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> I'd pay extra to have my food prepared by a relatively > content worker -- even for selfish reasons. Of course, but where productivity doesn't increase sign
by bArray 7y ago
> I'd pay extra to have my food prepared by a relatively
> content worker -- even for selfish reasons.
Of course, but where productivity doesn't increase significantly from having additional time spent not working, there will simply be less work done - i.e. people will be paid less. I don't know whether your burger flipper will be more disgruntled from working more hours a week or getting paid less and working less.
I highly suspect that such trade-offs are privileges of those who get paid more, hence have enough excess income that they can take a day off without significant detriment or their companies are in a position to swallow those costs. And it's not even that simple in the second case, one of my old employers made several billion dollars profit every year, but were still making engineers redundant in order to reduce engineering costs and increase investor gains. Microsoft seems to be in a position where they can just swallow such costs and not worry investors, even if productivity didn't increase significantly. Even it's ability to do such experiments is owing to it's size.
> Of course you would, you're a human.
It's not quite that simple - I personally have life-long goals that I would like to work more on. After speaking to people from a wide walk of life, I don't believe everybody has such passions for their side projects, or their goals simply benefit from more cash (i.e. holidays, family, expenses, etc). For some people their work is their goal.
I'm also willing to take a 1/5th cut, as long as I can still make the rent. Not everybody would be willing to say that, especially if you find yourself closer to the breadline.
The audience here on HN is likely to be middle class and above... My point is that before protesting nationwide for a day to be cut from the working week, we should also consider our lesser paid equals. Everybody's case and reasoning will be different.
- blotter_paper 7y ago> Of course, but where productivity doesn't increase significantly from having additional time spent not working, there will simply be less work done I don't believe that productivity in the service industry doesn't significantly decrease with number of hours worked. I get that with some work you end up mulling over it while you're away and coming up with a solution to a problem in a way that doesn't apply nearly as often for a kitchen environment, but I've seen workers who felt they weren't getting enough time off show up drunk, take 45 minute breaks without clearing it with management, not bother with proper food handling procedures (e.g. putting meat products in ice and water before throwing them in the walk-in so that time spent between holding temperatures would be minimised and bacteria wouldn't grow in the meat we served to customers), etc. Even as somebody who tried to stay on the ball, I would be slipping up and making dumb mistakes at the end of a 14 hour shift in a hot kitchen without enough time for adequate hydration. Work two of those in a row and I doubt you'll be at peak efficiency, either. When I worked in food service workers tended to be asking for less hours, not more. We'd bribe each other to take shifts. That doesn't mean we didn't want more pay, it's just that the bottom feeders of society also value their free time. Being paid less means that each hour you sell you get less for. Selling your reading time for $8.50 an hour feels way worse than selling it for $50.00 an hour; at $50.00 you feel like you're building towards something, at $8.50 you feel like you're pissing away your life for practically nothing. > It's not quite that simple - I personally have life-long goals that I would like to work more on. After speaking to people from a wide walk of life, I don't believe everybody has such passions for their side projects, or their goals simply benefit from more cash (i.e. holidays, family, expenses, etc). For some people their work is their goal. I get what you're saying here. My point with the "you're human" line was that you were making an argument about the service industry employees based on how we as a society could most efficiently capture their labor value, and then stating your own desires for work-life-balance in more human terms.
- bArray 7y agoA 14 hour shift is quite significant for anybody, I just came off a solid 20+ hour shift myself (long story - code needed to be pushed out for a deadline). I can certainly appreciate all the points raised. I still don't think that we can blanket say: "less time worked is beneficial to all the people". I think people need the ability to choose based on their goals and situation (and not be forced into a decision). This certainly gets quite complicated quite quickly. In the UK for example, we've had zero hour contracts and apprenticeships for quite some time. In some cases they've allowed people greater flexibility around their personal situation and in others they have been used as a tool to pay people below minimum wage. > [..] we as a society could most efficiently capture their > labor value, and then stating your own desires for > work-life-balance in more human terms. Sure. But this work-life balance is also reflective of a realistic input into society. If given the choice, I would accept full pay and work zero days (and some have chosen this life-style with a social support systems). As a society and a company we need to maximize productivity per hour - and part of that equation could be less hours worked, but it could also not be.