8 ms·

Ask HN: Why a 4-day workweek don't get traction or a major movement?

If people are struggling with mental health (myself included) - I just read about it everywhere - why a 4-day workweek don't get traction?

pointyhat_away 5y ago
It's because jobs are not about work. Nobody really wants or needs 99.999...% of the the things companies make or do. But everybody needs a job. So we have a ponzi scheme - driven by people who can't really do anything. They have a job with a fancy-sounding title. To make it look like they are doing something, they get a bunch of other people who also can't really do anything to have meetings with. Now they are doing something! Those people do the same - so there needs to be even more people, to have more meetings. It goes like this all the way down until there actually has to be something tangible. It doesn't have to be good, or useful - just tangible. They give those jobs to some programmers. They are smug and think they are actually doing work, but really a programmer's sole responsibility is to give their managers something to have meetings about. If we admitted things would work better with less worker time, it would start to undermine the whole system, and everything would fall apart. So 5 days (with as much overtime as possible) it is.
- leafygreene 5y ago
  Dilbert lives! All hail the Regal Dilbert!
- amin 5y ago
  "Nobody really wants or needs 99.999...% of the the things companies make or do." Heh, you must have built a real business. There's a lot of things you need to keep an organisation going. Anything from insurance, contract lawyers, wifi routers, offices, kitchens, producers, suppliers, customer service agents, the headphones and computers and keyboards they use (which all had to be transported). You need all this stuff just to run a small company succesfully. Having said that, many companies could probably make it work in a 4-day workweek, which I'm in favor of.
  - pointyhat_away 5y ago
    Yes, all that stuff - wifi routers, offices, customer service agents - are needed to to run an organisation. For every company I've ever worked for, and every company of every computer programmer I've ever known so far - the organisation exists either so managers can have meetings, or to provide products/services that support some other organisation... which exists so managers can have meetings. In the overwhelming majority of cases, it's a ponzi scheme all the way to the top.
    - candu 5y ago
      Perhaps...you're just not aware of what managers do, or you've never been exposed to good management? 10 years ago, I probably would have agreed with you. After running my own consulting practice for a few years, being the technical lead on a couple of big projects, and generally gaining more experience / wisdom - I definitely don't agree. It turns out that coordinating people, and getting them to work towards a common goal, is hard. There's all those pesky individual motivations, major life events and crises, and psychological strengths and weaknesses. Add to that a modern work environment in which many of us work on complex systems with many pieces and dependencies, any of which can break down and block forward progress. Plus, like it or not, businesses have hard legal requirements - financial reporting, human resources practices, etc. - to satisfy, along with their usual goal of building products other people (with equally complex motivations and incentives) want enough that they'll pay for them. A good manager shields individual contributors from as much of this as possible. In other words: the better a manager is at doing their job, the more it looks to ICs like that manager is doing nothing at all - because the ICs experience so little of the behind-the-scenes logistics that they can imagine, to a first approximation, that the business magically runs exclusively on engineering effort. It's sort of a weird spin on the Dunning-Kruger effect, where your worth is inversely proportional to the external perception of that worth (as opposed to internal perception) - which is deepened by the fact that a good manager also takes blame and gives praise. That's not to say that meetings are good, or even necessary in most cases! They're just one tool for building shared vision, and like any tool they can be (and often are) misused - long, pointless meetings with too many attendees and no agenda. I've been at those meetings. I'll admit to having held a couple of those meetings - though by now I like to think I've learned better; now, I'll always make sure there's a clear agenda with clear desired outcomes, that only truly necessary attendees are invited, and that it's not the sort of thing for which an email or async discussion would be fine. (Plus I invest some of my time in learning how to properly facilitate.)
- porknubbins 5y ago
  Jobs with real output often have radically different schedules than the typical 5 day office schedule (for better or worse). No one worries that nurses do 3 x 13hrs a week or whatever since there is a very concrete exchange of hourly pay and hours worked. I know a pilot who works like 1 day a week. Salaried office work may not always be BS but is at least somewhat unclear in terms of output and varies by individual. So if anyone tries to go below our current 5 day 40hr Schelling point there will be all kinds of issues from jealousy, competition etc. Its a social thing not a productivity thing, but that doesn’t make it any less real. We saw how only something like Covid could force attitude changes on full time remote work.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    This is correct. As a salaried employee, I am paid for my loyalty in the way a nurse is not. In exchange for a fixed yearly sum, I promise my employer to basically have their interests at heart and work only for them, which we agree, for reasonableness' sake, means about 40 hours / week. In reality, most salaried employees work much less. My dad was in sales my whole life until he retired, and he never worked an actual 9 - 5 week in his entire sales career. After schmoozing, calling, marketing, etc, he'd come home and take a nap or play with us. IMO, the 40 hour work week is mainly a problem in a certain subset of high-achieving, highly educated employees, be they engineers, consultants, attorneys, etc. It's their own internal shame mechanisms which make them work 40 hours / week
- taurath 5y ago
  Not to mention tying essential benefits like healthcare to workplaces, which drums up the cost of employing more people.
softwaredoug 5y ago
Fundamentally I think it has to do with cultural values. In the US, we see the ambitious, driven person as the one who wants to work (at least) 5 days a week. We want to believe that outcomes are related to the amount, and not quality, of work put in. This value runs deep to cultural values where idleness is related to sin and “wasted” time[1]. Time spent in economically fruitful endeavors is viewed as important, while other time spent seen as frivolous. Today we see it manifested in startup culture where founders humblebrag about intense number of hours worked, like they’re the true believers in this value system. Larger company execs want to emulate them, hoping their employees show the same “hustle”. Many Americans often don’t even know what to do with their free time! So in the US there’s a lot of cultural baggage to overcome. (Of course, this value isn’t held in all cultures, where enjoying the finer things in life has cultural significance.) 1 - https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/idle_hands_are_the_devil%27s_workshop#Etymology https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/idle_hands_are_the_devil%27...
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > we see the ambitious, driven person as the one who wants to work (at least) 5 days a week. We want to believe that outcomes are related to the amount, and not quality, of work put in. I think this is one of those "my subculture is not the nation" issues. > Time spent in economically fruitful endeavors is viewed as important, while other time spent seen as frivolous. I don't know if "frivolous" is the right word, but I know a contractor doesn't have PTO. His hourly rate is high enough he could take 4-6 weeks vacation and still make more than he would as an full-time employee (although that depends on the value of other benefits). Yet he still cannot bring himself to take a single day off because he "needs" the money. People seeking a second job, or working crushing hours, are doing so hoping to get paid enough to escape the rat race and/or because they need that money to survive.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  > idleness is related to sin This is definitely the main driver. We must rid ourselves of the Xtian ethos, for it is a system that seeks to maximize human suffering.
  - 5y ago
arduinomancer 5y ago
There are fixed costs to employees that are the same regardless of 4 vs 5 day week Recruiting, HR, training, etc…
bin_bash 5y ago
Work remote (if you aren’t already). I’ve been doing it at various companies for the better part of a decade and rarely work a full 5 days per week. There are probably 4-6 days/month there just isn’t much on my plate that day so I take care of errands or spend time with my family, or just do nothing. I also work just as hard as I did when I commuted and have never been reprimanded for not getting enough done, quite they opposite in fact.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Personally, on my team at work, I encourage this behavior. I see no reason to keep my employees at their desk when there's nothing immediate to do. I tell them to please go for a walk or take a nap if there's something they're waiting on. You'd have to be truly evil to want your guys to sit there staring at a screen.
- vipermark7 5y ago
  What advice would you have in regards to getting a fully remote job?
  - google234123 5y ago
    Be good at engineering or product management or normal engineering management or marketing or ... anything and get hired by one of the 1000s of companies with remote jobs at the moment. E.g. Amazon has 500 open remote jobs in the US on their site https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=&loc_query=Remote&virtual-locations=true https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=&loc_query=Remo...
  - ativzzz 5y ago
    apply to every remote only job you see and only to remote only jobs if you're a competent engineer it's just a standard job search
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Get an office job and tell everyone you have a contagious disease you could spread to them I guess.
shukantpal 5y ago
Are people struggling with mental health because of 5 day workweeks or WFH + pandemic. Seems like the latter.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Personally, I was struggling with mental health because I wasn't allowed to see friends or socialize by government fiat. Now that those inhuman orders have been removed, it's much easier to feel like a human being. But politicians and interest groups are going to milk this for all its worth, so get ready for your mental health to be someone else's campaign platform.
- Clubber 5y ago
  It's the culture of the workplace. If it was a good culture, 5 days a week would be enjoyable. Most work places are shit holes though.
  - shukantpal 5y ago
    Disagree,
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
harperlee 5y ago
A version of it keeps the same weekly hours - that means 25% more time on an already busy day, which complicates life when e.g. having kids that finish school early. Another important aspect is that if retirement looks into days worked, you need to work 25% more hours to unlock benefits.
legerdemain 5y ago
I blame exploitative hustle culture that benefits VCs and hurts everyone else: https://mobile.twitter.com/JesseMavi/status/943012657845678081 https://mobile.twitter.com/JesseMavi/status/9430126578456780...
aaron695 5y ago
Workers value $ to buy objects (not experiences) over their mental health and are selfish and expect to get inappropriate pay for 4 day weeks which would be at most 80% is why we don't have it. Doesn't mean you can't do it, work outside the system, people are too broken to change. As another commentator points out the struggles with mental health now are Covid. Its the FWH and lockdowns and insecurity and loss of friendships and the fact their lives have not moved forward for over a year, for some it's dealing with death. In current society people need more days in the office. Step one normality. Step two look at improving society.
fuzzfactor 5y ago
There's already plenty of people working only 4 days per week, lots of times they do keep a low profile though. The more workers who do start performing the shorter weeks, the more of the remaining workers will have to work more days per week than they are doing now. As it stands your odds of pulling it off individually are probably better than waiting to see if it becomes adopted by the mainstream. So there is probably widespread inertia in favor of the status quo.
iammisc 5y ago
I don't want a four day work week. That sounds awful. If they made a four day work week, I'd either get another job, or if that was banned, I'd take on a hobby for pay (And likely get my children involved too). It is not normal to not work. That way leads to anarchy, destabilized civilizations, and reversion to animalistic behaviors.
- pillefitz 5y ago
  Not sure if you're joking by trying to mimic the average American's (?) mindset.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    I am not joking. Even on the weekends, I'm doing something useful, like cleaning the house (which is actual work), fixing the house, taking care of the car, taking care of the children, etc. All these things are real jobs that would otherwise have to be hired out. In the few times I've been unemployed and had nothing to do, I made something to do. For example during one stretch of unemployment I learned to do woodworking, and sold several pieces. If I didn't work one more day a week, I think I may spend more time on house repair, which again is the same as increasing my income, because it'd be a job I didn't hire out. In fact, on the rare occasion I actually have nothing to do on a weekend, I typically start a new home improvement project, or start looking for more real estate to buy so I can acquire a new home improvement project. My mother is the same way. She's been retired for many years, but she still works. She sews everyday. Sells some, or gives them away, but it's actual work to do what she does. My father also has been retired, but keeps doing actual jobs for people. For example, he helped old people with taxes for a while (got paid). Then he became some finance thing in his parish, which is an actual job as well, even if he doesn't accept payment. My grandmother was the same way too, which explains why she lived til a ripe old age. She never stopped working. Sewing, cleaning, cooking, etc. She was on a strict schedule. My grandfather was the same way. The month before he died, he was still doing my aunt's yardwork on a strict schedule. The man had the strictest regimen imaginable. My wife is like I am. If there's nothing to do, she'll start doing art projects (many of which end up getting sold, gifted, or used in lieu of bought decorations). My brother and SIL are the same way. Constantly working on random things. Often income producing. Broadly speaking, we are a successful family, because we rarely stop working. That's not to say we don't relax, but even relaxing takes work. For example, orchestrating a vacation with two children is actual work. But work is nothing to be upset by. Ideally, most of your life is spent working. The main problem with work in American society today is not the work part. It's the fact that you're doing someone else's work, and that most work is not manual, tactile, or creative. It'd be better if more people did their own work, instead of hiring it out in some grand ponzi scheme. I'd recommend reading the rule of St Benedict. This is an ancient idea. It's really terrible, and boring, to do nothing all the time. It's more fun to do stuff. Again, I literally mean this. As a child, I'd often sit around and complain about being bored (parents didn't buy us video games or movies, and computers were for working). My dad would solve this by giving me manual labor tasks. That is how I solved my boredom as a child. One day my dad decided he wanted a sprinkler system, so that became my brother's and my job when we said we were bored. I don't understand why this should be seen as sad or as working too much. We were happy to do it, and it beat being bored. I'll quickly point out that while I am American, my parents are immigrants, and my grandparents and they were born and raised in another culture. My grandparents lived the majority of their life in another non-Western country.
dominotw 5y ago
most ppl don't want another extra day of childcare at home. They don't want 4 day school.
- helij 5y ago
  I do. I work 4 days a week and would love to spend Fridays with my kid. That would mean three full days a week spending time with my family. Now, I just do errands and 'home admin' on Fridays and take weekend trips with the family. Still better than 5 days work a week.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwaway81523 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages
jstx1 5y ago
For me it's an easy no because I don't want to take a pay cut.
BreakfastB0b 5y ago
You just have to ask and be upfront about it. I made the switch to working max 30 hours a week 2 years ago and I’ll never go back to full time. Most recruiters will ghost you as soon as you mention it, but a few will go for it. Most reliable way is to work through your existing professional network. People you’ve worked with before are much more likely to go for it. I find pitching it as a “self funded 20% time project” also helps with the negative perception of laziness. I’ve been using the extra day off to learn VR game development and rock climb. With the way the market is desperate for senior engineers right now you have a lot of negotiating leverage, and salary above a certain amount is pointless. Can’t take your money with you when you die.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
philmcp 5y ago
I think it's for a few reasons: Stigma: Much like the phrase "remote work" had 5 years ago, there is a stigma around the 4 day work week e.g. for many, it's a synonym for "laziness" Fear: if a company switches to a 4 day week, most believe the customer output will suffer. This has been shown not to be the case however [1, 2, 3] Culture: Although it's improving, I believe there is still a culture of "work-hard / play hard" in many companies (especially those which are VC backed) - a 4 day work week is the antithesis of this [1] https://www.4dayweek.com/case-studies-more/mrl-consulting https://www.4dayweek.com/case-studies-more/mrl-consulting [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/04/microsoft-japan-four-day-work-week-productivity https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/04/microsoft... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/19/four-day-week-trial-study-finds-lower-stress-but-no-cut-in-output https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/19/four-day-week-... p.s. I run https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io - I've now sourced around 50 Tech companies which have a 4 day work week and it's increasing every week. I believe it will become major movement
- chii 5y ago
  > for many, it's a synonym for "laziness" which is weird because most people doing 4 days are taking a pay cut to do it - and thus, earning the exact same per hour as before! Those who say 4 days is lazy somehow don't also say that not working weekends (without pay) is not lazy...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nickd2001 5y ago
As someone who's managed to negotiate 4 day weeks in my current and last 2 jobs, I see some issues: You take a pay hit of 10-20% (depending what hours you work over those 4 days) so need to be reasonably frugal and if you've a partner they need to be too, especially if you got kids. It may stand in the way of getting more seniority, which compounds the pay hit (however, I personally am happy as a mid-range, and feel like this may prolong my career life as I'm still coding all the time not doing less techy stuff). You need to keep your employer believing you're committed to your job. In my experience this isn't difficult because in practice you get pretty much the same work done in 4 days as 5, but some people are scared this won't appear the case. In terms of the pay hit, the other side is that with a weekday off you can do some cooking, shop around for cheaper things etc which reduces costs. If you have kids, both parents working 3 or 4 days a week may be tax advantageous over 1 working 5 days and the other 2, for example. To be honest, looking around, my colleagues could easily have asked for 4-day weeks too, and I don't think they would have been refused. A few did ask, and they were allowed too. People like to blame employers for being inflexible but actually I suspect this is cover for their own fear of the unknown. My advice = be bold, just try it. BTW just for the record I do have some above the normal caring responsibilities, so that's why I do a 4 day week and it also gives me an "excuse" to ask.
TheAdamist 5y ago
My company switched to a four day work week for most people, 4x10 though. The longer hours take more of a toll on mental health, rather than less. It's a pain for childcare, trying to socialize with folks on a normal schedule, making up hours etc. Everyone else is working the fifth day, so can't really socialize then. My doctor and dentist don't work that day though, which means can't use it for appointments.
muzani 5y ago
I don't think 4 day workweek is the solution. I used to freelance, experimenting with 2-6 days/week. If you're working alone, sure, 4 days is just right. My last job had me working 10 to 7, 5 days/week. That was too much and I thought 4 days was ideal. My current job is much more relaxed. Everyone is done by 6 and we sometimes do game night. Management and HR actively lowers pressure, encourages us to take more breaks, and informs us that they've never turned down any request for a day off. Now I'm tempted to work 5.5 days/week, especially when they let me take a day off whenever I feel like it. The problem seems to be that things aren't in sync. We're not getting enough rest or enough work done; I suspect 4 days is stressful when you have a lot of meetings. Socialising is a huge factor too - I had none of it in my last job, but I'd like more in my current job. I had no time for errands in my last job, but now that they're cool with me running errands on weekdays, I don't need extra time off.

If people are struggling with mental health (myself included) - I just read about it everywhere - why a 4-day workweek don't get traction?

pointyhat_away 5y ago

It's because jobs are not about work. Nobody really wants or needs 99.999...% of the the things companies make or do. But everybody needs a job. So we have a ponzi scheme - driven by people who can't really do anything. They have a job with a fancy-sounding title. To make it look like they are doing something, they get a bunch of other people who also can't really do anything to have meetings with. Now they are doing something! Those people do the same - so there needs to be even more people, to have more meetings. It goes like this all the way down until there actually has to be something tangible. It doesn't have to be good, or useful - just tangible. They give those jobs to some programmers. They are smug and think they are actually doing work, but really a programmer's sole responsibility is to give their managers something to have meetings about. If we admitted things would work better with less worker time, it would start to undermine the whole system, and everything would fall apart. So 5 days (with as much overtime as possible) it is.

leafygreene 5y ago
Dilbert lives! All hail the Regal Dilbert!
amin 5y ago
"Nobody really wants or needs 99.999...% of the the things companies make or do." Heh, you must have built a real business. There's a lot of things you need to keep an organisation going. Anything from insurance, contract lawyers, wifi routers, offices, kitchens, producers, suppliers, customer service agents, the headphones and computers and keyboards they use (which all had to be transported). You need all this stuff just to run a small company succesfully. Having said that, many companies could probably make it work in a 4-day workweek, which I'm in favor of.
- pointyhat_away 5y ago
  Yes, all that stuff - wifi routers, offices, customer service agents - are needed to to run an organisation. For every company I've ever worked for, and every company of every computer programmer I've ever known so far - the organisation exists either so managers can have meetings, or to provide products/services that support some other organisation... which exists so managers can have meetings. In the overwhelming majority of cases, it's a ponzi scheme all the way to the top.
  - candu 5y ago
    Perhaps...you're just not aware of what managers do, or you've never been exposed to good management? 10 years ago, I probably would have agreed with you. After running my own consulting practice for a few years, being the technical lead on a couple of big projects, and generally gaining more experience / wisdom - I definitely don't agree. It turns out that coordinating people, and getting them to work towards a common goal, is hard. There's all those pesky individual motivations, major life events and crises, and psychological strengths and weaknesses. Add to that a modern work environment in which many of us work on complex systems with many pieces and dependencies, any of which can break down and block forward progress. Plus, like it or not, businesses have hard legal requirements - financial reporting, human resources practices, etc. - to satisfy, along with their usual goal of building products other people (with equally complex motivations and incentives) want enough that they'll pay for them. A good manager shields individual contributors from as much of this as possible. In other words: the better a manager is at doing their job, the more it looks to ICs like that manager is doing nothing at all - because the ICs experience so little of the behind-the-scenes logistics that they can imagine, to a first approximation, that the business magically runs exclusively on engineering effort. It's sort of a weird spin on the Dunning-Kruger effect, where your worth is inversely proportional to the external perception of that worth (as opposed to internal perception) - which is deepened by the fact that a good manager also takes blame and gives praise. That's not to say that meetings are good, or even necessary in most cases! They're just one tool for building shared vision, and like any tool they can be (and often are) misused - long, pointless meetings with too many attendees and no agenda. I've been at those meetings. I'll admit to having held a couple of those meetings - though by now I like to think I've learned better; now, I'll always make sure there's a clear agenda with clear desired outcomes, that only truly necessary attendees are invited, and that it's not the sort of thing for which an email or async discussion would be fine. (Plus I invest some of my time in learning how to properly facilitate.)
porknubbins 5y ago
Jobs with real output often have radically different schedules than the typical 5 day office schedule (for better or worse). No one worries that nurses do 3 x 13hrs a week or whatever since there is a very concrete exchange of hourly pay and hours worked. I know a pilot who works like 1 day a week. Salaried office work may not always be BS but is at least somewhat unclear in terms of output and varies by individual. So if anyone tries to go below our current 5 day 40hr Schelling point there will be all kinds of issues from jealousy, competition etc. Its a social thing not a productivity thing, but that doesn’t make it any less real. We saw how only something like Covid could force attitude changes on full time remote work.
- iammisc 5y ago
  This is correct. As a salaried employee, I am paid for my loyalty in the way a nurse is not. In exchange for a fixed yearly sum, I promise my employer to basically have their interests at heart and work only for them, which we agree, for reasonableness' sake, means about 40 hours / week. In reality, most salaried employees work much less. My dad was in sales my whole life until he retired, and he never worked an actual 9 - 5 week in his entire sales career. After schmoozing, calling, marketing, etc, he'd come home and take a nap or play with us. IMO, the 40 hour work week is mainly a problem in a certain subset of high-achieving, highly educated employees, be they engineers, consultants, attorneys, etc. It's their own internal shame mechanisms which make them work 40 hours / week
taurath 5y ago
Not to mention tying essential benefits like healthcare to workplaces, which drums up the cost of employing more people.

softwaredoug 5y ago

Fundamentally I think it has to do with cultural values. In the US, we see the ambitious, driven person as the one who wants to work (at least) 5 days a week. We want to believe that outcomes are related to the amount, and not quality, of work put in. This value runs deep to cultural values where idleness is related to sin and “wasted” time[1]. Time spent in economically fruitful endeavors is viewed as important, while other time spent seen as frivolous. Today we see it manifested in startup culture where founders humblebrag about intense number of hours worked, like they’re the true believers in this value system. Larger company execs want to emulate them, hoping their employees show the same “hustle”. Many Americans often don’t even know what to do with their free time! So in the US there’s a lot of cultural baggage to overcome. (Of course, this value isn’t held in all cultures, where enjoying the finer things in life has cultural significance.) 1 - https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/idle_hands_are_the_devil%27s_workshop#Etymology https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/idle_hands_are_the_devil%27...

HWR_14 5y ago
> we see the ambitious, driven person as the one who wants to work (at least) 5 days a week. We want to believe that outcomes are related to the amount, and not quality, of work put in. I think this is one of those "my subculture is not the nation" issues. > Time spent in economically fruitful endeavors is viewed as important, while other time spent seen as frivolous. I don't know if "frivolous" is the right word, but I know a contractor doesn't have PTO. His hourly rate is high enough he could take 4-6 weeks vacation and still make more than he would as an full-time employee (although that depends on the value of other benefits). Yet he still cannot bring himself to take a single day off because he "needs" the money. People seeking a second job, or working crushing hours, are doing so hoping to get paid enough to escape the rat race and/or because they need that money to survive.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
> idleness is related to sin This is definitely the main driver. We must rid ourselves of the Xtian ethos, for it is a system that seeks to maximize human suffering.
- 5y ago

arduinomancer 5y ago

There are fixed costs to employees that are the same regardless of 4 vs 5 day week Recruiting, HR, training, etc…

bin_bash 5y ago

Work remote (if you aren’t already). I’ve been doing it at various companies for the better part of a decade and rarely work a full 5 days per week. There are probably 4-6 days/month there just isn’t much on my plate that day so I take care of errands or spend time with my family, or just do nothing. I also work just as hard as I did when I commuted and have never been reprimanded for not getting enough done, quite they opposite in fact.

iammisc 5y ago
Personally, on my team at work, I encourage this behavior. I see no reason to keep my employees at their desk when there's nothing immediate to do. I tell them to please go for a walk or take a nap if there's something they're waiting on. You'd have to be truly evil to want your guys to sit there staring at a screen.
vipermark7 5y ago
What advice would you have in regards to getting a fully remote job?
- google234123 5y ago
  Be good at engineering or product management or normal engineering management or marketing or ... anything and get hired by one of the 1000s of companies with remote jobs at the moment. E.g. Amazon has 500 open remote jobs in the US on their site https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=&loc_query=Remote&virtual-locations=true https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=&loc_query=Remo...
- ativzzz 5y ago
  apply to every remote only job you see and only to remote only jobs if you're a competent engineer it's just a standard job search
- iammisc 5y ago
  Get an office job and tell everyone you have a contagious disease you could spread to them I guess.

shukantpal 5y ago

Are people struggling with mental health because of 5 day workweeks or WFH + pandemic. Seems like the latter.

iammisc 5y ago
Personally, I was struggling with mental health because I wasn't allowed to see friends or socialize by government fiat. Now that those inhuman orders have been removed, it's much easier to feel like a human being. But politicians and interest groups are going to milk this for all its worth, so get ready for your mental health to be someone else's campaign platform.
Clubber 5y ago
It's the culture of the workplace. If it was a good culture, 5 days a week would be enjoyable. Most work places are shit holes though.
- shukantpal 5y ago
  Disagree,

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

harperlee 5y ago

A version of it keeps the same weekly hours - that means 25% more time on an already busy day, which complicates life when e.g. having kids that finish school early. Another important aspect is that if retirement looks into days worked, you need to work 25% more hours to unlock benefits.

legerdemain 5y ago

I blame exploitative hustle culture that benefits VCs and hurts everyone else: https://mobile.twitter.com/JesseMavi/status/943012657845678081 https://mobile.twitter.com/JesseMavi/status/9430126578456780...

aaron695 5y ago

Workers value $ to buy objects (not experiences) over their mental health and are selfish and expect to get inappropriate pay for 4 day weeks which would be at most 80% is why we don't have it. Doesn't mean you can't do it, work outside the system, people are too broken to change. As another commentator points out the struggles with mental health now are Covid. Its the FWH and lockdowns and insecurity and loss of friendships and the fact their lives have not moved forward for over a year, for some it's dealing with death. In current society people need more days in the office. Step one normality. Step two look at improving society.

fuzzfactor 5y ago

There's already plenty of people working only 4 days per week, lots of times they do keep a low profile though. The more workers who do start performing the shorter weeks, the more of the remaining workers will have to work more days per week than they are doing now. As it stands your odds of pulling it off individually are probably better than waiting to see if it becomes adopted by the mainstream. So there is probably widespread inertia in favor of the status quo.

iammisc 5y ago

I don't want a four day work week. That sounds awful. If they made a four day work week, I'd either get another job, or if that was banned, I'd take on a hobby for pay (And likely get my children involved too). It is not normal to not work. That way leads to anarchy, destabilized civilizations, and reversion to animalistic behaviors.

pillefitz 5y ago
Not sure if you're joking by trying to mimic the average American's (?) mindset.
- iammisc 5y ago
  I am not joking. Even on the weekends, I'm doing something useful, like cleaning the house (which is actual work), fixing the house, taking care of the car, taking care of the children, etc. All these things are real jobs that would otherwise have to be hired out. In the few times I've been unemployed and had nothing to do, I made something to do. For example during one stretch of unemployment I learned to do woodworking, and sold several pieces. If I didn't work one more day a week, I think I may spend more time on house repair, which again is the same as increasing my income, because it'd be a job I didn't hire out. In fact, on the rare occasion I actually have nothing to do on a weekend, I typically start a new home improvement project, or start looking for more real estate to buy so I can acquire a new home improvement project. My mother is the same way. She's been retired for many years, but she still works. She sews everyday. Sells some, or gives them away, but it's actual work to do what she does. My father also has been retired, but keeps doing actual jobs for people. For example, he helped old people with taxes for a while (got paid). Then he became some finance thing in his parish, which is an actual job as well, even if he doesn't accept payment. My grandmother was the same way too, which explains why she lived til a ripe old age. She never stopped working. Sewing, cleaning, cooking, etc. She was on a strict schedule. My grandfather was the same way. The month before he died, he was still doing my aunt's yardwork on a strict schedule. The man had the strictest regimen imaginable. My wife is like I am. If there's nothing to do, she'll start doing art projects (many of which end up getting sold, gifted, or used in lieu of bought decorations). My brother and SIL are the same way. Constantly working on random things. Often income producing. Broadly speaking, we are a successful family, because we rarely stop working. That's not to say we don't relax, but even relaxing takes work. For example, orchestrating a vacation with two children is actual work. But work is nothing to be upset by. Ideally, most of your life is spent working. The main problem with work in American society today is not the work part. It's the fact that you're doing someone else's work, and that most work is not manual, tactile, or creative. It'd be better if more people did their own work, instead of hiring it out in some grand ponzi scheme. I'd recommend reading the rule of St Benedict. This is an ancient idea. It's really terrible, and boring, to do nothing all the time. It's more fun to do stuff. Again, I literally mean this. As a child, I'd often sit around and complain about being bored (parents didn't buy us video games or movies, and computers were for working). My dad would solve this by giving me manual labor tasks. That is how I solved my boredom as a child. One day my dad decided he wanted a sprinkler system, so that became my brother's and my job when we said we were bored. I don't understand why this should be seen as sad or as working too much. We were happy to do it, and it beat being bored. I'll quickly point out that while I am American, my parents are immigrants, and my grandparents and they were born and raised in another culture. My grandparents lived the majority of their life in another non-Western country.

dominotw 5y ago

most ppl don't want another extra day of childcare at home. They don't want 4 day school.

helij 5y ago
I do. I work 4 days a week and would love to spend Fridays with my kid. That would mean three full days a week spending time with my family. Now, I just do errands and 'home admin' on Fridays and take weekend trips with the family. Still better than 5 days work a week.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwaway81523 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages

jstx1 5y ago

For me it's an easy no because I don't want to take a pay cut.

BreakfastB0b 5y ago

You just have to ask and be upfront about it. I made the switch to working max 30 hours a week 2 years ago and I’ll never go back to full time. Most recruiters will ghost you as soon as you mention it, but a few will go for it. Most reliable way is to work through your existing professional network. People you’ve worked with before are much more likely to go for it. I find pitching it as a “self funded 20% time project” also helps with the negative perception of laziness. I’ve been using the extra day off to learn VR game development and rock climb. With the way the market is desperate for senior engineers right now you have a lot of negotiating leverage, and salary above a certain amount is pointless. Can’t take your money with you when you die.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

philmcp 5y ago

I think it's for a few reasons: Stigma: Much like the phrase "remote work" had 5 years ago, there is a stigma around the 4 day work week e.g. for many, it's a synonym for "laziness" Fear: if a company switches to a 4 day week, most believe the customer output will suffer. This has been shown not to be the case however [1, 2, 3] Culture: Although it's improving, I believe there is still a culture of "work-hard / play hard" in many companies (especially those which are VC backed) - a 4 day work week is the antithesis of this [1] https://www.4dayweek.com/case-studies-more/mrl-consulting https://www.4dayweek.com/case-studies-more/mrl-consulting [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/04/microsoft-japan-four-day-work-week-productivity https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/04/microsoft... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/19/four-day-week-trial-study-finds-lower-stress-but-no-cut-in-output https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/feb/19/four-day-week-... p.s. I run https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io - I've now sourced around 50 Tech companies which have a 4 day work week and it's increasing every week. I believe it will become major movement

chii 5y ago
> for many, it's a synonym for "laziness" which is weird because most people doing 4 days are taking a pay cut to do it - and thus, earning the exact same per hour as before! Those who say 4 days is lazy somehow don't also say that not working weekends (without pay) is not lazy...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nickd2001 5y ago

As someone who's managed to negotiate 4 day weeks in my current and last 2 jobs, I see some issues: You take a pay hit of 10-20% (depending what hours you work over those 4 days) so need to be reasonably frugal and if you've a partner they need to be too, especially if you got kids. It may stand in the way of getting more seniority, which compounds the pay hit (however, I personally am happy as a mid-range, and feel like this may prolong my career life as I'm still coding all the time not doing less techy stuff). You need to keep your employer believing you're committed to your job. In my experience this isn't difficult because in practice you get pretty much the same work done in 4 days as 5, but some people are scared this won't appear the case. In terms of the pay hit, the other side is that with a weekday off you can do some cooking, shop around for cheaper things etc which reduces costs. If you have kids, both parents working 3 or 4 days a week may be tax advantageous over 1 working 5 days and the other 2, for example. To be honest, looking around, my colleagues could easily have asked for 4-day weeks too, and I don't think they would have been refused. A few did ask, and they were allowed too. People like to blame employers for being inflexible but actually I suspect this is cover for their own fear of the unknown. My advice = be bold, just try it. BTW just for the record I do have some above the normal caring responsibilities, so that's why I do a 4 day week and it also gives me an "excuse" to ask.

TheAdamist 5y ago

My company switched to a four day work week for most people, 4x10 though. The longer hours take more of a toll on mental health, rather than less. It's a pain for childcare, trying to socialize with folks on a normal schedule, making up hours etc. Everyone else is working the fifth day, so can't really socialize then. My doctor and dentist don't work that day though, which means can't use it for appointments.

muzani 5y ago

I don't think 4 day workweek is the solution. I used to freelance, experimenting with 2-6 days/week. If you're working alone, sure, 4 days is just right. My last job had me working 10 to 7, 5 days/week. That was too much and I thought 4 days was ideal. My current job is much more relaxed. Everyone is done by 6 and we sometimes do game night. Management and HR actively lowers pressure, encourages us to take more breaks, and informs us that they've never turned down any request for a day off. Now I'm tempted to work 5.5 days/week, especially when they let me take a day off whenever I feel like it. The problem seems to be that things aren't in sync. We're not getting enough rest or enough work done; I suspect 4 days is stressful when you have a lot of meetings. Socialising is a huge factor too - I had none of it in my last job, but I'd like more in my current job. I had no time for errands in my last job, but now that they're cool with me running errands on weekdays, I don't need extra time off.