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People are still going to work more efficient when they work 32 instead of 40 hours in many jobs as fatigue sets in at some point.
by legulere 5y ago
People are still going to work more efficient when they work 32 instead of 40 hours in many jobs as fatigue sets in at some point.
- kortilla 5y agoNo, there are jobs where you do rote things on demand or at particular intervals with no fatigue at 40 hours per week. Examples from my own employment experience: - front desk clerk at a hotel - fuel pump operator Both of these are pretty dull work that doesn’t exhaust you at all at the 40 hour work week. Most of the time is spent idle and the time spent working doesn’t require much going on upstairs.
- fy20 5y agoMost of these customer facing jobs will be abandoned or optimised away in the next few decades. Front desk work could be done away with mostly by electronic systems (most of the time when I "check in" it's just picking up a ready made room card as I checked in online). You could even centralise the "talking to a human" part in a call center operating a number of hotels, who delegate to staff on the premises (house keeping, maintenance, room service, etc). Of course luxury hotels will still have humans. Fuel pump operator hasn't been a job in most Western countries for decades, as you just pump fuel yourself (and often even pay at the pump). Is "EV charger operator" a job?
- SilverRed 5y agoAs far as I can see. These front desk jobs exist as theft/crime deterrent and to handle edge cases. Sure you could fully automate fuel stations but who is going to call the police when kids start spray painting the windows unless you have someone sitting at a desk watching cctv all day. And who is going to deal with customers who are trying to report something is wrong with a pump. These jobs have already been automated to the point that one person can handle a large store/hotel.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago> but who is going to call the police when kids start spray painting the windows unless you have someone sitting at a desk watching cctv all day. A neural network trained to classify spray-painting kids?
- toomanybeersies 5y agoThe deterrent effect is less because clerks are more effective than cameras at detecting crime, and more because people don't like committing crimes when there are other people nearby. Obviously that's not an absolute statement, especially considering that armed robbery is a thing. But in general humans are better crime deterrents than security cameras or robots. In a lot of cases, that's the sole reason for employing security guards, since the only thing they're actually allowed to do when they encounter crimes in progress is ring the police.
- InitialLastName 5y agoI can't wait until short window-washers start getting arrested.
- maeln 5y agoThere is a lot of 24h/24h fuel station here in France with no staff and it is working out.
- Ekaros 5y agoHere in Finland even the full-service 24h stations have automated self-service and that might even be most used option.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoI kinda feel some countries care a lot about full employment. How they can afford it is beyond me though.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
- kortilla 5y ago> Fuel pump operator hasn't been a job in most Western countries for decades, as you just pump fuel yourself Nope. See Oregon and NJ, unless you don’t these American states to be part of these “Western countries”. In general, don’t respond to examples of jobs that actually exist now with a hypothetical world where they don’t exist to state something about the current world.
- CRConrad 5y ago> > Fuel pump operator hasn't been a job in most Western countries for decades, as you just pump fuel yourself > Nope. See Oregon and NJ, unless you don’t these American states to be part of these “Western countries”. Two states out of fifty. Maybe, in general, don’t respond to examples of jobs that hardly exist any more with a tiny and dwindling part of the world where they’re still just barely hanging on and pretend that has any relevance to the world economy. (As for the US as a “Western country”... Well, sure, at least geographically.)
- namdnay 5y agoThese jobs are disappearing as part of the constant search for productivity increases. A front desk clerk will now spend their “down” time doing admin work for example
- noisy_boy 5y agoSince we are on the topic of Japan and hotel front desk, this video shows an example day of a Japanese hotel staff who does a whole bunch of multi-tasking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZsdm0RZ18k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZsdm0RZ18k
- raxxorrax 5y agoIdling at work is one of the most exhausting "occupations".
- legulere 5y agoI agree that not all jobs are like that, but the comment I was replying to was talking about retail workers, factory workers and people who fill in the holes in roads, which do suffer from fatigue.
- ddnb 5y agoI have done a job that was 80% dull work. I can guarantee you I have never been more exhausted when I came home from work. Don't ask me how it works, but doing 'nothing' can be extremely tiring. And this was a desk job.
- raxxorrax 5y agoSometime I don't get enough sleep when I start at 8am. It makes the result of work so much worse when you aren't rested. Sure, I could make sure to go to bed earlier, but life happens and honestly I don't live for work.
- hulitu 5y agoNo because they will change the number of days not of working hours.