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I’ve gone down to 4 days, taking Fridays off to look after my son, and I certainly won’t be going back to 5 days until he’s in school. Looking after a toddler a

I’ve gone down to 4 days, taking Fridays off to look after my son, and I certainly won’t be going back to 5 days until he’s in school. Looking after a toddler all day isn’t exactly a day off, but it is extremely rewarding, and something I’d recommend to any parent thinking about dropping down a day. It definitely has some downsides however, I’m the only one in the team that’s off that day, so there’s usually meetings and information that I miss out on, as well as a 20% cut in pay, but I’m very lucky to be in a position where we could afford it, and the time with my son is worth it.

kennywinker 4y ago
Based on most of the studies i’ve seen, at least for office/information jobs, that pay cut is unjustified. People mostly get as much done in 4 days as 5.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  It may be "justified" while five days remains the norm, as it may be possible to get similarly-capable employees to take the position for lower pay, to get that extra day off every week. This should provide a pretty big benefit to companies that can leverage it while five is still typical (assuming that the shift to four is in fact going to become a trend)
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Thinking like an employer - how can i leverage social norms to get same or more work for less pay. If you’re not an employer, why are you thinking about it this way?
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Oh, sure, I think employees ought to organize to increase wages in general. But absent that, the value of perks like a four-day work week (while it remains an unusual perk, at least) do factor into wage negotiations, and individuals can't do much to resist that on their own (aside from... not get the job and keep working five days somewhere else). I'm talking "is", not, "ought", in describing it the way I did.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Usual counterpoint is that you're not being paid just for the things you get done, but also for availability - for being there when there's a need to handle something unexpected. This has real value to a business, so you being available for 80% of the time justifies some degree of pay cut.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Maybe for some jobs. But for the majority of software jobs? Not really.
    - yodsanklai 4y ago
      It depends. There are some people who bring a lot of value by just being there to answer the occasional questions. When I'm oncall and I know that some colleagues are on vacation, I'm definitely more tense. In an ideal world, knowledge would be spread within the team, but with turnover it's hard to reach and maintain that state.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      I can't really tell. I mean, there's enough people on HN who say they do pair programming at work, and some even that they do whole projects almost exclusively in some sort of group coding sessions - to me this seems like a bizarro world, so what do I know about majority of software jobs? For me personally, every software job I've done so far - including both the ones where I was one of few (or even the only) coders in the company, and ones where I was but a small cog in a multinational corporation - all of them had an availability component. Usually in the form of being there to answer some question, or help someone who's blocked or slowed down by an issue I'm the best suited to resolve (or the only one in the team/branch/company who can).
      - cbushko 4y ago
        I've only had successful paired programming in one situation and it was amazing. I believe it worked because we were friends and at the same knowledge level. In three days, we ripped through a project that should have taken a month. Our 'C' code was perfect because there was always someone looking at it in real time and catching the errors on the spot. I do not think that I will ever encounter this level of productivity ever again.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  Honestly I don't even care. If I could take an extra day off at only 20% cut from my pay check I'd do it in a heart beat.
lettergram 4y ago
I actually work 6 days a week (only Sunday off) noon until midnight with a two hour break 5-7pm. That’s 60 hrs of work a week, but I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. It’s been a great change of pace for me personally. We have a garden we do as a family, I can do doc appointments, some field trips, etc. while still working extremely hard. It’s not for everyone, but that schedule has been great for me personally.
- mobiledev2014 4y ago
  That’s baffling. Nobody should have to work 60 hours a week and be happy about it, doesn’t matter when the hours are
  - lettergram 4y ago
    Lol for almost all human history working all a day was the norm. I don’t necessarily have to do that much work, but I want to get ahead. Most people I grew up with work 40-70hrs a week, often two to three jobs. It’s natural for me to work that much. I don’t even blink at it. What else would you do? Play video games, watch tv, “party”? I can accomplish and build things and spend the rest of the time with family and friends. It’s a good life imo
    - mobiledev2014 4y ago
      I hear what you’re saying but since this is hacker news we’re mostly white collar and we’re not talking about all human history, we’re talking about 2023+. I spend my entire weekend with my kids for one thing. Don’t you miss out on things? And yes I play video games or do literally anything other than work before bed. If you’re including side projects you actually want to build in your 60 hours, that’s totally different of course. And I also don’t mean to judge, as the people working those 2-3 jobs NEED to do it. Nobody wants to.
      - lettergram 4y ago
        From my prior post: > I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. I work from home, so I have no commute (saves a boatload of time) and get to eat every meal with the family (who ever is home). I also spend probably 4-7 hrs with my children every day (and all day Sunday’s). I’m pretty more involved, but sure I miss some stuff. I can’t do afternoon / evenings (unless it’s 5-7pm). In terms of my work breakdown, I tend to do 60-70 hrs. But I code and manage our farm part time (kids will eventually assist with). That’s probably 50 hrs coding/designing, 10-20 hrs on the farm, depending. That obviously will shift a bit depending on weather. I also take 2-3 weeks off coding work to harvest; which are like 12 hr days for a week at a time.
askvictor 4y ago
I did this, then when my son went to school, kept the day off. It's super valuable to just get some time for yourself. Have recently changed career and gone back full time, but pining for that extra time (luckily my company seems to be thinking about a 4 day week)
mettamage 4y ago
In the Netherlands I also take a 20% gross pay cut. So net, that's more like a 10% pay cut. It doesn't pay to work 5 days in NL.
- lukevp 4y ago
  This doesn’t make sense to me unless it moves you into a lower tax bracket or something. Eg. If you made $100k and were taxed at 30%, you’d get paid net $70k. If you took a 20% gross pay cut, you’d get paid $80k gross and $56k net. 56k is 20% less than 70k.
  - nasmorn 4y ago
    In the Austrian tax system you are not taxed in one bracket. The first 15k are free next 5k at 15%, next 10k at 25% and so on. So your average tax rate will always be lower than your marginal rate, thus removing 20% gross will never remove 20% net. Actual values depend on your income of course.
    - benjaminwootton 4y ago
      In the UK we have the tax free allowances, but we start to lose them as we earn more. For instance, around £100k in earnings they start to tax your personal allowance so you are effectively taxed at 60%. You then move into 45% tax and then start to lose pension allowances at £250k. First world problems, but these are all cliffs where it makes sense to keep your income down. Losing 20% off the top line will reduce your income by closer to 10% if my math is correct. We have a problem in the UK with higher earners dropping out of the workforce partly because of the tax incentives. I personally choose not to work as an employee in the UK because I would be paying more than 50% in tax.
      - rpep 4y ago
        The child benefit threshold makes it pretty bad for most mid to high household incomes too, effectively a 60% marginal tax rate between £50k and £60k if you have a student loan
TedShiller 4y ago
I don't see any downside to a 4 day work week. Workers should expect to get paid 4/5 of what they made before, but it could be well worth it.
andrei_says_ 4y ago
You will remember the moments you spend with your son - and kids grow up fast. The days at work - those no one will remember.
- kitd 4y ago
  Yes! When you lie on your deathbed, will you say "I wish I'd spent more time at the office"?
  - mlrtime 4y ago
    “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I personally find it much more rewarding figuring out a technical problem than watching a crying baby.
    - andrei_says_ 4y ago
      “A crying baby” you imagine for the sake of being contrarian != your son. Also toddler, not a baby. A toddler spends most of their time exploring and learning, discovering the world. A perfect example of a still free, undomesticated human being. A perfect spiritual teacher, in the body of the closest human being you’ll ever have :) By the way, the job quote is one of the broken propaganda stories of capitalism. Even when you like your job you’re still slaving away for money. You believing that’s a great outcome is the point.
    - nehal3m 4y ago
      An employer that not only requires years and years of primary, secondary and tertiary education, the majority of your waking hours, the responsibility to deliver what you promised and all the pain and stress that implies, but on top of all that, requires you to be passionate about the whole thing sounds like hell on earth to me. Employment is a transaction. You get my honest effort, experience and an amount of time agreed upon beforehand. In return I get money so I can live the life I want. That's the end of it.

kennywinker 4y ago

Based on most of the studies i’ve seen, at least for office/information jobs, that pay cut is unjustified. People mostly get as much done in 4 days as 5.

yamtaddle 4y ago
It may be "justified" while five days remains the norm, as it may be possible to get similarly-capable employees to take the position for lower pay, to get that extra day off every week. This should provide a pretty big benefit to companies that can leverage it while five is still typical (assuming that the shift to four is in fact going to become a trend)
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Thinking like an employer - how can i leverage social norms to get same or more work for less pay. If you’re not an employer, why are you thinking about it this way?
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Oh, sure, I think employees ought to organize to increase wages in general. But absent that, the value of perks like a four-day work week (while it remains an unusual perk, at least) do factor into wage negotiations, and individuals can't do much to resist that on their own (aside from... not get the job and keep working five days somewhere else). I'm talking "is", not, "ought", in describing it the way I did.
TeMPOraL 4y ago
Usual counterpoint is that you're not being paid just for the things you get done, but also for availability - for being there when there's a need to handle something unexpected. This has real value to a business, so you being available for 80% of the time justifies some degree of pay cut.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Maybe for some jobs. But for the majority of software jobs? Not really.
  - yodsanklai 4y ago
    It depends. There are some people who bring a lot of value by just being there to answer the occasional questions. When I'm oncall and I know that some colleagues are on vacation, I'm definitely more tense. In an ideal world, knowledge would be spread within the team, but with turnover it's hard to reach and maintain that state.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    I can't really tell. I mean, there's enough people on HN who say they do pair programming at work, and some even that they do whole projects almost exclusively in some sort of group coding sessions - to me this seems like a bizarro world, so what do I know about majority of software jobs? For me personally, every software job I've done so far - including both the ones where I was one of few (or even the only) coders in the company, and ones where I was but a small cog in a multinational corporation - all of them had an availability component. Usually in the form of being there to answer some question, or help someone who's blocked or slowed down by an issue I'm the best suited to resolve (or the only one in the team/branch/company who can).
    - cbushko 4y ago
      I've only had successful paired programming in one situation and it was amazing. I believe it worked because we were friends and at the same knowledge level. In three days, we ripped through a project that should have taken a month. Our 'C' code was perfect because there was always someone looking at it in real time and catching the errors on the spot. I do not think that I will ever encounter this level of productivity ever again.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
Honestly I don't even care. If I could take an extra day off at only 20% cut from my pay check I'd do it in a heart beat.

lettergram 4y ago

I actually work 6 days a week (only Sunday off) noon until midnight with a two hour break 5-7pm. That’s 60 hrs of work a week, but I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. It’s been a great change of pace for me personally. We have a garden we do as a family, I can do doc appointments, some field trips, etc. while still working extremely hard. It’s not for everyone, but that schedule has been great for me personally.

mobiledev2014 4y ago
That’s baffling. Nobody should have to work 60 hours a week and be happy about it, doesn’t matter when the hours are
- lettergram 4y ago
  Lol for almost all human history working all a day was the norm. I don’t necessarily have to do that much work, but I want to get ahead. Most people I grew up with work 40-70hrs a week, often two to three jobs. It’s natural for me to work that much. I don’t even blink at it. What else would you do? Play video games, watch tv, “party”? I can accomplish and build things and spend the rest of the time with family and friends. It’s a good life imo
  - mobiledev2014 4y ago
    I hear what you’re saying but since this is hacker news we’re mostly white collar and we’re not talking about all human history, we’re talking about 2023+. I spend my entire weekend with my kids for one thing. Don’t you miss out on things? And yes I play video games or do literally anything other than work before bed. If you’re including side projects you actually want to build in your 60 hours, that’s totally different of course. And I also don’t mean to judge, as the people working those 2-3 jobs NEED to do it. Nobody wants to.
    - lettergram 4y ago
      From my prior post: > I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. I work from home, so I have no commute (saves a boatload of time) and get to eat every meal with the family (who ever is home). I also spend probably 4-7 hrs with my children every day (and all day Sunday’s). I’m pretty more involved, but sure I miss some stuff. I can’t do afternoon / evenings (unless it’s 5-7pm). In terms of my work breakdown, I tend to do 60-70 hrs. But I code and manage our farm part time (kids will eventually assist with). That’s probably 50 hrs coding/designing, 10-20 hrs on the farm, depending. That obviously will shift a bit depending on weather. I also take 2-3 weeks off coding work to harvest; which are like 12 hr days for a week at a time.

askvictor 4y ago

I did this, then when my son went to school, kept the day off. It's super valuable to just get some time for yourself. Have recently changed career and gone back full time, but pining for that extra time (luckily my company seems to be thinking about a 4 day week)

mettamage 4y ago

In the Netherlands I also take a 20% gross pay cut. So net, that's more like a 10% pay cut. It doesn't pay to work 5 days in NL.

lukevp 4y ago
This doesn’t make sense to me unless it moves you into a lower tax bracket or something. Eg. If you made $100k and were taxed at 30%, you’d get paid net $70k. If you took a 20% gross pay cut, you’d get paid $80k gross and $56k net. 56k is 20% less than 70k.
- nasmorn 4y ago
  In the Austrian tax system you are not taxed in one bracket. The first 15k are free next 5k at 15%, next 10k at 25% and so on. So your average tax rate will always be lower than your marginal rate, thus removing 20% gross will never remove 20% net. Actual values depend on your income of course.
  - benjaminwootton 4y ago
    In the UK we have the tax free allowances, but we start to lose them as we earn more. For instance, around £100k in earnings they start to tax your personal allowance so you are effectively taxed at 60%. You then move into 45% tax and then start to lose pension allowances at £250k. First world problems, but these are all cliffs where it makes sense to keep your income down. Losing 20% off the top line will reduce your income by closer to 10% if my math is correct. We have a problem in the UK with higher earners dropping out of the workforce partly because of the tax incentives. I personally choose not to work as an employee in the UK because I would be paying more than 50% in tax.
    - rpep 4y ago
      The child benefit threshold makes it pretty bad for most mid to high household incomes too, effectively a 60% marginal tax rate between £50k and £60k if you have a student loan

TedShiller 4y ago

I don't see any downside to a 4 day work week. Workers should expect to get paid 4/5 of what they made before, but it could be well worth it.

andrei_says_ 4y ago

You will remember the moments you spend with your son - and kids grow up fast. The days at work - those no one will remember.

kitd 4y ago
Yes! When you lie on your deathbed, will you say "I wish I'd spent more time at the office"?
- mlrtime 4y ago
  “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I personally find it much more rewarding figuring out a technical problem than watching a crying baby.
  - andrei_says_ 4y ago
    “A crying baby” you imagine for the sake of being contrarian != your son. Also toddler, not a baby. A toddler spends most of their time exploring and learning, discovering the world. A perfect example of a still free, undomesticated human being. A perfect spiritual teacher, in the body of the closest human being you’ll ever have :) By the way, the job quote is one of the broken propaganda stories of capitalism. Even when you like your job you’re still slaving away for money. You believing that’s a great outcome is the point.
  - nehal3m 4y ago
    An employer that not only requires years and years of primary, secondary and tertiary education, the majority of your waking hours, the responsibility to deliver what you promised and all the pain and stress that implies, but on top of all that, requires you to be passionate about the whole thing sounds like hell on earth to me. Employment is a transaction. You get my honest effort, experience and an amount of time agreed upon beforehand. In return I get money so I can live the life I want. That's the end of it.