4 ms·

> What is this, some theoretical guessing at some sort of work system that may or may not work... Yes, that is exactly what this is, until I am able to put it

by ph0rque 18y ago

> What is this, some theoretical guessing at some sort of work system that may or may not work... Yes, that is exactly what this is, until I am able to put it into practice and see if it works. I say this as the author of the blog post. >... and that has no bearing with a real workplace? Well, in my experience (at least at the place where I work), everyone could be just as productive in 6 hours as 8 (or 9, or 10), if they knew they could go home afterwards.

axod 18y ago
... until they adjusted to that, then you'd need to switch to a 4 hour workday. I think it's a slippery slope.
- dazzawazza 18y ago
  maybe it's a slippery slope toward greater productivity, worker well being and company profitability? The 8 hour day was negotiated from unregulated work hours based on workers rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_hour_day) I'd be surprised if any knowledge worker averages MORE than 6 hours work a day so why should they be bound to the office for eight?
swombat 18y ago
Ok. Well, I'm not trying to put you down, but your thoughts on this subject are pretty worthless until you can put them in practice. "How to structure a workplace" is one of those extremely complex topics that require many years of practical experience to get right, and that present countless options that look alright at first glance but turn out to be disastrous. This is very similar to the problem of scaling applications to millions of users. Would you take advice about that from someone who hasn't actually gone and scaled at least one, but ideally several applications to that kind of scale? No, because even though their theoretical solution might sound alright, it has no substantiation to confirm that it actually has a snowflake's chance in hell to work out in real life. The problem with your article is that it is just day-dreaming, but you present it as if it was some sort of tested solution. In fact, it is just day-dreaming, applied to a subject that many extremely bright people have been studying and working in for about a hundred years. That subject is called "Management", for your information. Certainly there is room for improvement, but until you actually have experience of the subject and have proven that your ideas actually work, they are effectively worthless.
- michael_dorfman 18y ago
  I think this is a bit harsh. There has been a lot of research on these issues, and the proposal of a 6-hour workday is pretty common among socialist parties in the Scandinavian countries, at least. It's not an unknown (or particularly novel) proposition. I'm not the original poster, but I commented above my assent-- at my last start-up, we went with the traditional 8-hour day, but at my new one (where I am just beginning to hire people) I'll be using a 6-hour day (at the same salaries I used to pay people for 8.) Based on my practical experience in hiring and managing dozens of people at my last company, I'm making this decision-- I'll let you know how it turns out, once the data is in.
  - swombat 18y ago
    I'm not really criticising the idea itself here, more its presentation and backing. I'm a big fan of ROWE (Result Oriented Work Environment). In my start-up we don't have any such thing as working hours, and we don't intend to, ever, if we can help it. Ultimately, when we hire someone, we're not hiring them to sit on a chair for a certain time, I'm hiring them so they can do amazing stuff. If they can do the amazing stuff in half an hour before breakfast and spend the rest of the day playing computer games, all the better. Our start-up is still very small, but this is working for us at the moment. This kind of system, in our case, is not the result of idle day-dreaming, however, but of about 15 years' worth of combined experiences working for other companies and seeing what works and what doesn't, and reading masses of literature on the subject. That makes it very different from simply saying "Oh, I think I'd work just as well with fewer working hours, and hey, it might even give some benefits" - which is just idle chatter and not worthy of an article, imho.
    - ph0rque 18y ago
      So, I should have kept my thoughts to myself for another 15 years, until I do intensive research on the idea and see what works and what doesn't? Nobody forced you to read the article.
      - swombat 18y ago

by ph0rque 18y ago

axod 18y ago

... until they adjusted to that, then you'd need to switch to a 4 hour workday. I think it's a slippery slope.

dazzawazza 18y ago
maybe it's a slippery slope toward greater productivity, worker well being and company profitability? The 8 hour day was negotiated from unregulated work hours based on workers rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_hour_day) I'd be surprised if any knowledge worker averages MORE than 6 hours work a day so why should they be bound to the office for eight?

swombat 18y ago

Ok. Well, I'm not trying to put you down, but your thoughts on this subject are pretty worthless until you can put them in practice. "How to structure a workplace" is one of those extremely complex topics that require many years of practical experience to get right, and that present countless options that look alright at first glance but turn out to be disastrous. This is very similar to the problem of scaling applications to millions of users. Would you take advice about that from someone who hasn't actually gone and scaled at least one, but ideally several applications to that kind of scale? No, because even though their theoretical solution might sound alright, it has no substantiation to confirm that it actually has a snowflake's chance in hell to work out in real life. The problem with your article is that it is just day-dreaming, but you present it as if it was some sort of tested solution. In fact, it is just day-dreaming, applied to a subject that many extremely bright people have been studying and working in for about a hundred years. That subject is called "Management", for your information. Certainly there is room for improvement, but until you actually have experience of the subject and have proven that your ideas actually work, they are effectively worthless.

michael_dorfman 18y ago
I think this is a bit harsh. There has been a lot of research on these issues, and the proposal of a 6-hour workday is pretty common among socialist parties in the Scandinavian countries, at least. It's not an unknown (or particularly novel) proposition. I'm not the original poster, but I commented above my assent-- at my last start-up, we went with the traditional 8-hour day, but at my new one (where I am just beginning to hire people) I'll be using a 6-hour day (at the same salaries I used to pay people for 8.) Based on my practical experience in hiring and managing dozens of people at my last company, I'm making this decision-- I'll let you know how it turns out, once the data is in.
- swombat 18y ago
  I'm not really criticising the idea itself here, more its presentation and backing. I'm a big fan of ROWE (Result Oriented Work Environment). In my start-up we don't have any such thing as working hours, and we don't intend to, ever, if we can help it. Ultimately, when we hire someone, we're not hiring them to sit on a chair for a certain time, I'm hiring them so they can do amazing stuff. If they can do the amazing stuff in half an hour before breakfast and spend the rest of the day playing computer games, all the better. Our start-up is still very small, but this is working for us at the moment. This kind of system, in our case, is not the result of idle day-dreaming, however, but of about 15 years' worth of combined experiences working for other companies and seeing what works and what doesn't, and reading masses of literature on the subject. That makes it very different from simply saying "Oh, I think I'd work just as well with fewer working hours, and hey, it might even give some benefits" - which is just idle chatter and not worthy of an article, imho.
  - ph0rque 18y ago
    So, I should have kept my thoughts to myself for another 15 years, until I do intensive research on the idea and see what works and what doesn't? Nobody forced you to read the article.
    - swombat 18y ago