10 ms·

It absolutely blows my mind that 99% of office roles are still 3 days / week, Monday to Wednesday - why is there basically no variation on this model?

ashtonkem 6y ago
Sarcasm aside, there actually is a metric we can use as a society to decide these things. If we track productivity gains since the 40 hour work week was established in law, we can determine how many few hours we can work without lowering our standard of living. The magic number appears to be about 12-15 a week. Or, we can track how many hours people actually spend working. Most office workers will (anonymously) self report that they work roughly 3.5 hours a (edit) day; the rest is spent doing non-productive things. Assuming a five day week filled with only work, that gives us about 17.5 hours a week.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zajio1am 6y ago
  > we can determine how many few hours we can work without lowering our standard of living. ... relative to day, when 40 hour week was established. Which was pretty low standard of living compared to what people are used today.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Sure. But personally I’d be pretty happy to trade all the improvements in our living standard for an extra 20 hours a week of my life back. What’s a smart phone compared to the most precious thing we have, time? I’d also assert that a lot of pointless work is getting done. If workers are self-reporting that they work ~3.5hrs a day, then perhaps we wouldn’t even need to give up any quality of life if we just eliminate the need to fake being busy for 40hrs a week.
Viliam1234 6y ago
When it gets to 3 days / week, it will be easy to introduce variation: have people work in shifts. First three days -- shift A; second three days -- shift B; one free day for all together. You want more time together? Synchronize with your family members to work the same shift, and you get four free days together.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Sarcasm aside, there actually is a metric we can use as a society to decide these things. If we track productivity gains since the 40 hour work week was established in law, we can determine how many few hours we can work without lowering our standard of living. The magic number appears to be about 12-15 a week. Or, we can track how many hours people actually spend working. Most office workers will (anonymously) self report that they work roughly 3.5 hours a (edit) day; the rest is spent doing non-productive things. Assuming a five day week filled with only work, that gives us about 17.5 hours a week.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zajio1am 6y ago
> we can determine how many few hours we can work without lowering our standard of living. ... relative to day, when 40 hour week was established. Which was pretty low standard of living compared to what people are used today.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Sure. But personally I’d be pretty happy to trade all the improvements in our living standard for an extra 20 hours a week of my life back. What’s a smart phone compared to the most precious thing we have, time? I’d also assert that a lot of pointless work is getting done. If workers are self-reporting that they work ~3.5hrs a day, then perhaps we wouldn’t even need to give up any quality of life if we just eliminate the need to fake being busy for 40hrs a week.

Viliam1234 6y ago

When it gets to 3 days / week, it will be easy to introduce variation: have people work in shifts. First three days -- shift A; second three days -- shift B; one free day for all together. You want more time together? Synchronize with your family members to work the same shift, and you get four free days together.