5 ms·

4-day workweek employees are happier. One lawmaker says it's 'here to stay.'

51 points by jedberg 3y ago

syspec 3y ago
What about 1 or 0 day work week employees? Probably the happiest.
- throwbadubadu 3y ago
  (Fail)
  - nickff 3y ago
    The parent is obviously engaging in reductio ad absurdum, which is not a logical fallacy. Where did you get the impression that they were creating a strawman, or engaging in whataboutism?
    - jraph 3y ago
      It does not look like reductio ad absurdum. Reductio ad absurdum would be more like "Assume X. [...]. Then false. Therefore, X can't be true." It looks like an instance of the slippery slope fallacy - kind of. ("4 days? What next? 0?" - more like "of course people are happier working less, so what?" though)
      - nickff 3y ago
        The root comment never implied that a zero or one day work-week was the inevitable consequence of the four-day work-week, so I don't think it was a slippery slope argument. Their argument seemed more like a reductio ad absurdum, because they took the basic subject of the article to an extreme, and asked why not.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jraph 3y ago
  Yes? Would you not want this for you? I would, this would allow me to work on whatever is meaningful for me, what I believe is worth doing, and engage in other enjoying activity. I'm working towards having the most meaningful "paid" work possible, but as long as I have to cater to customer or company needs, it has small chances to be fully aligned with what I want to do. I also believe a lot of useless crap gets produced, we don't need to work as much as we are doing and we would be better off on many aspects reducing this amount of useless work we impose ourselves as a species. So of course 0 days of work per week for everyone is not conceivable, but reducing the hours is largely imaginable. We are not talking about a 1 or 0 day work week here though. Various studies and experiments show that productivity is not quite reduced from 5 to 4 day week workdays, while making people happier. Assuming it's true, it's worth it and we have little reason not to do it.
  - ttoinou 3y ago
    [flagged]
- hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
  Definitely. It’s called early retirement.
jvreeland 3y ago
YES PLEASE. I'd really like to see us head towards 3 6 hours days.
- DANmode 3y ago
  3x 16hr days more likely, in some regions...
Hermitian909 3y ago
This is such a weird disconnect between middle class white collar workers and the rest of the country. I know a bunch of people working 60-80 hours a week, usually doing multiple jobs, just to make ends meet. It feels strange to be offered the chance to work less than half as much as another human and receive substantially greater rewards for my efforts. It would be interesting to see what this does to social cohesion.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Are rents too high? I mean unless living in rent controlled apartments I don't understand how people can afford working at normal jobs in most metropolitan areas.
- euroderf 3y ago
  > I know a bunch of people working 60-80 hours a week, usually doing multiple jobs, just to make ends meet. Is their hourly rate anywhere close to 15$/hour ?
- mlyle 3y ago
  If we adopt a 4 day / 36 hour workweek as normal, we can expect substantial social benefits: - Reduced commuting, etc. - Improved health / quality of life. - Reduced supply of labor (due to overtime kicking in) should push up equilibrium price. > It feels strange to be offered the chance to work less than half as much as another human and receive substantially greater rewards for my efforts This is the nature of any job where there's substantial leverage effects: if your work can make a hundred people fractionally more productive, you're going to reap outsized rewards. LLMs are just going to amplify this, by devaluing a lot of work but allowing other people to be fantastically more productive thanks to their leverage.
  - ttoinou 3y ago
    Lets make it 1 day workweeks then. The benefits will be even greater
    - 3y ago
xupybd 3y ago
As a new parent I would love a 4-day workweek. But, I don't think I'll find that anytime soon.
ipaddr 3y ago
This is another way to pretend to listen but force everyone back to the office
armchairhacker 3y ago
Let people work whatever schedule they want, as long as the work is getting done. Obviously certain jobs like retail can’t just have people “not working”, but you can coordinate shifts. Or if there’s a scheduled period of time like with construction that’s different (though the construction guys and gals can help decide the schedule). And obviously even in tech jobs people need to communicate, present, have meetings, etc. But other than that, actually talk to people to see what schedule, within the necessary constraints, works best for them. It’s their productivity which helps your company (of course if their schedule is 1 day a week then they’re not being productive; but if an employee does the same amount of work in <36 hours and is ok getting paid for only <36 hours, it’s a win-win).
- lm28469 3y ago
  > as long as the work is getting done. First you'd have to define that. The "work to be done" increased with our productivity. We started with machines doing the work of 50 people, thread weaving for example, but it didn't mean thread weavers worked 50 times less, it just meant we produced 50 times more. You can apply that to pretty much every fields. When the end goal is "produce as much as you can" there is no "getting the job done", the only limits are set by laws regulating salaries and working hours.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
The best thing that we could do to bring about more flexible work schedules is to decouple medical and retirement benefits from employment. It's harder to do for a low wage workers who are paid more than they would otherwise be able to negotiate for, but High demand low Supply jobs would adjust pretty quickly
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Huh. I would've been fine with 10-hour days. Why cut everyone's hours? Unreasonable.
archo 3y ago
https://archive.is/JlfD7 https://archive.is/JlfD7

51 points by jedberg 3y ago

syspec 3y ago

What about 1 or 0 day work week employees? Probably the happiest.

throwbadubadu 3y ago
(Fail)
- nickff 3y ago
  The parent is obviously engaging in reductio ad absurdum, which is not a logical fallacy. Where did you get the impression that they were creating a strawman, or engaging in whataboutism?
  - jraph 3y ago
    It does not look like reductio ad absurdum. Reductio ad absurdum would be more like "Assume X. [...]. Then false. Therefore, X can't be true." It looks like an instance of the slippery slope fallacy - kind of. ("4 days? What next? 0?" - more like "of course people are happier working less, so what?" though)
    - nickff 3y ago
      The root comment never implied that a zero or one day work-week was the inevitable consequence of the four-day work-week, so I don't think it was a slippery slope argument. Their argument seemed more like a reductio ad absurdum, because they took the basic subject of the article to an extreme, and asked why not.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jraph 3y ago
Yes? Would you not want this for you? I would, this would allow me to work on whatever is meaningful for me, what I believe is worth doing, and engage in other enjoying activity. I'm working towards having the most meaningful "paid" work possible, but as long as I have to cater to customer or company needs, it has small chances to be fully aligned with what I want to do. I also believe a lot of useless crap gets produced, we don't need to work as much as we are doing and we would be better off on many aspects reducing this amount of useless work we impose ourselves as a species. So of course 0 days of work per week for everyone is not conceivable, but reducing the hours is largely imaginable. We are not talking about a 1 or 0 day work week here though. Various studies and experiments show that productivity is not quite reduced from 5 to 4 day week workdays, while making people happier. Assuming it's true, it's worth it and we have little reason not to do it.
- ttoinou 3y ago
  [flagged]
hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
Definitely. It’s called early retirement.

jvreeland 3y ago

YES PLEASE. I'd really like to see us head towards 3 6 hours days.

DANmode 3y ago
3x 16hr days more likely, in some regions...

Hermitian909 3y ago

This is such a weird disconnect between middle class white collar workers and the rest of the country. I know a bunch of people working 60-80 hours a week, usually doing multiple jobs, just to make ends meet. It feels strange to be offered the chance to work less than half as much as another human and receive substantially greater rewards for my efforts. It would be interesting to see what this does to social cohesion.

rightbyte 3y ago
Are rents too high? I mean unless living in rent controlled apartments I don't understand how people can afford working at normal jobs in most metropolitan areas.
euroderf 3y ago
> I know a bunch of people working 60-80 hours a week, usually doing multiple jobs, just to make ends meet. Is their hourly rate anywhere close to 15$/hour ?
mlyle 3y ago
If we adopt a 4 day / 36 hour workweek as normal, we can expect substantial social benefits: - Reduced commuting, etc. - Improved health / quality of life. - Reduced supply of labor (due to overtime kicking in) should push up equilibrium price. > It feels strange to be offered the chance to work less than half as much as another human and receive substantially greater rewards for my efforts This is the nature of any job where there's substantial leverage effects: if your work can make a hundred people fractionally more productive, you're going to reap outsized rewards. LLMs are just going to amplify this, by devaluing a lot of work but allowing other people to be fantastically more productive thanks to their leverage.
- ttoinou 3y ago
  Lets make it 1 day workweeks then. The benefits will be even greater
  - 3y ago

xupybd 3y ago

As a new parent I would love a 4-day workweek. But, I don't think I'll find that anytime soon.

ipaddr 3y ago

This is another way to pretend to listen but force everyone back to the office

armchairhacker 3y ago

Let people work whatever schedule they want, as long as the work is getting done. Obviously certain jobs like retail can’t just have people “not working”, but you can coordinate shifts. Or if there’s a scheduled period of time like with construction that’s different (though the construction guys and gals can help decide the schedule). And obviously even in tech jobs people need to communicate, present, have meetings, etc. But other than that, actually talk to people to see what schedule, within the necessary constraints, works best for them. It’s their productivity which helps your company (of course if their schedule is 1 day a week then they’re not being productive; but if an employee does the same amount of work in <36 hours and is ok getting paid for only <36 hours, it’s a win-win).

lm28469 3y ago
> as long as the work is getting done. First you'd have to define that. The "work to be done" increased with our productivity. We started with machines doing the work of 50 people, thread weaving for example, but it didn't mean thread weavers worked 50 times less, it just meant we produced 50 times more. You can apply that to pretty much every fields. When the end goal is "produce as much as you can" there is no "getting the job done", the only limits are set by laws regulating salaries and working hours.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

The best thing that we could do to bring about more flexible work schedules is to decouple medical and retirement benefits from employment. It's harder to do for a low wage workers who are paid more than they would otherwise be able to negotiate for, but High demand low Supply jobs would adjust pretty quickly

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

Huh. I would've been fine with 10-hour days. Why cut everyone's hours? Unreasonable.

archo 3y ago

https://archive.is/JlfD7 https://archive.is/JlfD7