10 ms·

I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at a

• adventured 4y ago
  > My life is so good right now despite the world being terrible. The world is overwhelmingly amazing, not terrible. For the majority of people this is one of the best times to be alive in all of human history. Rivaled only by the years prior to the pandemic.
  • roey2009 4y ago
    War, Deglobalization, Climate Change, Resource scarcity, Economic bubbles. What the fuck are you on about, the world is olympic diving into the garbage heap. Edit: If you downvote, please have the decency to explain your reasoning. Are you saying this opinion is incorrect? Why? It is to my understanding a race against time, when concerning climate change alone. One we are losing. Do you just dislike hearing about it?
    • Group_B 4y ago
      As if none of that existed in the past?
      • roey2009 4y ago
        Are you of a differing opinion? If so, I am desperate for some hope.
        • stack_framer 4y ago
          Take a look at https://www.humanprogress.org https://www.humanprogress.org
    • vxNsr 4y ago
      Many of the issues that seem like doom and gloom will be solved, through human ingenuity and perseverance. Getting all bent out of shape and depressed is not the answer as the truth is that all those things aren’t nearly as bad as many are making them out to be. Your understanding of climate change is severely limited, and yes your opinion is thoroughly unfounded when you look at the full picture. The current wars are barely a blip compared to wars in years past. Deglobalization at the scale it’s happening is a good thing so I’m not sure why you’re upset about it. The scale at which we were doing it was unsustainable and was causing more harm than good in the more recent past. Resource scarcity is something people like to cry wolf about but never actually comes to pass. Economic bubbles have existed for millennia and aren’t new or that scary.
  • DawnQFunk2 4y ago
    • DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      You can disagree strongly without ridiculous hyperbole. GP doesn’t deserve to be banned for being a radical optimist, get a grip.
  • jokethrowaway 4y ago
    The pandemic is still ongoing, plenty of countries still enforce masks. Inflation is indirectly taxing people more and more and our society is going to hell because wealthy people brainwash people and destroy families. Governments all around the world are becoming closer and closer to China every day. Sure, we may have more technology nowadays (thanks capitalism) - but frankly I would have preferred being born in the 50s.
  • na85 4y ago
    The world is objectively a shitty, awful place for billions of people.
    • SaltyBackendGuy 4y ago
      When in history has that not been true?
      • wizofaus 4y ago
        Before about 1800, when the world didn't have billions of people? And who knows how shitty it really did feel for most people throughout history, when they had little else to compare against.
    • FFRefresh 4y ago
      ...according to your subjective value system.
  • icedchai 4y ago
    In the greater scheme of things, you’re probably right. On the other hand, 2019 was the last “normal” year we will experience for a very long time. That doesn’t feel good.
    • Aeolun 4y ago
      Just change your standard of normal? Those bland boring years before 2020 in which nothing bad ever happened.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • braingenious 4y ago
    GP didn’t say that the world is terrible because it is comparatively worse than it used to be, that would be a different statement. “Terrible” is not an objectively quantifiable adjective subject to factual policing. For example, one person can say “The world is terrible because fascism is on the rise in many countries.” Another person pointing out that polio infection rates are very low does not cancel out the first statement. Everybody gets to have a subjective opinion!
• champagnepapi 4y ago
  >Eventually a place made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Well... it's better than sleeping with the fishes :) JK JK Thanks for the write up!
  • Apreche 4y ago
    Well, I do now feel like I owe my employer a huge favor XD.
    • astockwell 4y ago
      That’s the secret. More employers would benefit from recognizing it.
• soupfordummies 4y ago
  This is amazing, good for you! Do you mind sharing your job, how long the process took/how many different companies you interviewed?
  • Apreche 4y ago
    I'm a software engineer. I'm working at a startup now after basically refusing to work at start-ups, or any kind of tech company, my entire career prior. I always worked at normal stable trustworthy non-tech companies that happened to need software engineers. I would still prefer to go back to the non-tech non-startup industry, but the offer was too good. The process took less than a year. I entertained pitches from many many recruiters. I can't even remember how many. Most of them I rejected immediately because the jobs were beneath my high moral standard. I had introductory interviews at maybe 10-ish places. I actually went through the full interview process at only 3 places. I was able to do all this purely because my existing job was stable and excellent. I would go back to it in a heartbeat if necessary. I was negotiating from a position of extreme strength with absolutely nothing to lose if the prospective new employer said no. I'm honestly afraid of a situation where I have no job and have to accept the first offer I can get. I might end up in a spiral of changing jobs frequently while trying to get back to a place that I find acceptable.
    • gitgud 4y ago
      > Most of them I rejected immediately because the jobs were beneath my high moral standard. Earlier you mentioned > Eventually a place made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Did you need to sacrifice morals for this offer? Or is there some other reason you took the offer?
      • vxNsr 4y ago
        It sounds like he only applied and went through the interview process for jobs that already passed his “high moral standard”
        • jcadam 4y ago
• bilsbie 4y ago
  You wouldn’t get tired of the beach if you went every day?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • bergenty 4y ago
    No, I could spend all day at the beach for the rest of my life. Same with hiking desert climates. Same with spending all my time in my wood and metal shop.
  • Apreche 4y ago
    Absolutely not. I would live in a beach house, and I would indeed spend many hours laying in the sand, swimming in the ocean, etc. But I wouldn't literally spend the entire rest of my life doing nothing else at all. There would be socializing with friends and family, traveling, and taking care of my affairs. I would also spend plenty of time on hobbies of all sorts. The key is that I would be living a life of complete and total leisure. Wake up whenever I want. Sleep whenever I want. Eat whenever I want. And each day, each moment, I would do whatever in particular I happened to feel like doing. I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal.
    • grog454 4y ago
      > The key is that I would be living a life of complete and total leisure. Wake up whenever I want. Sleep whenever I want. Eat whenever I want. And each day, each moment, I would do whatever in particular I happened to feel like doing. I ended up in essentially this state for several years. It was about as blissful as you would imagine. The problem is, what got me in to that state was an intense drive (among other things) that becomes increasingly hard to sate without a meaningful purpose. So I've voluntarily made my way back into "capitalist systems" and have to consciously remind myself that it is optional and a choice I've made. It's hard to find lasting contentment.
• koolba 4y ago
  4 x 10 hours or 4 x 8?
  • Veuxdo 4y ago
    32 hours so 4x8
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • Aperocky 4y ago
    This is an important distinction, but personally I think I prefer 4x10 over 5x8. Productivity will probably be better too.
    • bruce511 4y ago
      This is anecdotal, so not data, but I'm not 100% sure i agree. But it may be an age thing. In my youth (for some definition of youth) I could work flat out for 10 hours+. I'd get in the groove and just fly. I'm a little (or lot) older now - and I can do maybe 6 hours at a time now. I now fill the rest of the time with non-code work, like docs etc. Or I just knock off early.
      • therealdrag0 4y ago
        If I have a solo code task, I can do a 10 hour day without feeling burned out. But a day of randomizations, collaboration and firefighting, I feel done after 6 heh.
    • Helmut10001 4y ago
      I have 30 hours workweek and work 5x6, for the last 7 years. I also negotiated that I can leave at noon, and work the remaining hours, from where ever I am, when there is need (e.g. when I need to answer crucial things at evenings, weekends etc., which happens maybe once in a month). It is very good, I can spend more time with my son. I can go running when there is still sunlight outside. The problem is I could not go back to an 8 hour day. I don't abuse this deal: When I really want to get things finished, or when there's something critical, of course it happens that I am still at work Friday 4PM. It works the other way, too: When there's something critical at home (and no planned interaction at work), I may not show up at all, and it is Ok.
• brundolf 4y ago
  I think this generalizes: Engineers right now are negotiating from a place of power when it comes to employment. It's just that for whatever reason, our current employer at any given time usually struggles to see that. So we can ask for things and very well might get them (whether that's compensation, work-schedule, or something else), but we're going to have much better luck doing that at the time of getting a new offer (while still employed). That's where our negotiating power comes into focus for the other party. For you it was a four-day work week, for me it was getting them to drop the overbearing inventions-ownership clause in my contract. But I think that, if there's anything important missing on a person's work-life wishlist, this is the way to go about getting it.
• xivzgrev 4y ago
  Glad it worked out. For anyone else thinking of doing this I’d recommend asking for this up front. If a company isn’t open to it, then they’re not going to be later on after you’ve both invested all that time.
• Fr3dd1 4y ago
  Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours, thats another topic). I was several times in the position where a candidate suddenly said, that he wants to work part time (at the last stage of the hiring process). By doing this he wasted not only mine but also his own time..
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • jdthedisciple 4y ago
    What if I'm confident that I can convince you my 32 hrs are worth just as much or even more than s.o. else's 40 hrs though? I as an applicant would also not want to be ruled out only based on that, I would want to have a chance to present my own full offer to you as well.
    • daniel_iversen 4y ago
      It's not a "chance to present my own full offer" when the role explicitly states full-time. That's called trying to re-negotiate and it's not great. Also, there's no way I'll let you convince me of formally hiring you at 32 hours because of the hassles involved on my side, and more importantly the slippery slope - say the next guy thinks he can do it in 16 hours, the next person is remote, the next person doesn't want to join Zoom calls because they're more effective async, another want to only work at night when they're "in the zone".. not everything is up for negotiation (even though in reality, you should try and have flexibility in the roles in day-to-day practice because we're all unique humans and stuff comes up etc. but you get my point). I think people in tech have gotten a bit precious and spoiled TBH :)
      • mcv 4y ago
        I think it's employers who've gotten a bit precious and spoiled, if they're so reluctant to consider the needs and desires of their employees.