3 ms·

> And somehow the entropy always flows up to supervisors. At 0400 (4am) Sunday morning I took over a watch from my boss. All the junior people are at home enjoy

> And somehow the entropy always flows up to supervisors. At 0400 (4am) Sunday morning I took over a watch from my boss. All the junior people are at home enjoying their flexible work schedules while the two senior people on the team end up covering the long shifts nobody else wants. This hits home for me. I briefly worked at a company that tried to allow infinite flexibility in working hours. The flexibility quickly became a tool to avoid meetings and be conveniently unavailable whenever work needed to be done. Like you said, it falls on a few people to get the work done after everyone else has flex scheduled their way into only being available at odd hours. Managers were afraid to drag people back into work or force specific working hours because the employees could complain that their managers weren't allowing flexible schedules. It eventually turned into a mix of some people who were working all of the time to get things done and other people who were almost never working. Then it was abandoned. It's much better to have some core, overlapping work hours that everyone is required to attend unless they have special circumstances (doctor's appointment, for example). Then let everyone choose flexible working hours before or after that time. Infinite freedom is too ripe for abuse at scale.

Gustomaximus 5y ago
With the meeting issue a good mid-way a company I worked for had in the contract hours were flexible but we expect you to be available 10-2. This mean late risers and early leavers were both covered + in a way limits the day of meetings larger companies tend to progress to. Also we need to recognise flexibility relies on good work ethics. Its great when your in a well hired and motivated company, but you know some companies it going to be a tool to slack off. I've seen both sides on that one where it was a great vs if someone was marked 'remote' you knew everything was going to take significantly longer. I think a good middle ground might be recognising most white collar work more than contracted office hours, so going back to 4 days might actually take us back to a 40 hour week. I think an alternate is govt to set rules and enforce the 40hr week. Make the 40hr week responsibility of the business and overtime much be paid or they need to get you about the door or return time in lieu. Maybe an exception for salary over $400k type thing or whatever fairly high amount as you want senior managers getting out the door too for the example it sets. My concern about the 4 day week is many people are financially struggling so does this just encourage 2 jobs to be more common and the 4 day week ends up leading many people to 7 day work weeks? So in a way I wonder if better enforcement on the 40hr week is the better option in practicality as much as I like the idea of a 4 day work week for society.

Gustomaximus 5y ago

With the meeting issue a good mid-way a company I worked for had in the contract hours were flexible but we expect you to be available 10-2. This mean late risers and early leavers were both covered + in a way limits the day of meetings larger companies tend to progress to. Also we need to recognise flexibility relies on good work ethics. Its great when your in a well hired and motivated company, but you know some companies it going to be a tool to slack off. I've seen both sides on that one where it was a great vs if someone was marked 'remote' you knew everything was going to take significantly longer. I think a good middle ground might be recognising most white collar work more than contracted office hours, so going back to 4 days might actually take us back to a 40 hour week. I think an alternate is govt to set rules and enforce the 40hr week. Make the 40hr week responsibility of the business and overtime much be paid or they need to get you about the door or return time in lieu. Maybe an exception for salary over $400k type thing or whatever fairly high amount as you want senior managers getting out the door too for the example it sets. My concern about the 4 day week is many people are financially struggling so does this just encourage 2 jobs to be more common and the 4 day week ends up leading many people to 7 day work weeks? So in a way I wonder if better enforcement on the 40hr week is the better option in practicality as much as I like the idea of a 4 day work week for society.