5 ms·

Parts of US Department of Defense and their contractors do what they refer to as Compressed Work Schedule (CWS) wherein employees work 9-hour days and get ever

Parts of US Department of Defense and their contractors do what they refer to as Compressed Work Schedule (CWS) wherein employees work 9-hour days and get every other Friday off. Some people opt to split their off day and make every Friday a half-day so that they can be on the links or at the riverside bar and grill by lunchtime. While in college I worked 10 hours a day Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Saturday was fairly productive on account of nobody being in the office to bother me. Ever since I've taken remote jobs that have unlimited PTO I haven't missed these arrangements at all. No commute and the ability to take time off with reasonable constraints means that I'm able to catch up on chores and personal obligations much more easily.

marssaxman 2y ago
Being able to step away for a couple of minutes to start a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, carry out the trash, or perform some other bit of household maintenance is a seriously underrated benefit of working from home! Baking bread, for example, is an hours-long process consisting of quick tasks separated by long waits; I used to bake several times a week, last time I was working from home, but I haven't done it once since I resumed the office commute.
- supportengineer 2y ago
  I am working from home and this reminded me to check the laundry
  - allendoerfer 2y ago
    Do not disturb my deep work phases with your HN comments!
015a 2y ago
IMO: I have never worked in a job where I would have been like "heck yeah, four day work week lets do it". Part of that is, there's kinda two distinct and separate camps, and sometimes its unclear which camp people are in and what we're fighting for. Is it "I work ~40 hours in four days" or "I work ~32 hours in four days"? And my take is, I don't like either of these solutions. I've never worked in a role where I feel like working 32 hours a week would deliver meaningfully similar results to working 40 hours. You're just gonna deliver less. That doesn't mean I'm coding for 40 hours a week, not even close, but there's so much admin and meetings (and even just finding availability for meetings!) that reducing net hours worked by 20% isn't going to have market success. Increasing the hours worked on each day by 20%, but getting an extra day off, also sucks. There's more "things I gotta do every day" than "things I gotta do every week". I need every hour I've got most nights. Cooking, working out, reading, entertainment to keep the sad away, some types of shopping, these aren't by and large things that I can just say "lets wait and do them all on my extra Friday off!", they need to be done ~every day. What you say is 100% my feeling as well: I am comfortable working 38-42 hours a week, and I want to by-and-large choose the hours and days I work to hit that. That is the best solution. If I need to schedule a dentist appointment for 1pm two weeks out, I want to do that without thinking even for a second that I need to check with "work", file PTO, etc. In exchange, I'll make up that hour by working until 6pm, or going to a coffee shop for a couple hours over the weekend, whatever feels like it makes the most sense for where I'm at and where the business is at. And, sure, there's core hours, there's meetings, we work around those; I'm talking policy, not the day to day. This pattern of handling time off is so important to me that I have quit a job within the first month because they misrepresented how they handled PTO. I was told "oh yeah you can take off for a doctors, whatever bro no big deal", which turned into "oh no you've gotta file PTO, any time off throughout the day costs a full day and needs to be approved". I quit on the spot. Policies like that, four day work weeks, limited PTO, attract cogs, not high performers.
- t-writescode 2y ago
  > I've never worked in a role where I feel like working 32 hours a week would deliver meaningfully similar results to working 40 hours. It may be my neurodivergency, but I'm the exact opposite. There's rarely a job where I'm *actually, butts-in-seats working* for 40 hours a week where I would deliver, over a study period of months, more good, correct and helpful work than if I spend less time at work. I could probably technically vomit out more code; but it would be more buggy and have more design decisions that would bite me later (and more possibly sink the company). Of course 20 hours is better than 10 hours; and for most people, 20 hours is better than 30; but is 40 hours better than 30? For a lot of people, I __don't think so__, but I also think those same people have been tricked into a system where they're forced to go beyond their own comfort and maximum operating efficiency just to show their presence and willingness to work. And I think they're harmed in the long term for it.
  - danjl 2y ago
    I've rarely met anyone who can get more than four useful hours a day. Sure, there's lots more time when you are thinking about work, writing code in your head, prioritizing, and planning. That stuff can and does happen when you sit at your desk, or while you are biking, running, doing laundry, or watching tv.
  - 015a 2y ago
    > I could probably technically vomit out more code; but it would be more buggy and have more design decisions that would bite me later (and more possibly sink the company). So: Very generally speaking: I disagree. You've conflated "productive" with "coding", which is something software engineers do quite often. There are many, many ways to be productive beyond just writing code, that even software engineers should consider within the realm of their responsibilities. I call out a couple in my original comment; admin, meetings, organizing information, documenting, writing tests, small chore-like tickets, mentorship, learning about some part of the system, etc. Part of gaining seniority is, I think, that ability to recognize "I'm not gonna be able to write more code today; but I think my brain is in the right place to make some meaningful progress on {whatever}". Going steps beyond that; planning your days by predicting what your mental state will probably be, to maximize the things that need to be done when you are at your best to do them, is how you start going above Senior.

marssaxman 2y ago

Being able to step away for a couple of minutes to start a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, carry out the trash, or perform some other bit of household maintenance is a seriously underrated benefit of working from home! Baking bread, for example, is an hours-long process consisting of quick tasks separated by long waits; I used to bake several times a week, last time I was working from home, but I haven't done it once since I resumed the office commute.

supportengineer 2y ago
I am working from home and this reminded me to check the laundry
- allendoerfer 2y ago
  Do not disturb my deep work phases with your HN comments!

015a 2y ago

IMO: I have never worked in a job where I would have been like "heck yeah, four day work week lets do it". Part of that is, there's kinda two distinct and separate camps, and sometimes its unclear which camp people are in and what we're fighting for. Is it "I work ~40 hours in four days" or "I work ~32 hours in four days"? And my take is, I don't like either of these solutions. I've never worked in a role where I feel like working 32 hours a week would deliver meaningfully similar results to working 40 hours. You're just gonna deliver less. That doesn't mean I'm coding for 40 hours a week, not even close, but there's so much admin and meetings (and even just finding availability for meetings!) that reducing net hours worked by 20% isn't going to have market success. Increasing the hours worked on each day by 20%, but getting an extra day off, also sucks. There's more "things I gotta do every day" than "things I gotta do every week". I need every hour I've got most nights. Cooking, working out, reading, entertainment to keep the sad away, some types of shopping, these aren't by and large things that I can just say "lets wait and do them all on my extra Friday off!", they need to be done ~every day. What you say is 100% my feeling as well: I am comfortable working 38-42 hours a week, and I want to by-and-large choose the hours and days I work to hit that. That is the best solution. If I need to schedule a dentist appointment for 1pm two weeks out, I want to do that without thinking even for a second that I need to check with "work", file PTO, etc. In exchange, I'll make up that hour by working until 6pm, or going to a coffee shop for a couple hours over the weekend, whatever feels like it makes the most sense for where I'm at and where the business is at. And, sure, there's core hours, there's meetings, we work around those; I'm talking policy, not the day to day. This pattern of handling time off is so important to me that I have quit a job within the first month because they misrepresented how they handled PTO. I was told "oh yeah you can take off for a doctors, whatever bro no big deal", which turned into "oh no you've gotta file PTO, any time off throughout the day costs a full day and needs to be approved". I quit on the spot. Policies like that, four day work weeks, limited PTO, attract cogs, not high performers.

t-writescode 2y ago
> I've never worked in a role where I feel like working 32 hours a week would deliver meaningfully similar results to working 40 hours. It may be my neurodivergency, but I'm the exact opposite. There's rarely a job where I'm *actually, butts-in-seats working* for 40 hours a week where I would deliver, over a study period of months, more good, correct and helpful work than if I spend less time at work. I could probably technically vomit out more code; but it would be more buggy and have more design decisions that would bite me later (and more possibly sink the company). Of course 20 hours is better than 10 hours; and for most people, 20 hours is better than 30; but is 40 hours better than 30? For a lot of people, I __don't think so__, but I also think those same people have been tricked into a system where they're forced to go beyond their own comfort and maximum operating efficiency just to show their presence and willingness to work. And I think they're harmed in the long term for it.
- danjl 2y ago
  I've rarely met anyone who can get more than four useful hours a day. Sure, there's lots more time when you are thinking about work, writing code in your head, prioritizing, and planning. That stuff can and does happen when you sit at your desk, or while you are biking, running, doing laundry, or watching tv.
- 015a 2y ago
  > I could probably technically vomit out more code; but it would be more buggy and have more design decisions that would bite me later (and more possibly sink the company). So: Very generally speaking: I disagree. You've conflated "productive" with "coding", which is something software engineers do quite often. There are many, many ways to be productive beyond just writing code, that even software engineers should consider within the realm of their responsibilities. I call out a couple in my original comment; admin, meetings, organizing information, documenting, writing tests, small chore-like tickets, mentorship, learning about some part of the system, etc. Part of gaining seniority is, I think, that ability to recognize "I'm not gonna be able to write more code today; but I think my brain is in the right place to make some meaningful progress on {whatever}". Going steps beyond that; planning your days by predicting what your mental state will probably be, to maximize the things that need to be done when you are at your best to do them, is how you start going above Senior.