24 ms·

We Don’t Need to Work So Much (2015)

256 points by thesumofall 6y ago

thesumofall 6y ago
My European take on this: while upper class salaries might be 2-3x above middle-class salaries they don’t afford you a lifestyle that would be unrecognizable to a middle-class family. Maybe a nicer neighborhood, maybe more long-distance traveling, a good restaurant from time to time. But you’re certainly not removed from the idea that even a smaller loss in income has a direct impact on your lifestyle. So the upper class is as afraid of a loss in income as the middle class. And while middle class jobs are often union protected and have a stable market of supply and demand, upper class jobs are often highly specialized and a transition might not be as easy after having lost a job
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I always thought of the upper class as relying on return on capital rather than a job. The well educated professionals with high incomes that the article talks about are upper-middle class.
- j7ake 6y ago
  Yes so I think although salaries can vary 2 or 3 times (probably less post tax) the actual job you do can be a major differentiator in lifestyle. An artist doing their own thing making the same amount of money as a person at a corporate job has a fundamentally different lifestyle although salaries may be comparable.
- louhike 6y ago
  When you're in upper-class, you usually have more money or estate. You also have a better network. You have more probabilities of knowing someone who might help you find a job or start a project. And people will put more easily trust in you. You have better education. So it's far easier to get back on your feet, even though people tend to convince themselves otherwise because it's always hard to hear you have advantages that others do not have.
- bluetomcat 6y ago
  Upper-class in Europe is mostly old money with inherited real estate and/or family-run companies passed from generation to generation. They never see it as necessary to participate in the arms race of the middle and upper-middle class. Flashy cars and designer clothes are not something they aspire to. You’d rather see them in an old Volvo or Mercedes estate.
  - dencodev 6y ago
    That's a very broad generalization that covers millions of people.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  The vast majority of employees in the EU are not part of a union, it is around 10 - 15%. They get protection trough legislation from times unions were more common though. Unions make sense for artists since the broad availability of art and entertainment is often hit or miss. Not the best works always win and if there is considerable success, income can get extremely high while others struggle to get by. Especially educational works do get paid poorly. These are essential services compared to another upper middle class manager from a consumer perspective.
  - phreeza 6y ago
    At least in Germany you don't have to be a member of the union to benefit from their negotiations. About 50% of employees work under a so-called "Tarif" contract, terms of which get negotiated by unions.
- netcan 6y ago
  (Also europe.. ireland) I would confirm this take. I would also say that "upper class" in modern european terms, refers to something different then in other times... or possibly in the US. We have a more cultural take on class. It's not just about income. First, our cutoff for "elites" is a lot lower. This is sometimes reflected in proposed laws. For example, when France implemented a wealth tax, they set the cuttoff around €1m. Other laws and proposed laws around europe tend to have a similar take. In US equivalents, thresholds are proposed aropund $50m-$1bn. Here in Ireland, the top thresholds of income tax are near (even below) median full time income... €44k. Also, our public housing system houses around 20% of the population. The quality of housing is better than the lower end of private rentals... which tend to house employees of Google FB, etc. Meanwhile, there's a lot more emphasis on cultural divide here. In the UK, the "anywhere vs somewhere's" is a popular take on modern class division. Anywhere's being internationally oriented, college educated people. Somewhere's being locally oriented. It corresponds to a more evergreen take: professional class vs working class. In both cases, the income gaps are smaller than the cultural gaps. A college graduate working in Google account management for €35k can earn half what a plumber earns, but the class divide is still what it is. This is actually a significant dynamic in Ireland now. We have a lot of middle-income white collar jobs at international tech companies, with questionable long term security. We have a lot of higher paying blue collar jobs, mostly construction adjacent. Often, the economic differences between classes just comes down to neighborhoods, property wealth and accumulated family wealth... not necessarily income. Often, but not always. The lowest 25% income families tend to be distinctly, and proudly working class. The genuinely wealthy tend to be upper class. Class is complicated in europe. It can be quasi-ethnic, with accents, body language and cultural subtleties playing a big role. It doesn't correspond neatly to income.
  - viklove 6y ago
    What makes you think it "corresponds neatly to income" in the US? There's economic class, social class, and socio-economic class. These are three different things, and that's also true in the US.
    - netcan 6y ago
      i don't
- patrickk 6y ago
  > Maybe a nicer neighborhood This one is huge. Trying to afford a decent, spacious (non-luxurious) home with access a small garden, that isn't an hour+ commute from your workplace, is a true luxury especially in any in-demand urban region. Not having to waste hours of your life commuting definitely separates the plebs from the rest.
- alexpetralia 6y ago
  Eric Weinstein calls this the "elite precariat."
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
moksly 6y ago
I chose to work in the public sector of Denmark because I’m ideologically inclined that way. That was decades ago, today I would chose to work here because of how much less hours I work compared to my old university friends in the private sector. They earn more money than me, but except for one of them who founded and now manages a successful company, it’s not that much more money. In fact when you calculate in all the extra hours they work, my extra weak of paid vacation, my better paternityleave, the two extra paid child’s sick leave days I get (per time your child is sick), the two yearly extra vacation days (per child under the age of 7) and my pension, I probably only earn around 10-20% less than them, and I get to spend so much more time not working. Hell I even bumped my hours to 30 a week for a while when my daughter was born. That was expensive, but it’s something you aren’t offered in a lot of private sector jobs. I can’t begin to imagine how you guys in America get through life working so much. Let alone how on Earth you raise a family, maintain a relationship and have time for yourselves while you do it.
- luckylion 6y ago
  That's very similar in most government jobs in Europe, I believe. I don't know about the US, but I expect it's similar there as well. I'm afraid that it works out great for you because others are working more. Individually, that's a good decision for you, but it's not a model you can make society run on, at least not at the same level of output we're currently providing. If everybody had the same circumstances you have, we couldn't afford everything we can afford now, unless there's some explosion in productivity, which is hard to believe for the majority of jobs where it's not about "coming up with the right idea".
  - fileeditview 6y ago
    I don't think this is true. In my experience a lot of work time is just wasted time. Often nothing is accomplished. A lot of extra hours for meetings are not productive at all. A lot of extra hours looking into that bug ("so we can fix it today") is not productive at all.. I think you have the impression that working longer means being more productive. I don't believe that. I am often more productive if I have a shorter work day. Also your argument doesn't make too much sense to me because OP already says that he is paid less. So it's not like he gets the same for less work. He gets less for less work.
kqr 6y ago
It's also the fact that many modern, well-paid jobs are actually somewhat satisfying. Humans get off on solving problems, as long as they are allowed autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The things I do at work are the things I would do also in my spare time, if I had more of it. I like solving puzzles. So if I'm going to do this stuff anyway, why not get paid for it?[1] Of course, I don't want to do it for more than around 40 hours[2] a week (mainly because I have other things I also want to do, and there's only so many hours in total to do all the things in) but I do want to do it for a significant portion of my day. I need that intellectual stimulation to be happy. But I can imagine some people want to go "beyond the average" and really show their employers their commitment. In a world where people happily volunteer 40 hours a week to satisfy their inner desires, there's little room to do anything other than offer 60 hours to prove yourself better.[3] [1]: Well, I know why. If your employer is bad you won't find work as fulfilling. So maybe my hypothesis doesn't hold up anyway. [2]: Now that I have a young child at home, I'm starting to think about asking for less than 40 hours. There have simply become more other interesting things for me to do. [3]: Well, you could work more efficiently instead, which would be my preferred solution. But I think a lot of people are stuck in a rut of average skill but want to present themselves as beyond average. At that point you cannot do "better", you can only do "more". (Which might lead to better, come to think of it.)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
noisy_boy 6y ago
This is made worse by those insufferable over-zealous team members with a i-can-wag-my-tail-harder-than-you attitude. They send emails from holiday expressing their concern over a change, which frankly no one gives a damn about, and moan their semi-brags on how they are dying under work because how random senior managers (who don't give a crap about them and are just playing them to get more work done) have "insisted on my involvement". These are the kind of rotten apples who don't have a life and drag those that do have/want one to the bottomless pit of overwork. /rant
- switch007 6y ago
  This, a hundred times. I try to gently tell junior colleagues to avoid that trap. You just create a rod for your own back, and you indirectly harm the more senior people with more commitments outside of work. I can relate though. Some newer people are eager to please. I was a bit like that when I was younger. I wish someone had taken me aside and pointed out the problem with it.
- netcan 6y ago
  This is a side effect of organisational structure, imo, less so personality. Modern companies have an increasingly "court politics" culture and structure. Many roles are unique, and organisational structure is constantly changing. "Senior Customer Advocate can mean something prestigious one day, something menial the next, and be eliminated as a role the following week. These dynamics are constantly negotiated in meetings, group emails and such. One or two meetings can turn someone from pivotal to "what does he actually do here?" People are highly aware of, sensitive to, and responsive to status dynamics. Status uncertainty is a major source of anxiety. "Know your place" was a slogan of anglo society for many centuries. We tend to interpret that, from our modern liberal/republican perspective, as horrible. It's a tool of patriarchy, class suppression, etc. That is true. It was. But it also played on realities of human psychology. We are status seeking and are happier when our status is high, but we have natural coping mechanisms to deal with a low-but-secure social status. Insecurity of status is highly anxiety inducing. That's where that insufferable, over-zealous tail wagging comes from. It's also why you notice it especially when people are on holiday. They're not present to monitor and defend their status. That status really is insecure. They could really lose it over a vacation.
perfunctory 6y ago
The core idea of the article can be found in a paragraph somewhere in the middle of the piece > What all of these explanations have in common is the idea that the answer comes from examining workers' decisions and incentives. There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want, and even if they have the means to achieve it. In other words, the long hours may be neither the product of what we really want nor the oppression of workers by the ruling class, the old Marxist theory. They may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them. Now. I strongly believe that software / IT industry is one of those make-work projects.
- Super_Jambo 6y ago
  This is the logic of economics based on infinite growth and advertising which accounts for a great deal of modern 'IT'. Companies hacking the human brains availability heuristic need to out-advertise their peers. So they're all stuck on an arms race treadmill. They can only pause if a competitor falls by the wayside, but of course soon will come another... For growth the advertising companies must find ever better ways to capture attention and harvest eyeballs. It doesn't matter if the users find their services frustrating or depressing just so long as they're compelled to keep _looking_ at them. The internet revolution should've made product discovery cheaper than ever, instead it now costs more than at any time in history, it's in-fucking-sane. We should just be paying for services including a product discovery service.
- 2sk21 6y ago
  I agree - I have seen a lot of make-work in my previous job at a big company. Every push to production required a couple dozen signoffs and simply collecting those could often represent a couple days of exhausting and meaningless work.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  In America, too many benefits are tied to full time employment. The biggest one is health insurance. This creates a huge imbalance of power between employer and employee. The absolute worst time to lose (affordable) health insurance is when you become unemployed. It makes no sense! This doesn't even go into people or families with chronic illness. In this way, in order to maintain these benefits, Americans must do what they feel whatever it takes to keep their jobs. That's the number 1 incentive. This is not the product of an institution that has taken on a life of its own. Universal healthcare as a majority of support among Americans (as long as you don't attach Obama's name to it, anyway), but neither party (especially not Republicans) have shown an interest in delivering this to its constituents.
keiferski 6y ago
The whole ‘we should work less’ meme strikes me as more about the meaninglessness of modern work, moreso than our desire to have more leisure time. In other words: people want more meaningful work, not merely to have less meaningless work. Maybe this is an American-centric idea, wherein your work is strongly tied to your purpose and identity, but I don’t see how you can simply brush away an activity that takes up 1/3 of your time. The example in the article (Amazon packing plants) is perhaps the most pointless Kafkasque job one can imagine: packing boxes of mostly unnecessary consumeristic products. Speaking only personally, but I want to be working so much that I have little leisure time, but only because the work I’m doing is fulfilling and fundamentally important. I have no desire to have more leisure time to consume content (which is what most people do: look up the hours spent watching TV/video per person, or social media usage), as I don’t think consumption activities are ultimately fulfilling.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part. -- Bertrand Russell, 1932 http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
  - keiferski 6y ago
    People have a lot of leisure time today, so much so that Americans, on average, watch about 4 hours of television/video per day. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption I really don’t think working a 40-hour a week job is the hold up here.
    - ianleeclark 6y ago
      > People have a lot of leisure time today, so much so that Americans, on average, watch about 4 hours of television/video per day. You have a fundamentally different view of leisure time than what Bertrand Russel is talking about. In his view, leisure is something in which one has to be actively engaged in. Modern television, however, outsources much of this: laugh tracks are a prime example, but another example would be the BBC's Sherlock series which doesn't make it possible for the viewer to figure out "who done it", it only has Sherlock swoop in and connect dots that were never shown.
CalRobert 6y ago
It's a little disappointing they don't address the idea of peer competition. We live in a time of insane material wealth, so we create artificial scarcities of necessities to ensure peers compete with each other. The article does mention the substantial rises in productivity we've had, but this: "There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want" merited far more exploration. There's a horrible positive feedback loop going on. Say 10 people want a home in an area that has, oh, 8 homes. If somebody chooses to work long hours, read emails on weekends, etc. they have a better shot at getting promotions and being able to outbid their peers for those homes. If someone doesn't do this, they have a better chance at falling in to the 2 people who can't afford a home. So the workaholics work and work and work, get the raise, and buy a home with a big mortgage attached. Maybe a $1.5 million dump in San Jose. Now they're a highly-leveraged housing speculator who desperately can't afford for house prices go down. And the leverage they used to buy the house is secured with the threat of homelessness and personal ruin. So they oppose any and all new building ferociously and cruelly. Scarcity is the only reason their house even has value! Similarly, _they_ had to work nights and weekends, so why shouldn't other people? As they rise up the ladder this is what they select for. So we have house prices ratcheting upwards, people working themselves to the bone to get in to the club of "homeowners" (a dubious word when you owe 90% of the home's value to the bank), and a strong incentive to make sure it keeps going that way. It's true that presenteeism and wasted time at work are an issue, but ultimately there is a point where more time working means producing more (say 20 hours vs 10), and in a sector where results are hard to quantify people go for the easy thing to measure - hours where you butt was in the seat. I mean, houses are pretty cheap to build. Habitat for Humanity does it for $50k. Imagine if you could work part time and build your own home? It would threaten people whose power comes from housing scarcity! Why, what if it turns out there's no inherent reason their house should cost 25 times the median income? Can't be having that! Better make it illegal to build homes (or demolish existing low-density ones) anywhere near a job. The only homes that get built near high paying jobs now are over the wailing shrieks of existing rent-seekers (aka homeowners). The person who owns a home in Berkeley can vote, because they live in the area, but the person who would _like_ to live in Berkeley but commutes from Stockton has no voice. I'm hopeful that remote work will finally destroy their power, though with a decrease in tech incomes as well.
abellerose 6y ago
I assume working less while still making the same annually would lower suicide rate. One of the main reasons people commit suicide is financial problems. Added free time is never unwanted and can be substituted for whatever the person desires. I personally think we’re burning out the younger generation with all the optimizations that have came with technology but at the same time continuing to expect more from people. I think we’re missing out on what benefits come to society when people are less overworked.
bluetomcat 6y ago
In service sectors of the economy, work can be created out of thin air, without any proportional returns in the form of increased well-being of society. For example, you may spend days improving every little detail of that customer email template, for marginal or no returns over the previous template.
2sk21 6y ago
And there is also this related article that was discussed a lot here on HN last year: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...
TrackerFF 6y ago
As an European working with lots of American contractors in the tech field, I'm always impressed by their work ethics. The put in 10-12 hours, 6 days a week. But from talking with them, it seems like their focus is on retirement - hopefully in their 50's. That's their grand plan, because that's when they'll start "living". It's a bit of a contrast to us Scandinavians - as we really like to live in the present. No pie in the sky dreams. Which is also why we guard our working rights and work-life balance like a national treasure.
- marcodave 6y ago
  which then begs the question: if you spent your whole life working more, and focusing on getting more money, assuming that you can retire in your 50s, can you REALLY stop working? or will you depress yourself because there's nothing else to do? retiring early seems great on paper, but at what cost?
  - TrackerFF 6y ago
    Yes, it depends on work and what type you are. I've talked with lots of older colleagues that dread retirement, mostly because they enjoy work and they also enjoy the people they work with. Some people will do just fine with their hobbies and projects, others will have a hard time adapting - many even coming out of retirement, due to boredom. Really depends on the individual. One thing I've heard a lot, from older colleagues, is that people tend to become mentally dull once they go into retirement - at least on the skills they used daily at work. You need to be pretty disciplined and motivated to maintain your skills at a professional level, once there's no hurry or pressure to deliver anything. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years - before you know it, you've spent a couple of years of your retirement just chilling around.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    also, can you really stop working in your 50s when the health problems come and you realize you now need your employer for the health insurance?
    - 6y ago
wsc981 6y ago
Recently I came across this video "The design for easy life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2eoQyYoUww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2eoQyYoUww I live in Thailand and am very interested in working less for other people and more for myself. At first I though I'd need to invest maybe 500.000 USD and then perhaps I should be able to live on investments. But this video changed my mind, perhaps I should be able to get by with a lot less. This Thai farmer claims to work about 1 hour a day and that 1 hour of daily work generates for him around 50 USD. More than enough to take care of his family. Another interesting video from this farmer on "Sufficiency": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwh5N0JRhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwh5N0JRhk
- robbiejs 6y ago
  I love that man. Brilliant mind. I have lived a Digital Nomad lifestyle for 2 years and when I was in homestays on the countryside, I always felt relaxed and blessed. Just some chickens roaming around, some fruit you could pick. Simple life. Big polluted cities like Bangkok and Penang drove me nuts. One owner of one of those simple homestay farms quit his farming activities and became a taxi driver, on Lombok (Indonesia). Lombok just got a brand-new airport and they expect more tourists coming in from Bali eventually. The man became a taxi driver to make more money for "a better life". I get it. Everybody wants a shot to live "the dream" and you gotta start somewhere, but --> you don't know what you have til it's gone.
htatche 6y ago
I just refused a full-time offer because of this. Instead, I prefer to work few hours a day for my current contract and hope that things get better post-covid. Still, if anyone is looking for a Ruby contractor to give a hand in some project, reach out :)
- mac01021 6y ago
  Are you a freelancer? In a couple of years I would like to start gradually scaling down the number of hours I work. But right now I am a salaried employee and I have no freelance experience, so I'm not sure whether that is the right avenue for me. Any thoughts are appreciated.
  - htatche 6y ago
    My single advice would be to find a client (or clients) beforehand and start doing work for them before you drop your job.
geertj 6y ago
The article starts with the assumption that the total amount of work in an economy is fixed and that the extra hours we make are make-work. I beg to differ. At least in high tech, we can improve a product or service as many times as we want. Each of these improvements can be from relatively minor to requiring years of research. The total work per year is how fast we move through these improvements. The free market forces this to be higher every year due to competition.
k__ 6y ago
I'm from Germany and none of my friends work full-time anymore. 50% - 80% is the norm.
- stevenwoo 6y ago
  What is your approximate age group for your friends and are all your friends in the same industry? Just curious about what things are like.
  - k__ 6y ago
    30-40 All different industries. Healthcare, IT, agriculture, retail, magazines and books.
737min 6y ago
Here’s an observation: employees, companies & countries that are winning tend to work harder. Those that are merely coasting or declining - eg in a situation where there is nothing to win with more effort - work less hard. Elon Musk - “no one changes the world working 40 hr weeks” - is trying to win in a global competition. Your uncle Bob who is Director of QA at Oracle? Probably not playing to win. Countries like Japan or SKorea or China are trying to win. US is trying to win. Denmark or Italy are no longer trying to win a world-wide competition. No one has shown that individuals, companies or countries can wim while working less than the competition.
- 52-6F-62 6y ago
  Win what exactly?
  - malcolmxtucker 6y ago
    Win a turn at wielding the whip, of course.
- oblio 6y ago
  Besides the "win what?" question from the other commenter, how long has, say, Germany been ahead of China? Probably 150 years, now? When I say "ahead", I mean per capita, a huge national GDP doesn't really help me much as an individual. And I doubt the average German works more than the average Chinese.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  Working harder doesn't equate to working more.
- Mvandenbergh 6y ago
  I get what you mean about trying to win on the level of people and even companies. Winning or being in the game to win is motivating and when you see an excellent payoff curve where each hour is delivering value, working longer does not feel so bad. When you use this logic for larger entities though, it falls down. Very few countries are in that kind of rapid growth mode for long as an entire country. Indeed, you've grouped some wildly different countries together there. South Korea and Japan had periods of extremely rapid and impressive growth where it really did make sense to say that the entire country had organised themselves and sacrificed in order to win. Their goal was to grow their children's standard of living and they succeeded. Is aging, inward looking Japan on 2020 still playing to win? Or have they won enough to enjoy the fruits of that victory? China is a country that is still on the rise. Is "the US" trying to win at a national level? I don't think so. I think that parts of the country are full of people who are trying to win but on a national level? I think the best we can hope for is that the humiliatingly inept set of responses over the last six months are a galvanising moment for Americans on the order of Meji era Japan. I also think that you've given Uncle Bob quite a good job for someone who's not too bothered about winning. Oracle might have a reputation as not such a great place to work, but I rather suspect that making it to their director of QA takes quite a lot of winning along the way! If you want a tech example of not fussed about winning, maybe someone doing SAP implementation or running internal business logic as a 9-5 is a better example. Also it's a bit odd comparing Italy and Denmark since I'd be hard pressed to come up with two countries that are so different! Denmark's labour productivity is the highest in the EU after Ireland and Luxembourg, both of which have distorted figures because of financial concentration of assets there by American tech companies. Italy's is not much more than half that of Denmark.
pixelrevision 6y ago
This has always bothered me. In the US there is no way I have seen beyond running your own business to negotiate the time spent working. When I started in the work force I thought taking a smaller salary for 4 day work week would be a reasonable tradeoff but everyone thought I was nuts. I have tried over the years asking for more vacation or shorter weeks for a pay cut but workplaces are just not equipped to handle those sorts of requests. The system here does not value free time in the same way it does money.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  I good reason to start your own business I guess. Did you consider freelancing?
- nybble41 6y ago
  There are exceptions. For example my current employer, a decent-size public company, allows employees to purchase up to one week of extra vacation time each year. (Straight time—equivalent to unpaid time off, but with the cost spread out over the year in the form of reduced pre-tax salary and no change in other benefits.) I've known several coworkers who did the 4-day-week thing for months at a time rather than taking long vacations. They are also open to negotiating shorter hours or alternative schedules.
sharker8 6y ago
Well this didn't age well. We have now used the pandemic to force work into our homes, if anyone was even pretending it didn't follow them before all of this. That is of course only true for those who can still find work. Of course, the dynamic of job scarcity creates an even worse version of stockholm syndrome for those 'lucky' enough to continue to draw paychecks.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
I'd love to work 4 days a week. It just doesnt seem like it's possible. But having Wednesday's off and being able to actually take a week or more of vacation a few times a year as a manager would make my life so much better.
MisterBastahrd 6y ago
If you are on salary and you are putting in more than 40 hours a week, you are working to buy your boss his vacation home, not your own.
tslling 6y ago
In China, "996"(9am-9pm, 6 days a week)[0] is popular in tech companies, now more and more compnanies are adopting this work schedule, so employees have much fewer choices if they want a "normal" schedule. The administration did not enforece labour laws well in order to pursue economic interests. What makes it worse is that, as this work schedule becomes a trending, some companies and employees take it as granted. [0]https://996.icu/#/en_US https://996.icu/#/en_US
alexashka 6y ago
I don't think it's a quantity problem, it's an existential problem. Why are we doing what we're doing? When the best answer anyone can come up with is 'so that my kids get to have a good life', it's not enough. It's average people living in a system that's designed to make them replaceable and eventually get rid of needing them completely. Not get rid of them so that they can enjoy the human achievement of no longer needing to work, no, get rid of them so that somebody rich can then hire you as a wage slave to do whatever pleases them that day. I wonder if this is just inevitable - it would explain the existence of the pyramids - why else would anyone build them, but because there were so many idle hands and a few bored ego-maniacs? Unless of course, aliens :)
markus_zhang 6y ago
Maybe it's just me, but the idea of retiring early and then travel the world is really strange to me. I'd rather spend my life seeking and working on the next ideal job, and the only time that I'll skip it is when I believe it's impossible to get the ideal job. For now, if you give me a BI/DE job I'd be happily to work at least 60 hours and keep improving my shits. In short, I'd rather die working. But again I'm not against FIRE, because most of the time people don't get to do their ideal job (or even the top 5 ideal jobs), and in their shoes I'd rather just grab enough $$ and retire early. The point is, sadly, in modern society, many people are not really getting the chance to contribute to the society in a way both he/she and the society are satisfied with. This is very sad. The idea of Communism, at least part of it, is to make sure that each person out there gets the chance to fulfill their dreams and do their best, and this is really attracting.
yelloweyes 6y ago
Lmfao. How naive can people be? Do you honestly think capitalists don't know that when people have free time they start thinking about life, and when people start thinking about life, bad shit happens to capitalists?
- kyuudou 6y ago
  I was trying to find a rational and intellectual way of explaining this very stark reality that I've consistently run across but... for now I'll just upvote this.
LatteLazy 6y ago
If you look at the employment rate, you will see that only about 65% of working age people have a job. Any job. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate Add in the huge number of OAPs and most developed nations have sub 50% of people working. A lot of the issues we have (from stress and mental health to inequality to the rise of extremism) can be linked to the fact that we have fewer and fewer people working harder and harder supporting more and more others. We either need to find some ways to reverse this trend OR we need to embrace it. But if we are embracing it, we need to deal with the consequences (everything from access to healthcare to burnout to how we decide who has to work and how we compensate\reward them for doing so). Right now, this is a massive social change that goes basically ignored. Whether people like Yang and Musk are right about automation and the rise of AI or not, change is upon us and we cannot keep ignoring it.

256 points by thesumofall 6y ago

My European take on this: while upper class salaries might be 2-3x above middle-class salaries they don’t afford you a lifestyle that would be unrecognizable to a middle-class family. Maybe a nicer neighborhood, maybe more long-distance traveling, a good restaurant from time to time. But you’re certainly not removed from the idea that even a smaller loss in income has a direct impact on your lifestyle. So the upper class is as afraid of a loss in income as the middle class. And while middle class jobs are often union protected and have a stable market of supply and demand, upper class jobs are often highly specialized and a transition might not be as easy after having lost a job

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I always thought of the upper class as relying on return on capital rather than a job. The well educated professionals with high incomes that the article talks about are upper-middle class.
j7ake 6y ago
Yes so I think although salaries can vary 2 or 3 times (probably less post tax) the actual job you do can be a major differentiator in lifestyle. An artist doing their own thing making the same amount of money as a person at a corporate job has a fundamentally different lifestyle although salaries may be comparable.
louhike 6y ago
When you're in upper-class, you usually have more money or estate. You also have a better network. You have more probabilities of knowing someone who might help you find a job or start a project. And people will put more easily trust in you. You have better education. So it's far easier to get back on your feet, even though people tend to convince themselves otherwise because it's always hard to hear you have advantages that others do not have.
bluetomcat 6y ago
Upper-class in Europe is mostly old money with inherited real estate and/or family-run companies passed from generation to generation. They never see it as necessary to participate in the arms race of the middle and upper-middle class. Flashy cars and designer clothes are not something they aspire to. You’d rather see them in an old Volvo or Mercedes estate.
- dencodev 6y ago
  That's a very broad generalization that covers millions of people.
raxxorrax 6y ago
The vast majority of employees in the EU are not part of a union, it is around 10 - 15%. They get protection trough legislation from times unions were more common though. Unions make sense for artists since the broad availability of art and entertainment is often hit or miss. Not the best works always win and if there is considerable success, income can get extremely high while others struggle to get by. Especially educational works do get paid poorly. These are essential services compared to another upper middle class manager from a consumer perspective.
- phreeza 6y ago
  At least in Germany you don't have to be a member of the union to benefit from their negotiations. About 50% of employees work under a so-called "Tarif" contract, terms of which get negotiated by unions.
netcan 6y ago
(Also europe.. ireland) I would confirm this take. I would also say that "upper class" in modern european terms, refers to something different then in other times... or possibly in the US. We have a more cultural take on class. It's not just about income. First, our cutoff for "elites" is a lot lower. This is sometimes reflected in proposed laws. For example, when France implemented a wealth tax, they set the cuttoff around €1m. Other laws and proposed laws around europe tend to have a similar take. In US equivalents, thresholds are proposed aropund $50m-$1bn. Here in Ireland, the top thresholds of income tax are near (even below) median full time income... €44k. Also, our public housing system houses around 20% of the population. The quality of housing is better than the lower end of private rentals... which tend to house employees of Google FB, etc. Meanwhile, there's a lot more emphasis on cultural divide here. In the UK, the "anywhere vs somewhere's" is a popular take on modern class division. Anywhere's being internationally oriented, college educated people. Somewhere's being locally oriented. It corresponds to a more evergreen take: professional class vs working class. In both cases, the income gaps are smaller than the cultural gaps. A college graduate working in Google account management for €35k can earn half what a plumber earns, but the class divide is still what it is. This is actually a significant dynamic in Ireland now. We have a lot of middle-income white collar jobs at international tech companies, with questionable long term security. We have a lot of higher paying blue collar jobs, mostly construction adjacent. Often, the economic differences between classes just comes down to neighborhoods, property wealth and accumulated family wealth... not necessarily income. Often, but not always. The lowest 25% income families tend to be distinctly, and proudly working class. The genuinely wealthy tend to be upper class. Class is complicated in europe. It can be quasi-ethnic, with accents, body language and cultural subtleties playing a big role. It doesn't correspond neatly to income.
- viklove 6y ago
  What makes you think it "corresponds neatly to income" in the US? There's economic class, social class, and socio-economic class. These are three different things, and that's also true in the US.
  - netcan 6y ago
    i don't
patrickk 6y ago
> Maybe a nicer neighborhood This one is huge. Trying to afford a decent, spacious (non-luxurious) home with access a small garden, that isn't an hour+ commute from your workplace, is a true luxury especially in any in-demand urban region. Not having to waste hours of your life commuting definitely separates the plebs from the rest.
alexpetralia 6y ago
Eric Weinstein calls this the "elite precariat."

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

moksly 6y ago

I chose to work in the public sector of Denmark because I’m ideologically inclined that way. That was decades ago, today I would chose to work here because of how much less hours I work compared to my old university friends in the private sector. They earn more money than me, but except for one of them who founded and now manages a successful company, it’s not that much more money. In fact when you calculate in all the extra hours they work, my extra weak of paid vacation, my better paternityleave, the two extra paid child’s sick leave days I get (per time your child is sick), the two yearly extra vacation days (per child under the age of 7) and my pension, I probably only earn around 10-20% less than them, and I get to spend so much more time not working. Hell I even bumped my hours to 30 a week for a while when my daughter was born. That was expensive, but it’s something you aren’t offered in a lot of private sector jobs. I can’t begin to imagine how you guys in America get through life working so much. Let alone how on Earth you raise a family, maintain a relationship and have time for yourselves while you do it.

luckylion 6y ago
That's very similar in most government jobs in Europe, I believe. I don't know about the US, but I expect it's similar there as well. I'm afraid that it works out great for you because others are working more. Individually, that's a good decision for you, but it's not a model you can make society run on, at least not at the same level of output we're currently providing. If everybody had the same circumstances you have, we couldn't afford everything we can afford now, unless there's some explosion in productivity, which is hard to believe for the majority of jobs where it's not about "coming up with the right idea".
- fileeditview 6y ago
  I don't think this is true. In my experience a lot of work time is just wasted time. Often nothing is accomplished. A lot of extra hours for meetings are not productive at all. A lot of extra hours looking into that bug ("so we can fix it today") is not productive at all.. I think you have the impression that working longer means being more productive. I don't believe that. I am often more productive if I have a shorter work day. Also your argument doesn't make too much sense to me because OP already says that he is paid less. So it's not like he gets the same for less work. He gets less for less work.

kqr 6y ago

It's also the fact that many modern, well-paid jobs are actually somewhat satisfying. Humans get off on solving problems, as long as they are allowed autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The things I do at work are the things I would do also in my spare time, if I had more of it. I like solving puzzles. So if I'm going to do this stuff anyway, why not get paid for it?[1] Of course, I don't want to do it for more than around 40 hours[2] a week (mainly because I have other things I also want to do, and there's only so many hours in total to do all the things in) but I do want to do it for a significant portion of my day. I need that intellectual stimulation to be happy. But I can imagine some people want to go "beyond the average" and really show their employers their commitment. In a world where people happily volunteer 40 hours a week to satisfy their inner desires, there's little room to do anything other than offer 60 hours to prove yourself better.[3] [1]: Well, I know why. If your employer is bad you won't find work as fulfilling. So maybe my hypothesis doesn't hold up anyway. [2]: Now that I have a young child at home, I'm starting to think about asking for less than 40 hours. There have simply become more other interesting things for me to do. [3]: Well, you could work more efficiently instead, which would be my preferred solution. But I think a lot of people are stuck in a rut of average skill but want to present themselves as beyond average. At that point you cannot do "better", you can only do "more". (Which might lead to better, come to think of it.)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

noisy_boy 6y ago

This is made worse by those insufferable over-zealous team members with a i-can-wag-my-tail-harder-than-you attitude. They send emails from holiday expressing their concern over a change, which frankly no one gives a damn about, and moan their semi-brags on how they are dying under work because how random senior managers (who don't give a crap about them and are just playing them to get more work done) have "insisted on my involvement". These are the kind of rotten apples who don't have a life and drag those that do have/want one to the bottomless pit of overwork. /rant

switch007 6y ago
This, a hundred times. I try to gently tell junior colleagues to avoid that trap. You just create a rod for your own back, and you indirectly harm the more senior people with more commitments outside of work. I can relate though. Some newer people are eager to please. I was a bit like that when I was younger. I wish someone had taken me aside and pointed out the problem with it.
netcan 6y ago
This is a side effect of organisational structure, imo, less so personality. Modern companies have an increasingly "court politics" culture and structure. Many roles are unique, and organisational structure is constantly changing. "Senior Customer Advocate can mean something prestigious one day, something menial the next, and be eliminated as a role the following week. These dynamics are constantly negotiated in meetings, group emails and such. One or two meetings can turn someone from pivotal to "what does he actually do here?" People are highly aware of, sensitive to, and responsive to status dynamics. Status uncertainty is a major source of anxiety. "Know your place" was a slogan of anglo society for many centuries. We tend to interpret that, from our modern liberal/republican perspective, as horrible. It's a tool of patriarchy, class suppression, etc. That is true. It was. But it also played on realities of human psychology. We are status seeking and are happier when our status is high, but we have natural coping mechanisms to deal with a low-but-secure social status. Insecurity of status is highly anxiety inducing. That's where that insufferable, over-zealous tail wagging comes from. It's also why you notice it especially when people are on holiday. They're not present to monitor and defend their status. That status really is insecure. They could really lose it over a vacation.

perfunctory 6y ago

The core idea of the article can be found in a paragraph somewhere in the middle of the piece > What all of these explanations have in common is the idea that the answer comes from examining workers' decisions and incentives. There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want, and even if they have the means to achieve it. In other words, the long hours may be neither the product of what we really want nor the oppression of workers by the ruling class, the old Marxist theory. They may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone within them. Now. I strongly believe that software / IT industry is one of those make-work projects.

Super_Jambo 6y ago
This is the logic of economics based on infinite growth and advertising which accounts for a great deal of modern 'IT'. Companies hacking the human brains availability heuristic need to out-advertise their peers. So they're all stuck on an arms race treadmill. They can only pause if a competitor falls by the wayside, but of course soon will come another... For growth the advertising companies must find ever better ways to capture attention and harvest eyeballs. It doesn't matter if the users find their services frustrating or depressing just so long as they're compelled to keep _looking_ at them. The internet revolution should've made product discovery cheaper than ever, instead it now costs more than at any time in history, it's in-fucking-sane. We should just be paying for services including a product discovery service.
2sk21 6y ago
I agree - I have seen a lot of make-work in my previous job at a big company. Every push to production required a couple dozen signoffs and simply collecting those could often represent a couple days of exhausting and meaningless work.
dfxm12 6y ago
In America, too many benefits are tied to full time employment. The biggest one is health insurance. This creates a huge imbalance of power between employer and employee. The absolute worst time to lose (affordable) health insurance is when you become unemployed. It makes no sense! This doesn't even go into people or families with chronic illness. In this way, in order to maintain these benefits, Americans must do what they feel whatever it takes to keep their jobs. That's the number 1 incentive. This is not the product of an institution that has taken on a life of its own. Universal healthcare as a majority of support among Americans (as long as you don't attach Obama's name to it, anyway), but neither party (especially not Republicans) have shown an interest in delivering this to its constituents.

keiferski 6y ago

The whole ‘we should work less’ meme strikes me as more about the meaninglessness of modern work, moreso than our desire to have more leisure time. In other words: people want more meaningful work, not merely to have less meaningless work. Maybe this is an American-centric idea, wherein your work is strongly tied to your purpose and identity, but I don’t see how you can simply brush away an activity that takes up 1/3 of your time. The example in the article (Amazon packing plants) is perhaps the most pointless Kafkasque job one can imagine: packing boxes of mostly unnecessary consumeristic products. Speaking only personally, but I want to be working so much that I have little leisure time, but only because the work I’m doing is fulfilling and fundamentally important. I have no desire to have more leisure time to consume content (which is what most people do: look up the hours spent watching TV/video per person, or social media usage), as I don’t think consumption activities are ultimately fulfilling.

perfunctory 6y ago
The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part. -- Bertrand Russell, 1932 http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- keiferski 6y ago
  People have a lot of leisure time today, so much so that Americans, on average, watch about 4 hours of television/video per day. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption I really don’t think working a 40-hour a week job is the hold up here.
  - ianleeclark 6y ago
    > People have a lot of leisure time today, so much so that Americans, on average, watch about 4 hours of television/video per day. You have a fundamentally different view of leisure time than what Bertrand Russel is talking about. In his view, leisure is something in which one has to be actively engaged in. Modern television, however, outsources much of this: laugh tracks are a prime example, but another example would be the BBC's Sherlock series which doesn't make it possible for the viewer to figure out "who done it", it only has Sherlock swoop in and connect dots that were never shown.

CalRobert 6y ago

It's a little disappointing they don't address the idea of peer competition. We live in a time of insane material wealth, so we create artificial scarcities of necessities to ensure peers compete with each other. The article does mention the substantial rises in productivity we've had, but this: "There’s something missing: the question of whether the American system, by its nature, resists the possibility of too much leisure, even if that’s what people actually want" merited far more exploration. There's a horrible positive feedback loop going on. Say 10 people want a home in an area that has, oh, 8 homes. If somebody chooses to work long hours, read emails on weekends, etc. they have a better shot at getting promotions and being able to outbid their peers for those homes. If someone doesn't do this, they have a better chance at falling in to the 2 people who can't afford a home. So the workaholics work and work and work, get the raise, and buy a home with a big mortgage attached. Maybe a $1.5 million dump in San Jose. Now they're a highly-leveraged housing speculator who desperately can't afford for house prices go down. And the leverage they used to buy the house is secured with the threat of homelessness and personal ruin. So they oppose any and all new building ferociously and cruelly. Scarcity is the only reason their house even has value! Similarly, _they_ had to work nights and weekends, so why shouldn't other people? As they rise up the ladder this is what they select for. So we have house prices ratcheting upwards, people working themselves to the bone to get in to the club of "homeowners" (a dubious word when you owe 90% of the home's value to the bank), and a strong incentive to make sure it keeps going that way. It's true that presenteeism and wasted time at work are an issue, but ultimately there is a point where more time working means producing more (say 20 hours vs 10), and in a sector where results are hard to quantify people go for the easy thing to measure - hours where you butt was in the seat. I mean, houses are pretty cheap to build. Habitat for Humanity does it for $50k. Imagine if you could work part time and build your own home? It would threaten people whose power comes from housing scarcity! Why, what if it turns out there's no inherent reason their house should cost 25 times the median income? Can't be having that! Better make it illegal to build homes (or demolish existing low-density ones) anywhere near a job. The only homes that get built near high paying jobs now are over the wailing shrieks of existing rent-seekers (aka homeowners). The person who owns a home in Berkeley can vote, because they live in the area, but the person who would _like_ to live in Berkeley but commutes from Stockton has no voice. I'm hopeful that remote work will finally destroy their power, though with a decrease in tech incomes as well.

abellerose 6y ago

I assume working less while still making the same annually would lower suicide rate. One of the main reasons people commit suicide is financial problems. Added free time is never unwanted and can be substituted for whatever the person desires. I personally think we’re burning out the younger generation with all the optimizations that have came with technology but at the same time continuing to expect more from people. I think we’re missing out on what benefits come to society when people are less overworked.

bluetomcat 6y ago

In service sectors of the economy, work can be created out of thin air, without any proportional returns in the form of increased well-being of society. For example, you may spend days improving every little detail of that customer email template, for marginal or no returns over the previous template.

2sk21 6y ago

And there is also this related article that was discussed a lot here on HN last year: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-w...

TrackerFF 6y ago

As an European working with lots of American contractors in the tech field, I'm always impressed by their work ethics. The put in 10-12 hours, 6 days a week. But from talking with them, it seems like their focus is on retirement - hopefully in their 50's. That's their grand plan, because that's when they'll start "living". It's a bit of a contrast to us Scandinavians - as we really like to live in the present. No pie in the sky dreams. Which is also why we guard our working rights and work-life balance like a national treasure.

marcodave 6y ago
which then begs the question: if you spent your whole life working more, and focusing on getting more money, assuming that you can retire in your 50s, can you REALLY stop working? or will you depress yourself because there's nothing else to do? retiring early seems great on paper, but at what cost?
- TrackerFF 6y ago
  Yes, it depends on work and what type you are. I've talked with lots of older colleagues that dread retirement, mostly because they enjoy work and they also enjoy the people they work with. Some people will do just fine with their hobbies and projects, others will have a hard time adapting - many even coming out of retirement, due to boredom. Really depends on the individual. One thing I've heard a lot, from older colleagues, is that people tend to become mentally dull once they go into retirement - at least on the skills they used daily at work. You need to be pretty disciplined and motivated to maintain your skills at a professional level, once there's no hurry or pressure to deliver anything. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years - before you know it, you've spent a couple of years of your retirement just chilling around.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  also, can you really stop working in your 50s when the health problems come and you realize you now need your employer for the health insurance?
  - 6y ago

wsc981 6y ago

Recently I came across this video "The design for easy life": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2eoQyYoUww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2eoQyYoUww I live in Thailand and am very interested in working less for other people and more for myself. At first I though I'd need to invest maybe 500.000 USD and then perhaps I should be able to live on investments. But this video changed my mind, perhaps I should be able to get by with a lot less. This Thai farmer claims to work about 1 hour a day and that 1 hour of daily work generates for him around 50 USD. More than enough to take care of his family. Another interesting video from this farmer on "Sufficiency": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwh5N0JRhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwh5N0JRhk

robbiejs 6y ago
I love that man. Brilliant mind. I have lived a Digital Nomad lifestyle for 2 years and when I was in homestays on the countryside, I always felt relaxed and blessed. Just some chickens roaming around, some fruit you could pick. Simple life. Big polluted cities like Bangkok and Penang drove me nuts. One owner of one of those simple homestay farms quit his farming activities and became a taxi driver, on Lombok (Indonesia). Lombok just got a brand-new airport and they expect more tourists coming in from Bali eventually. The man became a taxi driver to make more money for "a better life". I get it. Everybody wants a shot to live "the dream" and you gotta start somewhere, but --> you don't know what you have til it's gone.

htatche 6y ago

I just refused a full-time offer because of this. Instead, I prefer to work few hours a day for my current contract and hope that things get better post-covid. Still, if anyone is looking for a Ruby contractor to give a hand in some project, reach out :)

mac01021 6y ago
Are you a freelancer? In a couple of years I would like to start gradually scaling down the number of hours I work. But right now I am a salaried employee and I have no freelance experience, so I'm not sure whether that is the right avenue for me. Any thoughts are appreciated.
- htatche 6y ago
  My single advice would be to find a client (or clients) beforehand and start doing work for them before you drop your job.

geertj 6y ago

The article starts with the assumption that the total amount of work in an economy is fixed and that the extra hours we make are make-work. I beg to differ. At least in high tech, we can improve a product or service as many times as we want. Each of these improvements can be from relatively minor to requiring years of research. The total work per year is how fast we move through these improvements. The free market forces this to be higher every year due to competition.

k__ 6y ago

I'm from Germany and none of my friends work full-time anymore. 50% - 80% is the norm.

stevenwoo 6y ago
What is your approximate age group for your friends and are all your friends in the same industry? Just curious about what things are like.
- k__ 6y ago
  30-40 All different industries. Healthcare, IT, agriculture, retail, magazines and books.

737min 6y ago

Here’s an observation: employees, companies & countries that are winning tend to work harder. Those that are merely coasting or declining - eg in a situation where there is nothing to win with more effort - work less hard. Elon Musk - “no one changes the world working 40 hr weeks” - is trying to win in a global competition. Your uncle Bob who is Director of QA at Oracle? Probably not playing to win. Countries like Japan or SKorea or China are trying to win. US is trying to win. Denmark or Italy are no longer trying to win a world-wide competition. No one has shown that individuals, companies or countries can wim while working less than the competition.

52-6F-62 6y ago
Win what exactly?
- malcolmxtucker 6y ago
  Win a turn at wielding the whip, of course.
oblio 6y ago
Besides the "win what?" question from the other commenter, how long has, say, Germany been ahead of China? Probably 150 years, now? When I say "ahead", I mean per capita, a huge national GDP doesn't really help me much as an individual. And I doubt the average German works more than the average Chinese.
dfxm12 6y ago
Working harder doesn't equate to working more.
Mvandenbergh 6y ago
I get what you mean about trying to win on the level of people and even companies. Winning or being in the game to win is motivating and when you see an excellent payoff curve where each hour is delivering value, working longer does not feel so bad. When you use this logic for larger entities though, it falls down. Very few countries are in that kind of rapid growth mode for long as an entire country. Indeed, you've grouped some wildly different countries together there. South Korea and Japan had periods of extremely rapid and impressive growth where it really did make sense to say that the entire country had organised themselves and sacrificed in order to win. Their goal was to grow their children's standard of living and they succeeded. Is aging, inward looking Japan on 2020 still playing to win? Or have they won enough to enjoy the fruits of that victory? China is a country that is still on the rise. Is "the US" trying to win at a national level? I don't think so. I think that parts of the country are full of people who are trying to win but on a national level? I think the best we can hope for is that the humiliatingly inept set of responses over the last six months are a galvanising moment for Americans on the order of Meji era Japan. I also think that you've given Uncle Bob quite a good job for someone who's not too bothered about winning. Oracle might have a reputation as not such a great place to work, but I rather suspect that making it to their director of QA takes quite a lot of winning along the way! If you want a tech example of not fussed about winning, maybe someone doing SAP implementation or running internal business logic as a 9-5 is a better example. Also it's a bit odd comparing Italy and Denmark since I'd be hard pressed to come up with two countries that are so different! Denmark's labour productivity is the highest in the EU after Ireland and Luxembourg, both of which have distorted figures because of financial concentration of assets there by American tech companies. Italy's is not much more than half that of Denmark.

pixelrevision 6y ago

This has always bothered me. In the US there is no way I have seen beyond running your own business to negotiate the time spent working. When I started in the work force I thought taking a smaller salary for 4 day work week would be a reasonable tradeoff but everyone thought I was nuts. I have tried over the years asking for more vacation or shorter weeks for a pay cut but workplaces are just not equipped to handle those sorts of requests. The system here does not value free time in the same way it does money.

perfunctory 6y ago
I good reason to start your own business I guess. Did you consider freelancing?
nybble41 6y ago
There are exceptions. For example my current employer, a decent-size public company, allows employees to purchase up to one week of extra vacation time each year. (Straight time—equivalent to unpaid time off, but with the cost spread out over the year in the form of reduced pre-tax salary and no change in other benefits.) I've known several coworkers who did the 4-day-week thing for months at a time rather than taking long vacations. They are also open to negotiating shorter hours or alternative schedules.

sharker8 6y ago

Well this didn't age well. We have now used the pandemic to force work into our homes, if anyone was even pretending it didn't follow them before all of this. That is of course only true for those who can still find work. Of course, the dynamic of job scarcity creates an even worse version of stockholm syndrome for those 'lucky' enough to continue to draw paychecks.

Taylor_OD 6y ago

I'd love to work 4 days a week. It just doesnt seem like it's possible. But having Wednesday's off and being able to actually take a week or more of vacation a few times a year as a manager would make my life so much better.

MisterBastahrd 6y ago

If you are on salary and you are putting in more than 40 hours a week, you are working to buy your boss his vacation home, not your own.

tslling 6y ago

In China, "996"(9am-9pm, 6 days a week)[0] is popular in tech companies, now more and more compnanies are adopting this work schedule, so employees have much fewer choices if they want a "normal" schedule. The administration did not enforece labour laws well in order to pursue economic interests. What makes it worse is that, as this work schedule becomes a trending, some companies and employees take it as granted. [0]https://996.icu/#/en_US https://996.icu/#/en_US

alexashka 6y ago

I don't think it's a quantity problem, it's an existential problem. Why are we doing what we're doing? When the best answer anyone can come up with is 'so that my kids get to have a good life', it's not enough. It's average people living in a system that's designed to make them replaceable and eventually get rid of needing them completely. Not get rid of them so that they can enjoy the human achievement of no longer needing to work, no, get rid of them so that somebody rich can then hire you as a wage slave to do whatever pleases them that day. I wonder if this is just inevitable - it would explain the existence of the pyramids - why else would anyone build them, but because there were so many idle hands and a few bored ego-maniacs? Unless of course, aliens :)

markus_zhang 6y ago

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of retiring early and then travel the world is really strange to me. I'd rather spend my life seeking and working on the next ideal job, and the only time that I'll skip it is when I believe it's impossible to get the ideal job. For now, if you give me a BI/DE job I'd be happily to work at least 60 hours and keep improving my shits. In short, I'd rather die working. But again I'm not against FIRE, because most of the time people don't get to do their ideal job (or even the top 5 ideal jobs), and in their shoes I'd rather just grab enough $$ and retire early. The point is, sadly, in modern society, many people are not really getting the chance to contribute to the society in a way both he/she and the society are satisfied with. This is very sad. The idea of Communism, at least part of it, is to make sure that each person out there gets the chance to fulfill their dreams and do their best, and this is really attracting.

yelloweyes 6y ago

Lmfao. How naive can people be? Do you honestly think capitalists don't know that when people have free time they start thinking about life, and when people start thinking about life, bad shit happens to capitalists?

kyuudou 6y ago
I was trying to find a rational and intellectual way of explaining this very stark reality that I've consistently run across but... for now I'll just upvote this.

LatteLazy 6y ago

If you look at the employment rate, you will see that only about 65% of working age people have a job. Any job. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate Add in the huge number of OAPs and most developed nations have sub 50% of people working. A lot of the issues we have (from stress and mental health to inequality to the rise of extremism) can be linked to the fact that we have fewer and fewer people working harder and harder supporting more and more others. We either need to find some ways to reverse this trend OR we need to embrace it. But if we are embracing it, we need to deal with the consequences (everything from access to healthcare to burnout to how we decide who has to work and how we compensate\reward them for doing so). Right now, this is a massive social change that goes basically ignored. Whether people like Yang and Musk are right about automation and the rise of AI or not, change is upon us and we cannot keep ignoring it.