4 ms·

I think some industries are going to be "better suited" to this than others. But it doesn't have to be that way. If we could shift ever so slightly away from "B

I think some industries are going to be "better suited" to this than others. But it doesn't have to be that way. If we could shift ever so slightly away from "Biggest Number at end of year - bigger than last years number - at all costs" we could increase staff by just a little bit and move just about any industry to 4 or even 3 day work week. This and worker-cooperative-businesses. I've yet to hear a legitimately compelling argument against, especially when we see the results. (I mean, the arguments are typically, "They have problems, too!" and "Bob Votes to be CEO") Theory is great but how can you hold onto the theory when the experimental data is at least promising?

williamtrask 4y ago
I imagine the main argument has to do with having enough surplus to innovate. That said of course there’s plenty of times where surplus doesn’t go to innovation.
- shadowfoxx 4y ago
  The fact that a company has profit at all means there is surplus. They mean the same thing. as a side note; "Innovation" in my view is not a reason in and of itself to do something. Its too nebulous a term to have real meaning. Like - how much innovating are 7-11's doing or most other commercial shops? Would that money be better spent elsewhere? What percentage of 'innovations' actually fail vs those that prove worth it? etc etc.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> If we could shift ever so slightly away from "Biggest Number at end of year - bigger than last years number - at all costs" we could increase staff by just a little bit and move just about any industry to 4 or even 3 day work week. The problem with this approach is buyers are looking for the lowest price, so it requires efforts on the national government scale (or multiple national governments, even significantly all of them) to put a floor on this lowest price. Otherwise you will get outcompeted by someone able to obtain/perform labor for cheaper.
- shadowfoxx 4y ago
  I'm not sure I understand who the parties are in your example. Who are the buyers? (Employers? People buying your product?) How does any business not get outcompeted by a race to the bottom where people are always willing to perform/obtain the labor more cheaply? Why do the costs of goods get more expensive every year? If our system is so dysfunctional it can't give an inch towards the quality of life of the people living under it. Burn it to the ground, I say. We used to say the Divine Right of Kings was the best we could do.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Buyers are anyone buying goods and services, from people who vote for politicians that promise lower taxes due to negotiating more labor hours per dollar, or someone going to Walmart and buying a $10 shirt from Bangladesh over a $20 US made shirt (made up numbers). People who buy from McDonalds over the local burger place that is more that twice as expensive. >How does any business not get outcompeted by a race to the bottom where people are always willing to perform/obtain the labor more cheaply? They do get outcompeted, hence manufacturing and textile businesses moving to other parts of the world from US/UK/Europe. And people opting to shop at large businesses with economies of scale like Walmart and Aldi over mom and pop places. >Why do the costs of goods get more expensive every year? The cost of some goods gets more expensive. A lot of consumer goods went down in price for people in US/UK/Europe for many of the post WW2 decades. It is only recently that labor costs might have started pushing prices up in real terms.
    - shadowfoxx 4y ago
      I think we're still using "Biggest number profit, bigger than last-year number at all cost" thinking here. Because from my understanding and using some of the language you're using - Costs are going up "Due to labor costs going up" but these same companies are showing record profits. So it seems to me that there's room for the cost of labor to go up without increasing prices, necessarily. But the idea that companies Profit a little less - and I will never let anyone forget that profit is excess - is unfathomable to some.
VLM 4y ago
My actual experience with 4 day work is the closer the team is to operations (2nd and 3rd shift 7 days per week) and the closer to contractor/consultants the easier the transition. I would caution people to be careful what they wish for; my longest 4-day gig involved sun-wed and wed-sat shifts. 4-day doesn't necessarily mean mon-thr ever week for everyone. Another problem was our overlap day was wed thus "wednesday is non productive its for meetings and stuff" so you really only worked three days because you couldn't trust not to be interrupted on wednesday. Its probably of enormous productivity value to move all interruptions to exactly one day every week, however you don't need 4-day to do that, technically speaking. Another oddity probably of more interest to bean counters is our overlap day was wednesday so with all hands on deck we did maint and rollouts and upgrades on wednesday, but the rest of the world did maintenance windows on the weekend at 2am so our meaningless measure of fake uptime was lower than non-4day companies. Now does your employer value rolling out better stuff faster, or do they value a "better" meaningless heavily gamed number? So 4-day might be better or worse depending on if your local management lives in reality or spreadsheet-metric-land. "Oh no how will we get fake nine nines of uptime if we roll out new SaaS on Wednesdays?"

williamtrask 4y ago

I imagine the main argument has to do with having enough surplus to innovate. That said of course there’s plenty of times where surplus doesn’t go to innovation.

shadowfoxx 4y ago
The fact that a company has profit at all means there is surplus. They mean the same thing. as a side note; "Innovation" in my view is not a reason in and of itself to do something. Its too nebulous a term to have real meaning. Like - how much innovating are 7-11's doing or most other commercial shops? Would that money be better spent elsewhere? What percentage of 'innovations' actually fail vs those that prove worth it? etc etc.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> If we could shift ever so slightly away from "Biggest Number at end of year - bigger than last years number - at all costs" we could increase staff by just a little bit and move just about any industry to 4 or even 3 day work week. The problem with this approach is buyers are looking for the lowest price, so it requires efforts on the national government scale (or multiple national governments, even significantly all of them) to put a floor on this lowest price. Otherwise you will get outcompeted by someone able to obtain/perform labor for cheaper.

shadowfoxx 4y ago
I'm not sure I understand who the parties are in your example. Who are the buyers? (Employers? People buying your product?) How does any business not get outcompeted by a race to the bottom where people are always willing to perform/obtain the labor more cheaply? Why do the costs of goods get more expensive every year? If our system is so dysfunctional it can't give an inch towards the quality of life of the people living under it. Burn it to the ground, I say. We used to say the Divine Right of Kings was the best we could do.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Buyers are anyone buying goods and services, from people who vote for politicians that promise lower taxes due to negotiating more labor hours per dollar, or someone going to Walmart and buying a $10 shirt from Bangladesh over a $20 US made shirt (made up numbers). People who buy from McDonalds over the local burger place that is more that twice as expensive. >How does any business not get outcompeted by a race to the bottom where people are always willing to perform/obtain the labor more cheaply? They do get outcompeted, hence manufacturing and textile businesses moving to other parts of the world from US/UK/Europe. And people opting to shop at large businesses with economies of scale like Walmart and Aldi over mom and pop places. >Why do the costs of goods get more expensive every year? The cost of some goods gets more expensive. A lot of consumer goods went down in price for people in US/UK/Europe for many of the post WW2 decades. It is only recently that labor costs might have started pushing prices up in real terms.
  - shadowfoxx 4y ago
    I think we're still using "Biggest number profit, bigger than last-year number at all cost" thinking here. Because from my understanding and using some of the language you're using - Costs are going up "Due to labor costs going up" but these same companies are showing record profits. So it seems to me that there's room for the cost of labor to go up without increasing prices, necessarily. But the idea that companies Profit a little less - and I will never let anyone forget that profit is excess - is unfathomable to some.

VLM 4y ago

My actual experience with 4 day work is the closer the team is to operations (2nd and 3rd shift 7 days per week) and the closer to contractor/consultants the easier the transition. I would caution people to be careful what they wish for; my longest 4-day gig involved sun-wed and wed-sat shifts. 4-day doesn't necessarily mean mon-thr ever week for everyone. Another problem was our overlap day was wed thus "wednesday is non productive its for meetings and stuff" so you really only worked three days because you couldn't trust not to be interrupted on wednesday. Its probably of enormous productivity value to move all interruptions to exactly one day every week, however you don't need 4-day to do that, technically speaking. Another oddity probably of more interest to bean counters is our overlap day was wednesday so with all hands on deck we did maint and rollouts and upgrades on wednesday, but the rest of the world did maintenance windows on the weekend at 2am so our meaningless measure of fake uptime was lower than non-4day companies. Now does your employer value rolling out better stuff faster, or do they value a "better" meaningless heavily gamed number? So 4-day might be better or worse depending on if your local management lives in reality or spreadsheet-metric-land. "Oh no how will we get fake nine nines of uptime if we roll out new SaaS on Wednesdays?"