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Four-day week means 'I don't waste holidays on chores'
- thrower123 6y agoIt is frustrating as fuck when you can't get into a bank, or a post office, or whatever else, because your work hours align with their work hours. Who wants to take a day off for that bullshit because otherwise it is impossible?
- dharmab 6y agoSo many of our systems are designed with the assumption that there is one stay-at-home adult in each household who runs errands during business hours.
- acwan93 6y agoI noticed this when I started working after college. If there was a dentist, or a bank, or something that stayed open until well after business hours every day then I would go there because of the convenience. I once walked into a mall (pre-pandemic) in the middle of a weekday and all the retail stores were open...but empty. It seemed like a massive waste of resources just to keep the stores open when customers were all at work.
- hkt 6y agoEven the ones which require personal attendance. Taking time off for dentists, doctors, barbers, etc, all really quite irritating. I realised in the end a three hour "lunch" was permissible and didn't require a half day of precious holiday time booked off.
- acuozzo 6y agoThis is unfortunately true. Those same systems are also designed for early risers. Can you imagine what the uproar would be like if a government service was only offered 1AM-9AM?
- Apocryphon 6y agoThen maybe companies should experiment with having M-Th and T-F teams.
- icedchai 6y agoMost people I know would just come in late, leave early, or take a "long lunch" to get their errands done. Now that everyone is "working from home", you can basically do whatever, whenever.
- nip180 6y agoI would work 4 days for 80% pay. I would work four 10 hours days for 100% pay. I’m not sure that those solutions will provide the best business outcomes though.
- linuxhiker 6y agoMy experience is 4-10s work IF you take a break in the middle of the day. An actual break, not a lunch at your desk break.
- dx87 6y agoThat was my experience as well. I'd use my lunch break to go to the gym in our building, and eat a protien shake or something at my desk.
- rhino369 6y agoGiven the diminishing returns of hours worked in a day, I'm guessing business outcomes would be somewhat worse for 4/10 schedules, at least in fields where productivity varies. I also bet, business outcomes would be improved on a 4/8 for 80% pay system. At least some of that work output on the lost day would be shifted to the other 4 days--since work tends to expand to fit the time allowed.
- Supermancho 6y ago> Given the diminishing returns of hours worked in a day, Without a study of white collar productivity decrease from a 4/10, I cant accept the statement as a "common sense" premise. I do better remote sitting on my coutch until dinner programming away and write off fridays...because nobody notices that most of the organization becomes nonresponsive after standups at the end of the week.
- thrower123 6y ago4x10s would probably be better for the company, if you are actually doing real work that matters. Otherwise it is probably a loss.
- GordonS 6y agoI switched to a 4-day working week a few years back, taking a 20% pay cut in the process - and I haven't looked back! There has been no drop in productivity - I guess I procrastinate less, and am more focused on doing things that need done. I have an extra day for family and side projects - 1 day might not sound like much, but having that extra day off feels like my work/life balance is so much better! If anyone else has the opportunity, and can afford the pay cut of course, I highly recommend it. P.S. there was no way to negotiate less than a 20% cut; I work for a megacorp that has rigid rules and doesn't give half a crusty shit about individuals. Edit: I should have also mentioned that I'm in the UK, where under EU law, employers have to consider reasonable requests for flexible working. I should have also mentioned that I work 7.5h per day, and the only time I work overtime is when I'm travelling to a customer site (which itself is rare, obviously not happening at all now!)
- anoncow 6y agoMore details, if possible please. Is this a company that we know? Thank you for sharing.
- GordonS 6y agoYou know the name, yes. I'm using a pseudoname, but I'd still rather not say which company exactly. I can narrow it down to a handful of Indian outsourcing companies though (I'm British, working out of the UK tho), since I've talked about them all in the past. It's a megacorp (100s of thousands of employees) known for outsourcing. It calls itself a USA company (but it's not; it's mainly based in India).
- saimiam 6y agoSee Tea Ess Aitch?
- GordonS 6y agoDefinitely maybe, but I won't be drawn further, especially since I just made another comment elsewhere in this thread about how much I hate the company :D From my other post, you should easily be able to narrow it down to about 5 (which includes the horrible company you mentioned), and TBH, they are all about equally horrible.
- dharmab 6y agoMy employer has an unlimited PTO policy- you simply make the arrangements with your manager, which are almost always approved as long as your on-call/customer-facing shifts are covered. We most often use this policy to take a few hours off during a day when needed to take care of errands. It's nice to be able to schedule around doctor's offices, bank and school hours. My sister worked a 9/9s schedule at a previous job (9 hour shifts with every other Friday off) and also found it very useful.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago9/9 is common in defense and everyone either likes it or isn't complaining about it. In my experience most white collar businesses do a "wink and nod" sort of arrangement for the sorts of things where you need to be in late or out early so that you don't burn sick time on them. IMO the real benefit of PTO is that you can do things like take the mondays/fridays surrounding holiday weekends off without worrying about whether or not you will have the requisite hours to take a week of vacation in summer and around the holidays.
- dharmab 6y agoOh, we also have a _mandatory_ week off in summer and winter. (Those that need to keep the lights on take a different week off.)
- gingerlime 6y agoWe’re switching to 4 days in 2021, with no pay cuts[0]. AMA :) [0] https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/how-we-switched-to-4-day-weeks/ https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/how-we-switched-to-4-day-we...
- Ryckes 6y agoDo you find the salaries competitive within your location? What's the policy on remote work?
- gingerlime 6y agoWe’re 100% remote already :) In terms of salaries they’re not too bad, but not amazing. We’re not a “real” startup or a tech company though. We hope to bump salaries as well next year...
- bumby 6y agoSo I’m curious if you’ve built clear criteria for walking this back if it doesn’t work out? At my last employer, productivity was suffering and schedules were slipping on a 9/80 schedule. When management tried going back to 5 day work weeks, there was a near mutiny. Leadership eventually caved. I suspect the leadership is a core part of making this work. E.g., communicating clear expectations, holding people accountable etc.
- Apocryphon 6y agoDid you work for Treehouse? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17803163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17803163
- bumby 6y agoI did not. It was a mix of public and private employees which creates additional dynamics
- 6y ago
- dx87 6y agoI used to do 4/10 hour days a week, and like it much better than 8/5. Between the commute, meal prep, grooming/getting dressed, etc., it feels like the day is gone anyway because I didn't feel like doing anything resembling work when I got home. 4/10 felt like getting a free day off. The only downside was when some sort of mandatory meeting would get scheduled for your off day, and you ended up having to do the whole morning routine and commute just to come in for an hour.
- the_af 6y agoWhat did the company get for the 10 hour work day, except feeling they somehow made you "pay" for your day off? I really doubt a 10 hour work day is more productive than an 8 hour day for most people. You're tired by the end of the day anyway.
- jcims 6y agoI did it many moons ago (in the US even!). My role was largely operational at the time so it was pretty much just close more tickets. I kept telling myself that I worked ten hour days anyway so this was just one extra day off, but it really was more tiring. I still liked it.
- rablackburn 6y agoI'm trying to set this up at my current job and my expectation is that those extras hours get to be 'focus time'. As I become a more senior developer and have to take on more managerial responsibilities my time to actually get my own work down is disappearing. I started working ~1.5hrs early in the morning just so I could get my coffee/hackernews routine out of the way and really get my head in to the work, then by the time stand-ups and meetings start I'm ready for a break and helping my team. Do an extra 30min at the end of the day wrapping things up and there's your extra two hours being used productively. I'm actually already working this schedule (5 days/week) due to lack of senior staff at the company, I just want to formalise it and get Mondays off... If I was purely coding my own tasks all day I would probably not get as much use out of the extra time, but my work is varied enough now that it's not an issue.
- hprotagonist 6y agoI moved to a 4-day week at the beginning of the pandemic due to a salary reduction. it was so good for my productivity and mental health that when we returned to full pay i negotiated to continue the pattern but switch from 4/8 to 4/10. No objections.
- beat 6y agoIn practice, are the last 8 hours of a workweek as productive as the first 8 hours? Would employers actually be losing 20% of a worker's productivity in many cases? Or would it be more like 10%? Maybe even less, if productivity improves on the four working days?
- gingerlime 6y agoHard to generalize of course, but my gut feeling (based on my company’s experiment for 13 weeks) is that it’s less than 10%. Potentially increasing longer-term productivity. Emphasis on long-term because it might seem like a drop in the short term. Longer term job satisfaction and general well being can increase, focus and just being able to recharge more effectively. Yes, completely anecdotal. FWIW My company since decided to switch to 4-days all year in 2021.
- dhagz 6y agoFor myself, I find I'm more productive in the last half of the week. But my employer (and team) tend to front-load the week with meetings, so by Wednesday my schedule is clear enough to be heads-down and get stuff done.
- rightbyte 6y agoI guess the impact is quite small since deadlocks (meetings, approvals, other peoples' code etc) you need to wait out is much of the work hours anyway.
- throwaway201103 6y agoFor me, when working in-office, Friday was the least productive day, followed by Monday. Friday you are less inclined to start anything big because you've got the weekend coming up. Monday you are getting back into the flow. My WFH has been weird because I'm basically unsupervised. I've found that my work productivity has fallen off a cliff.
- beat 6y agoI've actually been more productive since full-time wfh. Fewer interruptions and less micromanagement.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- uncledave 6y agoI’d rather have five shorter days personally. The last couple of hours of each day is usually a mental write off for me.
- dry_soup 6y agoI have to agree. I'm on vacation right now and I've been spending several full days cleaning my house and upgrading my home workspace.
- netcraft 6y agoback in the mid-2000's we had a very hot summer and the company I worked for allowed us to switch to 4x10s for the summer. Gas prices were very high at the time too so that was the main benefit from the company point of view. But we had to take either monday or friday off and we had to work together with our teams to make sure we weren't all off on the same day. It was great! 3 day weekend every week, the ability to do chores and errands that are much easier to do on a weekday than a weekend, and cutting out a 1/5 of the commute made a big difference in both sanity and money. But the best part about the whole thing was that because there were some people out on mondays and fridays all meetings were scheduled on tuesday, wednesday, thursday - and you knew that if you had fridays off then your monday was free and clear to get actual work done. It made a huge difference to productivity and morale. I have tried to convince every company ive worked for since to do it and none have, but I will keep trying.
- vincentmarle 6y ago> you knew that if you had fridays off then your monday was free and clear to get actual work done I don't understand the rationale behind this, doesn't your Thursday then become your "Friday"? What is it about Friday that makes Monday harder?
- Nullabillity 6y agoOther people would be out on mondays, so meetings that needed "everyone" would have to be scheduled on other days, leaving everyone free to concentrate on mondays (or fridays).
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- caturopath 6y agoWith respect to the headline / first section: I feel like most office jobs are fairly accommodating about flexible time for chores these days. I work a 5-day week, but I don't think I've ever used vacation days to go to the DMV or the dentist either (~15 years as a white-collar worker in various parts of the US, multiple industries and levels).
- MattGaiser 6y agoI have never worked for an employer that didn't let you casually pop out to handle these things, provided you don't miss a previously scheduled meeting. At my current company, we are explicitly allowed to schedule work hours off for these.
- hogFeast 6y agoI worked at a job where I was paid an annual salary and they made me make up hours when I had to take a relative to the hospital (I also lost that job for, I suspect, this reason in part...I have learned that sick parents and sick children obtain different levels of sympathy). It does happen. It was as stereotypical as you can imagine: small business, wasted inordinate amount of time and resources doing pointless things, insane processes, run by a husband and wife who were largely intolerable (the highlight was hearing the wife tell me that she didn't let her daughter participate in sports at school either because she thought it would turn her into a homosexual or was a plot by homosexuals to groom her), one of my co-workers started the day two hours early and finished at the same time...I have no idea why, and (ofc) the people who ran the business disappeared frequently (for some reason, the husband went somewhere every Friday afternoon...it wasn't work-related, and he repeatedly brought up the fact that he was allowed to do this unprompted...no-one could work out where he went)... ...there are real places like this.
- asdff 6y agoIf you work shift work not getting time off is typical. A lot of people can scarcely afford to take a day off without pay to go vote or stand in line at the DMV. Working people are pushed to the limit in this country.
- 6y ago
- coenhyde 6y agoEven though we have many luxuries, modern life does require a lot of admin. Most of which needs be be conducted during business hours. I recently took a two week vacation and spent half of it catching up on BS life admin that I had neglected over the last 6 months / year due to a hectic work schedule. I'd imagine many of us are not wealthy enough to afford a personal assistant but live complex enough lives to warrant it. Modern life kind of requires a 4 day work week, if you are salaried slave.
- Swizec 6y agoYou’d be surprised how affordable and effective a virtual personal assistant can be. Mine handles almost all of my life admin stuff and it’s the best $500/mo I spend.
- mLuby 6y agoIs it always the same person? How do you build up the trust to let them mess with your bills/tickets/money?
- coenhyde 6y agoyeah this is one of my concerns with virtual assistants. Do you trust them with your identity and privileged information? eg SSN, CC's, passwords etc
- jonfromsf 6y agoThis was a major plot point in the movie "Where'd you go, Bernadette". Wife of a Microsoft executive hands over all the family information to a virtual assistant that is actually a Russian identity fraudster.
- Swizec 6y agoIt’s been the same person for almost 5 years. Trust was built over time. She doesn’t have direct access to my money, only credit cards. Those are easy to cancel or chargeback if things go screwy. She does know my SSN which is a bigger concern, but then again you give your SSN to all sorts of people and services in USA, it’s very not actually a secret. Oh and she doesn’t know passwords to anything. LastPass sharing only.
- vmception 6y agoI essentially used to do this years ago because I liked trading butterflies on weekly options that expired on Friday. Fun game, I can't believe commissions are free now!
- hkt 6y agoActual butterflies? I know it is off topic, but please explain this comment a little. I'm fascinated as to why anyone would trade butterflies, nice as they are.
- jamie_ca 6y agoI think day-trading stocks. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/butterflyspread.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/butterflyspread.asp
- vmception 6y agoButterfly spreads. A 4-part derivates trade. I would say it is purely entertainment because as a saying goes, "if your options trading strategy involves the name of animals, just walk away"
- hkt 6y agoI'm a little disappointed that it wasn't actual butterflies, but this makes considerably more sense. Thanks for explaining.
- adamzapasnik 6y agoI had to move to 4days week due to covid. Must say that, unexpectedly, it was very good experience. It felt almost like 50/50 work/free days. I was more focused at work. I was more productive. Although, honestly, I don't think I was able to deliver same output as 5days week. The way I see it, you have only a few hours per day where your output is at the highest level. When you cut off 1 day you also decrease that hours. You can't just squeeze them into other days, because it doesn't work like that. I actually learnt two lessons: 4 days a week is something I'm looking forward when I have a profitable side project. 5 days x 6 hours imo is better than 5 x 8 hours, better to be less tired and maximize next day's most productive hours than to be tired and burn out eventually
- jcims 6y agoMy eldest just started her career in nursing. They do three 12 hour shifts a week. She's exhausted at the end of the day, but she's loving having four days off each week.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago"Baylor shifts". I know they do that in nursing, but I worry about error rates. Is an exhausted nurse really as error-free as a rested one? On the other hand, longer shifts mean fewer handoffs, and there can be errors there as well...
- jcims 6y agoI spent 2-3 months in the hospital over the course of 2 years with a family member. Shift changes were always stressful...lots of commotion, doing the introductions, getting the entering staff up to speed, making sure that issues/incidents during the previous shift were communicated, etc. etc. I personally think 12 hours is the sweet spot as long as there aren't too many in a row. Even if the error rates are slightly higher, I personally would not be surprised to see better patient outcomes overall than with shorter shifts.
- KineticLensman 6y agoI switched to a three day week (and then worked for two years on this basis before retiring). Overall it was successful and I was glad that I did it. My work-life balance was great and the pay cut was expected and manageable. I usually worked Mondays to Wednesdays so that I could get two contiguous days (Thursdays and Fridays) when children would be at school (so that I could go on child-free visits). Monday mornings were just as bad as they had always been, but Wednesdays were suddenly Fridays! One thing that convinced me that the company would tolerate it was that women returning from maternity leave often worked a three day week, so there was good precedent from a management perspective. And my female colleagues also persuaded me that it was doable. The biggest challenge I found was having to work on projects that had frequent and unpredictable interactions with customers / stakeholders. I didn't mind occasionally swapping my days around to accommodate interactions, but there was one project that I would have enjoyed in terms of the work, but which I stepped back from because its timings were so unpredictable. This was probably the main problem with non-standard hours.
- beefield 6y agoIn countries with relatively high progressivity in taxes the equation becomes even more attractive. You lose 20% of your pre-tax salary, but you lose much less on your post-tax salary. In europe the marginal tax can easily be close to (or even over) 50% so in practice you work 20% less hours and lose 10% of your post tax salary. The thing that amazes me is why people do not push for this more.
- GordonS 6y agoI'd think inertia keeps a lot of people staying with how they've always worked and what they know, and what all/almost all of their colleagues do; they've never even considered it, or even know it might be an option. And of course, it must be recognised that purely for financial reasons it's not going to work for everyone.
- derwiki 6y agoOne reason folks may not push for it is that they worry their career progress will stall if they opt for reduced hours. Whether that’s actually true or not, I’m not sure, but I’ve first hand seen the perception influence someone’s decision.
- IkmoIkmo 6y agoDefinitely get the sense that's true for me. Although at the same time I see a lot of people in mid-level management / senior positions, making quite good money, and working parttime. But I guess you have to get there first. I also feel it'd be looked down upon when I (30) would do it. If I was say 53, or say I had kids, it'd be much more normal. But if you're taking time off without kids at 30, you're really kind of signalling you value leisure more than work and more than money. That's a very normal thing of course, but for a corporate environment looking to execute on a long list of deliverables, they'll not be keen to put their trust in such a person to drive that process.
- IkmoIkmo 6y ago> 50% so in practice you work 20% less hours and lose 10% of your post tax salary That's not how the math would work out. Suppose you make $100k in 5 days gross and pay 40k tax, keep 60k net. Suppose you drop to 80k gross, and suppose that the 20k you lost would otherwise have been taxed by 50%. That means you'd drop to 50k net, from 60k. That's a 16% drop, not a 10% drop. But agreed, your argument still holds on principle, due to the tax rate the drop in net income will be smaller than the drop in time, which is a great argument! However, there are other perspectives you can take as well. One is favorable for your argument, e.g. the drop in net salary (16%) comes at an increase of 50% of your weekend (from 2 to 3 days). But also unfavorable, for example, perhaps your 'fixed' living expenses (e.g. rent, insurance, basic food selection etc) comes out at 30k net a year. Dropping from 60k to 50k, means your disposable income for recreational expenses (or deferred recreational expenses, through savings) drops from 30k to 20k, or 33%. That's the downside of the whole story I haven't seen anyone mention in this thread yet. Particularly at lower salaries, fixed expenses can swallow up almost the entire paycheck leaving very little for savings, trips overseas to explore the world, fun things like hobbies, gaming etc. A lot of people spend 70-90% of their paycheck on rent, healthcare insurance etc and have 10% left over, taking off 1 day a week can really cut into that disposable income much more than 16% or 20%.
- hkt 6y agoJoining a company with unlimited holiday soon (in the UK). My first action after the probationary period will be to book every friday off for the following year. Plus, other regular holidays. Wish me luck.
- PunchTornado 6y agoI work at the company with unlimited holiday in the Uk and you can't really take every Friday off the whole year + other holidays. Unlimited holidays means that on top of the 30 days that most companies provide, you get 5-10 extra. At most I took 43 days in a year.
- hkt 6y agoOnly thing in my contract it says is that I have to ask to book two consecutive weeks off. I'll naturally be seeking clarification on the matter :D
- SMAAART 6y agoIt's a matter or being organized & productive or otherwise.
- simonw 6y agoI had a 4-day working week at one job, and one of the highlights was that it was flexible enough that I could move my "day off" around - which meant I could have a 4-day weekend pretty much any time I wanted. That same job had a two hour commute, but the 4-day thing meant it worked out fine. A two hour commute 5-days a week would have been miserable.
- deleted_account 6y agoThese four day work week anecdotes are great. The pandemic may just kick off a renaissance for alternative work schedules. But these conversations seem to be stirring up the reality that so much of compensation calculation and productivity measurement is really, really arbitrary. It still seems to come down to circumstance and whatever an employee manages to negotiate with their employer. "I'll take a 20% pay cut to work 4 days a week!" could just as easily be met with "No, our investors won't be happy with a longer roadmap."
- cebert 6y agoMy first job out of college in 2008 was with Lockheed Martin, which supported flexible work schedules. You could work the traditional 40 hour week M-F, 9 hour days with every other Friday off (9-10), or four 10 hour days with every Friday off. Most people enjoyed the flexible schedules. Since Friday was the one day in flux, everyone knew to avoid scheduling important meetings on Friday. Being young and naive, I assumed most tech employers offered flexible schedules. I now know that this is regrettably not the case. I hope more employers will embrace this in the future. The costs to the firm are negligible, but flexible schedules can be a huge benefit to employees.
- dbish 6y agoI worked at lockheed for my first job as well. I found the flexible schedules to be great but less productive so I understand why others don't support it. Most of the engineers I worked with seemed to not be great at staying productive on 9 or 10 hour days any more then they were at 8 so I'd call it a net loss for the company. Honestly though there is so much bloat at defense contractors it doesn't really matter for them.
- adamsea 6y agoThe irony is many companies would benefit from this in terms of productivity, employee retention, morale, etc — but the culture is such that it’s a heavy lift at this moment to do this.
- GordonS 6y agoThis is a really good point actually. In my particular case, I loathe the company I work for; I get to work on and lead interesting projects and work with good teams and customers, yes - but the system behind it all is absolutely rotten to the core, laden with bureaucracy, brimming with ludicrously rigid rules, and filled with daily demands to comply with this or that, making life difficult for developers in particular, and never, ever valuing individuals. Yep, I'm a little bitter ;) Truth is, aside from inertia, I stay with the same company for 2 reasons: I'm fully remote (or near enough), and have a 4-day week with 7.5h days.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoMay I ask how did you get 7.5H/day? Is that standard in the UK?
- GordonS 6y agoBetween 7.5-8 is standard for office-based work. Everywhere I've worked (in Scotland) has been 7.5h, but TBH I'm not sure how prevalent it is vs 8h.
- iso1210 6y agoTypical day is 9-5 or maybe 9-5.30, with an hour for lunch, so I assume '7.5h/day' would be 9-5.30 with 1 hour lunch. Personally I'm on a '7 hour day', lunch isn't counted (they changed it a couple of years ago, some shenanegans over overtime and extra holidays or something). My actual worked hours are somewhat different, it's outcome based and self scheduling.
- taway20201230 6y agoMy mega Corp (US) employer started offering 4day weeks for 80% pay this year. But it seems to not have really gotten much traction. Just a couple of people I’ve heard a of. Not sure why? We’re busy with projects so I’m wondering if taking 4days/80% is seen as not being dedicated enough to the cause?
- loufe 6y agoI've worked a 14-day-on-14-off schedule for about 3 years now and what I've realized is that we adjust to it no matter what. I'm still productive even though they are 12 hour days. I don't think resistance to alternate work schedules is well founded unless it's in retail or in-person services for small teams.
- whateveracct 6y agoThat's the best part of remote work imo Especially if my meetings are condensed into TWTh, I can have a 3 day workweek at FT salary with proper planning & practices.
- srathi 6y agoIs the 4th off day separate for everyone, or is it Friday all the time? If everyone takes Friday off, then we end up in the same situation as before where no chores are possible on Friday. Can one pick any day from Mon-Fri as the off day.
- heikkilevanto 6y agoI used to do 4 days, with 80% salary, until I lost that job just before Covid hit. Best decision I have made. I used to hate Monday mornings, suddenly I loved Mondays, and hated Tuesdays instead. Loved the long weekends, especially that one day when all shops and offices were open. I don't think I will ever go back. This in Denmark, in a small but very international company.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoI have been working four six hour days a week for the last two years. It’s life changing. I can wake up and lay around the house in a tired stupor for an hour if I didn’t sleep well, and then start getting ready for work and leave an hour later. If I did sleep well I can go outside for a hike around the neighborhood trails or finish whatever software project I started for fun the night before. The weekends feel long. My personal project game is off the chart and I feel like I’m on the path to monetizing personal projects via YouTube. I am learning so much. I’ve started a computer vision project for my off road robot and I’m learning all the stuff required to make a self driving vehicle using only cameras, inspired by what Tesla has done and the lectures Andrej Karpathy has given on that architecture. I don’t think I can ever go back to the Silicon Valley corporate churn. I’d rather be careful with my cash than be flush with RSUs and dream of living my life. I’m 36 and I’m living my life NOW, not in some far off dream after two decades of churn. I feel bad that most people don’t get this opportunity. I really think we need to change our work norms to allow for this. What is the point of life if we spend it always working? I’ve been very productive at work. I’ve designed and built a whole solar powered farming robot vehicle (no tools, just the autonomous vehicle so far) in 18 months working 20-25 hours a week. Does one individual really need to be more productive than that? (You can if you want, but do we all NEED to?)
- notacoward 6y agoI worked 30-hour weeks (nominally) for a while several years ago. That extra time was invaluable. If we wanted to go on a weekend ski trip, for example, it meant that we could leave early to beat the after-school rush and I could be all caught up on everything around the house so my conscience was clear. It was a much bigger difference than it might seem, lifestyle-wise. The reason I nominally worked 30 hours/week might also be interesting. It was supposed to be less, but it turns out that none of the systems at work - payroll, insurance, PTO, stock vesting - were set up for a permanent salaried employee working less. I get the impression that many companies in the US are like that. You're either salaried, full time (or close to it), full benefits, or you're hourly with no benefits at all. We need to get better at supporting work arrangements other than those standardized in the early industrial era.
- markvdb 6y agoSlightly off topic: Something funny is happening in my native Belgium. Some people drop their fifth formal working day to become bicycle couriers, Uber drivers or whatnot in the "sharing economy". The reason is taxation regimes. 80% or 100% gross wage as a median income employee will hardly make any difference in net wage around there. A friend for example recently got a promotion from an entry level job (with tax discounts) to something more in line with her qualifications (without tax discounts). 600€ gross salary increase translated to 155€ net salary increase. All the rest got eaten by tax and social contributions increases. Belgium combines high formal job taxes combine with a low tax scheme meant to formalise "sharing economy" jobs. These enjoy super low 10% taxation up to 500€ per month. Many people actually do the math. They switch to 80% formal jobs hardly losing any income. Some actually increase their income by becoming pizza couriers or Uber drivers in their 20% time... UPDATED: corrected the net wage delta from 100 to 155€.
- Simon321 6y agoA gross to net calculation of a gross salary of 4000€ to 4600€ adds 250€ net in Belgium btw. 100€ is an exaggeration.
- markvdb 6y agoTriggered by your comment, I triple checked with the person in question. The difference was ~155€ net from 2000€ gross to 2600€ gross. I updated my original message accordingly.
- ptr 6y agoWow, I can’t believe there’s such a harsh and early tax, I must surely be missing something? Why would anyone care about doing a good job? In Sweden you get to keep at least 450 of those 600.
- Tarsul 6y agowow, that taxation is horrendous. And I thought German wasn't too good (compared to whatever paradise I had in mind in scandinavia, france or whatever). To clarify: i don't really mean high taxation is the problem (I'm pro high taxation). I just think someone who earns 60% of the median income shouldn't pay nearly 50% taxes [numbers not representative, those come now]. If I can trust this calculator[1] then someone who earns 24k€ in Belgium has to pay around 40% in taxes (Germany: 30%). That's really tough. And here I am sitting in Germany waiting for my opportunity to protest that the marginal tax rate is over 50% for people above the average income (income class 1, single, between 3800 to 4500€/month I'd have to pay taxes of over 50€ per 100€ raise) but if you get above a certain threshold (especially after you don't have to pay any additional taxes for healthcare) you're good... as I said, compared to what low income earners in belgium have to pay in taxes, I now see that my complaints are negligible. [1] https://www.icalculator.info/belgium.html https://www.icalculator.info/belgium.html
- riho 6y agoMany of these types of articles (and the comments discussing them) seem to focus on the increased productivity of those 4 days, without talking too much about the reason _why_ they're (perceived) as more productive, or why that time off might be beneficial in its own right. So firstly, a lot of this is incredibly subjective (so far) and somewhat difficult to measure accurately (again, so far), however based on past history of movements to decrease work days (probably most famously Ford), I'd wager to say there's a good chance that this is true now, as it was then. My personal bias would definitely lean on the side of it having a positive effect on productivity. With that said, while the jury is out on the actual productivity increases, I don't think there's any doubt about the benefit of the extra weekend day. For example, it would probably be difficult to find anyone that would find positives in Saturday being a work day again, and having to work 6 days instead of 5. Anyway, that being said... There are some subjective and anecdotal observations from my perspective that I feel are important to consider in this discussion, and to me even more important than the elusive "productivity" aspect. What I've observed is that taking time off to distance from the daily issues, especially during times of stress tends to have a positive effect on being able to solve problems effectively. The instinct while faced with a problem is to keep hammering at the problem until it is solved, and while that works for a while, over a longer period of time, or over prolonged periods of working without a break, I've usually witnessed either myself or collogues get frustrated and less engaged in their work, or making poor decisions that wouldn't otherwise be made. My intuition based on this tells me that it is important to give the brain time to rest and disconnect from a problem in order to come up with better _quality_ solutions. So my hypothesis would be that if you want better _quality_ results, it's better to give people more time to rest and disconnect. But that's just based on what I've read and observed so far. I would love to see more research into this, especially more nuanced takes on it. We need to be clear about what we mean by "productivity" in these discussions, and also realize that sheer output does not give us a full picture of this subject. _Quality_ matters just as much, if not more in some circumstances.
- ineedasername 6y agoI work somewhere that does 4-day work weeks in the Summer... I can't speak for everyone, but I quickly adjust with increased leisure time and still end up cramming in "chores" the same way as usual.
- Torwald 6y agoBasecamp pioneered that over 10 years ago. Here is an interesting rebuttal of Jason Fried on that topic: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1209-forbes-misses-the-point-of-the-4-day-work-week https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1209-forbes-misses-the-point-...
- baby-yoda 6y agoin college I interned at a consumer electronics company. there was an urban legend of this brilliance-worth-commanding-ones-own-schedule engineer who lived a couple hours away by the beach and only worked 2(!) 24 hour "shifts" per week. the rumored schedule was: - arrive Monday 4am, work 24h - rest for 24h tuesday, stay at nearby hotel - work 2nd 24h shift wednesday, crash at hotel for a couple hours Thursday morning - drive home Thursday, recouperate - friday, saturday, sunday off assuming one wasn't anchored to the usual 9-5ish type schedule of other life things (childcare, personal relationships, etc) and having the ability to physically pour ones self out to this extent, this has always stuck in my mind as the ultimate "deep work" type of schedule. enough time to focus on work challenges, time away from work to recharge, time for beyond cursory pursuit of personal interests, time to do personal admin type things requiring weekday time, etc.
- selfhoster11 6y agoI would worry about long-term neurological damage with this kind of lifestyle.
- shanecleveland 6y agoMy company always worked half days on Fridays, which was a pretty good balance. I occasionally worked in something fun or recreational, but was mostly a good time to get a chore of some kind done without interruption or taking time away from the family over the weekend. My wife works and kids would be in school until later in the afternoon. We are now off entirely on Fridays and we may stay that way. But currently that is my day to help kids with at-home schooling. It's still a blessing, but not currently useful time to get much else done. Hopefully schools can reopen here safely in the coming weeks and months. My brother works as a paramedic, and instead of the typical 24 hours on, 48 off, his station works 48 hours on and four days off. It's a sleepier town, so they are able to get in sleep as needed while on shift. He seems to end up with one to two month-long stretches of time off each year just by taking a few shifts off. There are some downsides, like working some holidays or some full weekends when others are off. But many of his co-workers have second jobs or own businesses to fill in their time. Most of us have to heavily plan to get one or two weeks off in a chunk, and are usually used for vacations away that seem to add more complexity to life. Having just that extra weekend day can help alleviate the rushed feeling of the weekend.
- elihu 6y agoI've been working a 32 hour a week schedule (in exchange for a 20% reduction in salary) for years, and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't take that option if it were available unless they really need the money, or they're highly motivated by career advancement and think working a shorter week is incompatible with that. Or they really like their job.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoI think one thing that really deserves emphasis in this conversation is that the notion of a 40 hour/5x8 work week is not something that was developed scientifically or based on any kind of evidence. It was developed by people who were working 80-100 hour/11-14x7 work weeks literally putting themselves in the line of gunfire to establish a 40 hour week. There's nothing sacrosanct about the 40 hour week or the 2 day weekend at all except the value we give it (or the value we let employers extract from it).
- gcc_programmer 6y agoI recently started a new job and it goes a bit like this: the 5 weekdays I average about 11 hours per day (office time only, no commute). My commute is about 45/50 minutes in total (2 ways). I usually spend at least 2-3 hours on each weekend day, but sometimes it can be as much as 7 hours. When I am on holiday I usually login 2-3 times for a few hours (2-3). I work definitely more than the average in my company, although not by much, and the weekend/holiday bit not many people do, although some do it. I find it that I am extremely productive the whole time: I constantly create new things and I get a lot of ground covered. It often happens it is 6pm, I have an idea, and instead of going back I push it. 2 hours go by but the idea is finallized and I know tomorrow I can start something new. I don't feel burn out, but genuinely interested in my job. I read a book every night before sleep, exercise for 30 mins after work, and spend time with my partner. I thoroughly enjoy weekends, I often work on side projects and hobbies, and I do chores with my partner, and also speak with relatives. The only reason I would ever need more time is if I have kids one day. But otherwise if I had to work 9 to 5 I would feel like shit because I will be watching netflix for like 3 hours in the evening, which is what I used to do in my first job. So constraining myself actually is great for not wasting: I am direcrly converting my time for knowledge and money, until I need to have kids. Long story short, some people find extra free time pointless unless they have something meaningful like kids to spend it on. I do believe a lot of people are not willing to work so much, but to those that want free time, I will tell you this: be honest with yourself if you are making the most of it.
- Scapeghost 6y agoIt's appalling, but not surprising, how little of the world cares about taking even ONE day off every week, let alone two, and laughable to suggest mandating three days off. In the UAE, for example, most people work 12+ hours every day, and barely get just Fridays off. Almost every one I know was working on Christmas, and they'll be working on New Year's. Vacations etc are unthinkable. They don't feel it's odd or that it's "over"working or that having more free time would be rewarding; this is dominant mentality in the the Middle East and most of Asia and Africa (and I bet in other "poor" regions like parts of South America and Eastern Europe too). Being idle in these societies is seen as a sin at best and the difference between survival and starvation in practice. Besides, even if people were forced to take 2 days off every week, they wouldn't know what to do with their time anyway (which manifests as the generally low output of creative arts from these parts), or have the disposable income to indulge in anything beyond a stroll at the mall or a meal at McDonald's (though KFC is more common round here I suppose). Holidays are a first world luxury. If everyone took them more often in every country, your Samsungs etc would be a lot more expensive.
- kome 6y agoat the same time, in UAE, the weekend is 7 days long for some people. inequality is the key to understand those societies.
- Scapeghost 6y agoAh yes, the mythical "Locals" But even among them I'm sure there's plenty bread-and-butter 9-to-5ers, just in slightly posher professions.
- webinvest 6y agoIn the USA, “every man is created equal” but outside... beliefs differ
- Scapeghost 6y agoDo you honestly think that most people in the USA believe that?
- Scapeghost 6y agoYou know what other societal paradigm shift could be really amazing but nobody seems to have brought it up yet? Working in the evening instead of daytime. Specially in hot ass countries/cities. I mean really, do most modern jobs really depend on sunlight anymore? Right now most people's daily cycle is "Rest -> Work -> Leisure -> Rest" We should give "Rest -> Leisure -> Work -> Rest" a try. Some other radical ideas: Let people alternate between 2 jobs every week. Like say being a waiter one week then a store clerk the other week. Most professions like cashiers etc could easily handle this. The benefit to workers would be the option to gain more experience/networking/mobility and a safety net of always having a backup job if you lose one.
- jmfldn 6y agoSomething that seems to be missing here is retention. By giving this sort of flexibility to employees you will improve it. This will offset losses in producitivity, assuming a 4 day week created any (which is a moot point), as people become more productive the more they know about the company / domain etc. Poor retention and high churn is a HUGE problem in most tech companies as half the people generally know very little about what they're working on.
- rrr_j 6y agoWell after reading all these discussions, I feel I am working too much! Most of the IT "service" companies in India mandate 9 or 9.5Hrs a day and there is no overtime if you work more (which is always needed to match some meetings scheduled in client's timezone). Worst some companies do not even have paid sick leaves so I hardly imagine here we will get such 4 day week option in near future.
- minusSeven 6y agoI see posts like these upvoted every so often on HN, HN is tech centric community but the rest of the world is not. 4 days work at same productivity as 5 day makes sense in tech centric community but doesn't make sense in factory work environment where more number of hours mean more work done. In factory work environment the only way to reduce number of days is to increase number of hours worked per day which might have other undesirable consequences.