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In America I would really like to see people balance work and life better, and normalizing a 4 day workweek would go a long way to help that. We have a business

by HEmanZ 4y ago

In America I would really like to see people balance work and life better, and normalizing a 4 day workweek would go a long way to help that. We have a business culture and set of laws that I think results most people sacrificing too much life to get stuff that doesn’t make them happy. BUT I disagree strongly with this idea that anyone who works more than 30 hours per week is just unproductive. That’s just factually false. With many jobs productivity scales close to linearly long past 30 hours. Sometimes working more many hours is exponentially more productive. Some people want to work many more hours to get more money, maybe because working more doesn’t bother them, maybe because they’d rather have the money, whatever. I think people want “how many hours should humans work” to have a unified answer, when in reality it ranges from 0 to 100 depending on the person (what they want and what they can do) and situation(e.g some peoples jobs are literally life saving, an extra few hours can be life-or-death). For example: I believe the most productive time of my life, by far and above, was the time I worked insanely long hours, and in fact those hours were exponential since knowledge work and the fruits of knowledge work often compound. Now watch how many people tell me my experience is wrong and I’m either lying or delusional, just because they don’t want to believe that sometimes long hours really are more productive.

blitz_skull 4y ago
I think most folks, especially the ones I’ve spoken to on the issue—specifically object to the idea that more than 40 hours nets any real gain for KNOWLEDGE work. Results may vary. I don’t think anyone is arguing for example that our paramedics aren’t doing anything useful after 40 hours. That’s the key distinction and as someone who has worked a distinctly bullshit job his entire career; I’m not rushing to spend any more time than I need to sitting at that desk.
- HEmanZ 4y ago
  I still argue against this for all knowledge work. I keep seeing this term “bullshit jobs” and need to probably look more into it, but it seems to refer to office jobs where huge amounts of time are wasted on unproductive work. I’ve had this kind of work in the past. But not all knowledge work is like this. I’m a software engineer, and on some of the big projects I’ve been on I have squeezed massive amounts of real productivity out of long long hours. I know managers, bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers who also work long hours and get significantly more done for it. They take an hour less of work per day and start to legitimately fall behind (maybe that’s a good litmus test for how “bullshit” job is? How much time can you take off before it becomes noticeable?). The reality is a spectrum and we shouldn’t bring down some subset in favor of another.
  - escape_goat 4y ago
    But maybe you guys are 1.25 developers. I mean if most people are staring at their screens and done for the week on Friday and you're still getting things done then in terms of ideals — because okay I know this needs hashing out in practice— I don't think anybody is going to resent you taking home a premium based on what you put in every week.
- escape_goat 4y ago
  Honestly if knowledge workers are sort of dialing it in unhappily with minimal productivity after X hours and labor/service/on-call workers can keep plugging away for Y>X hours then there might be some win-win there in terms of quality of life and wage inflation.
the_gipsy 4y ago
> BUT I disagree strongly with this idea that anyone who works more than 30 hours per week is just unproductive. That’s just factually false. With many jobs productivity scales close to linearly long past 30 hours. Blue collar jobs do scale linearly. Many white collar jobs do not, though self-reportedly. But linear or not in itself is not a problem. If it is linear for a certain job, then there simply must be more people employed. Which is always a good thing, since our system has a baseline unemployment almost by design. People in unemployment but wanting to work are miserable and usually exploited when they do find work. Some businesses won't be able to be profitable without exploiting their workers, but this has historically happened every time workers gained some rights.

by HEmanZ 4y ago

blitz_skull 4y ago

I think most folks, especially the ones I’ve spoken to on the issue—specifically object to the idea that more than 40 hours nets any real gain for KNOWLEDGE work. Results may vary. I don’t think anyone is arguing for example that our paramedics aren’t doing anything useful after 40 hours. That’s the key distinction and as someone who has worked a distinctly bullshit job his entire career; I’m not rushing to spend any more time than I need to sitting at that desk.

HEmanZ 4y ago
I still argue against this for all knowledge work. I keep seeing this term “bullshit jobs” and need to probably look more into it, but it seems to refer to office jobs where huge amounts of time are wasted on unproductive work. I’ve had this kind of work in the past. But not all knowledge work is like this. I’m a software engineer, and on some of the big projects I’ve been on I have squeezed massive amounts of real productivity out of long long hours. I know managers, bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers who also work long hours and get significantly more done for it. They take an hour less of work per day and start to legitimately fall behind (maybe that’s a good litmus test for how “bullshit” job is? How much time can you take off before it becomes noticeable?). The reality is a spectrum and we shouldn’t bring down some subset in favor of another.
- escape_goat 4y ago
  But maybe you guys are 1.25 developers. I mean if most people are staring at their screens and done for the week on Friday and you're still getting things done then in terms of ideals — because okay I know this needs hashing out in practice— I don't think anybody is going to resent you taking home a premium based on what you put in every week.
escape_goat 4y ago
Honestly if knowledge workers are sort of dialing it in unhappily with minimal productivity after X hours and labor/service/on-call workers can keep plugging away for Y>X hours then there might be some win-win there in terms of quality of life and wage inflation.

the_gipsy 4y ago

> BUT I disagree strongly with this idea that anyone who works more than 30 hours per week is just unproductive. That’s just factually false. With many jobs productivity scales close to linearly long past 30 hours. Blue collar jobs do scale linearly. Many white collar jobs do not, though self-reportedly. But linear or not in itself is not a problem. If it is linear for a certain job, then there simply must be more people employed. Which is always a good thing, since our system has a baseline unemployment almost by design. People in unemployment but wanting to work are miserable and usually exploited when they do find work. Some businesses won't be able to be profitable without exploiting their workers, but this has historically happened every time workers gained some rights.