with work we do.
- etherealG 7y ago
  When you say "our society", do you mean USA? I know the approach to work in France where I live is vastly different. Most people I talk with consider work to be a means to an end, and life being much more about the things you do besides your job.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
Well the discussions here are not exactly from a random sampling of individuals. Many people in HN are programmers, meaning that their productivity does not scale linearly with time. That is, you may get a considerable amount of work done in 4 hours, and the proceeding 4 hours may yield hardly any progress at all. Any knowledge worker can relate. But in a lot of industries, there is a lower bound of hours that need to be worked. I used to work in the medical device industry, and hospitals, and also have some real estate company experience. I can assure you in my experience, a 40-hour workweek was by no means unreasonable in these industries. If you're working in Semiconductors or Finance or Law or most industries out there, you really do need to be physically present and working 6-8 hour days.
southerndrift 7y ago
It is solved. Everybody can choose a job where they works less hours or become a freelancer and work as many hours as they want. This doesn't work on a global scale, but as an individual, that choice is possible. The problem is that people want to buy more than they can afford from doing less work. There is no way to resolve this. As long as there are status goods like sneakers for $1000, people will have to work the hours needed to afford them. You can only have fewer hours if everything is standardized to the point that machines do all the work. But who wants to live in such a world of uniformity?
- jeena 7y ago
  I don't agree, humans worked for 80 hours a week and then together reduced to 40 hours a week. I don't see why they could not reduce it to 30 or 20 hours a week. Everyone worked on a Saturday then suddenly most of the people stopped working on the Saturday, I don't see why it would be impossible for most of the people in the society to stop working on Friday too.
  - ianai 7y ago
    Exactly! Weekends only exist because workers unionized and forced them to be a thing. In the US, the government is supposed to create and reinforce individual liberties and property rights. That means creating a legal framework around personal property. It should be protective of peoples’ time as well.
  - southerndrift 7y ago
    Because 40 hours a week are, if you remove vacations, holidays and sick leaves, on average roughly 4 hours per day. That's the amount tribal people work per day. There is no inherent human need to reduce that time further. As I said, people can already work for 30 or 20 hours per week. Why is it not enough for you if you stop working on Friday? Do you want 30 or 20 hours per week with equal pay? Then indeed you have to reduce the supply of work to rise hourly wages. But then, less is produced, the supply of goods is reduced and thus things cost more, most likely disproportionally more than the increase in wages.
dahart 7y ago
There are a couple other good answers here, and I think the ideas you’re suggesting are growing in the public consciousness. But I think it’s interesting to reflect on the idea of the job, in the US at least. Our entire economy and government and our social identity rests on the deeply ingrained idea of everyone going to work every day. Our healthcare system is still very heavily job centric, since most people who have health insurance get it through work. Banks and credit all evaluate risk via job income and type. The idea of being a productive member of society still pervades the American consciousness. There’s a lot of hand-wringing over UBI and other suggestions because the economy will change dramatically if a lot of people suddenly work less. As much as I agree that it seems like we shouldn’t need to be working this much, I have to admit that when I think about how completely fixed into our core the ideas of work and jobs are, I feel like reducing them quickly could have massive and unintended consequences for our economy.
- ianai 7y ago
  Those memes could be reduced by an equally conscious awareness of the value of the other parts of life. Health relies on good sleep, good diet, good social interactions, etc. work often hinders those.
  - dahart 7y ago
    Sure, you’re absolutely right. They could. And in small ways, that’s already happening. Lots of people on Facebook and Instagram post their food & vacations & friends. Work chatter on social networks is there but (perhaps?) not as prominent as pics and stories from work. That said, I think it’s a mistake to underestimate how deeply ingrained work is in our culture, or to underestimate how hard it will be to change. People judge each other’s status by work and wealth, the education system is designed for careers both private and academic. The extremely pervasive beliefs that struggle and hard work are required for people to learn things well, and that competition is required for survival and optimal markets, and that good financial management skills only come from earned money, and that expertise only comes from years of experience, these are all part of the big burrito that jobs are part of. It’s a burrito that will be hard to take apart. Not impossible, but very hard. Jobs aren’t required for those ideas to be true, but today they are tightly wrapped together.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> I often wonder why there isn’t a great movement toward a reduction in working days/hours in the modern workplace. There are voices saying that. You can find some on almost every HN thread about work. This is a tricky topic, though, because our society has a deeply ingrained sense of deriving one's self-worth and status from the job they perform. A sentiment that was once critical to our survival - now, arguably, less so. > Modern society should be solving for this. There are attempts. 4-hour workweek. People (like myself) switching to remote work to reclaim time spent commuting. Individuals seeking FU money. Proposals of UBI. Regulations around paid vacations and parental leave. It's messy and slow-going, and things probably won't change until there is a cultural shift in our relationship with work we do.

etherealG 7y ago
When you say "our society", do you mean USA? I know the approach to work in France where I live is vastly different. Most people I talk with consider work to be a means to an end, and life being much more about the things you do besides your job.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

Well the discussions here are not exactly from a random sampling of individuals. Many people in HN are programmers, meaning that their productivity does not scale linearly with time. That is, you may get a considerable amount of work done in 4 hours, and the proceeding 4 hours may yield hardly any progress at all. Any knowledge worker can relate. But in a lot of industries, there is a lower bound of hours that need to be worked. I used to work in the medical device industry, and hospitals, and also have some real estate company experience. I can assure you in my experience, a 40-hour workweek was by no means unreasonable in these industries. If you're working in Semiconductors or Finance or Law or most industries out there, you really do need to be physically present and working 6-8 hour days.

southerndrift 7y ago

It is solved. Everybody can choose a job where they works less hours or become a freelancer and work as many hours as they want. This doesn't work on a global scale, but as an individual, that choice is possible. The problem is that people want to buy more than they can afford from doing less work. There is no way to resolve this. As long as there are status goods like sneakers for $1000, people will have to work the hours needed to afford them. You can only have fewer hours if everything is standardized to the point that machines do all the work. But who wants to live in such a world of uniformity?

jeena 7y ago
I don't agree, humans worked for 80 hours a week and then together reduced to 40 hours a week. I don't see why they could not reduce it to 30 or 20 hours a week. Everyone worked on a Saturday then suddenly most of the people stopped working on the Saturday, I don't see why it would be impossible for most of the people in the society to stop working on Friday too.
- ianai 7y ago
  Exactly! Weekends only exist because workers unionized and forced them to be a thing. In the US, the government is supposed to create and reinforce individual liberties and property rights. That means creating a legal framework around personal property. It should be protective of peoples’ time as well.
- southerndrift 7y ago
  Because 40 hours a week are, if you remove vacations, holidays and sick leaves, on average roughly 4 hours per day. That's the amount tribal people work per day. There is no inherent human need to reduce that time further. As I said, people can already work for 30 or 20 hours per week. Why is it not enough for you if you stop working on Friday? Do you want 30 or 20 hours per week with equal pay? Then indeed you have to reduce the supply of work to rise hourly wages. But then, less is produced, the supply of goods is reduced and thus things cost more, most likely disproportionally more than the increase in wages.

dahart 7y ago

There are a couple other good answers here, and I think the ideas you’re suggesting are growing in the public consciousness. But I think it’s interesting to reflect on the idea of the job, in the US at least. Our entire economy and government and our social identity rests on the deeply ingrained idea of everyone going to work every day. Our healthcare system is still very heavily job centric, since most people who have health insurance get it through work. Banks and credit all evaluate risk via job income and type. The idea of being a productive member of society still pervades the American consciousness. There’s a lot of hand-wringing over UBI and other suggestions because the economy will change dramatically if a lot of people suddenly work less. As much as I agree that it seems like we shouldn’t need to be working this much, I have to admit that when I think about how completely fixed into our core the ideas of work and jobs are, I feel like reducing them quickly could have massive and unintended consequences for our economy.

ianai 7y ago
Those memes could be reduced by an equally conscious awareness of the value of the other parts of life. Health relies on good sleep, good diet, good social interactions, etc. work often hinders those.
- dahart 7y ago
  Sure, you’re absolutely right. They could. And in small ways, that’s already happening. Lots of people on Facebook and Instagram post their food & vacations & friends. Work chatter on social networks is there but (perhaps?) not as prominent as pics and stories from work. That said, I think it’s a mistake to underestimate how deeply ingrained work is in our culture, or to underestimate how hard it will be to change. People judge each other’s status by work and wealth, the education system is designed for careers both private and academic. The extremely pervasive beliefs that struggle and hard work are required for people to learn things well, and that competition is required for survival and optimal markets, and that good financial management skills only come from earned money, and that expertise only comes from years of experience, these are all part of the big burrito that jobs are part of. It’s a burrito that will be hard to take apart. Not impossible, but very hard. Jobs aren’t required for those ideas to be true, but today they are tightly wrapped together.