5 ms·

The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ah

• ranyume 5mo ago
  What do you mean? You just need to ban companies from doing 5 days work.
  • madrox 5mo ago
    Amusingly, there is literally not even a 7 day work week ban for companies in the US. You can require employees work every day. Employers are just required to pay employees overtime under various conditions beyond 40 hours / five days a week, which is why you don't see it. And what's more, software engineers are exempt from these rules because of their pay grades. If you're a SWE making a salary the odds are your employer could require you work on Saturdays without running afowl of labor laws. This is all powered by norms.
    • culi 5mo ago
      it's not powered by norms. In the US, if you want to employ someone more than 40 hours you have to give them extra overtime pay. It's called the Fair Labor Standards Act and it was passed in 1938
      • madrox 5mo ago
        Unless you are exempt. Guess what profession tends to be considered exempt? If you are a SWE, you don't get paid overtime for working that incident on the weekend or going over 40 hours in a week. The only reason you work five days a week is tradition.
        • dalyons 5mo ago
          Hence the rise of 996 bs
      • kelnos 5mo ago
        It's easy to get around that; just switch your employees to a salaried arrangement, and now you're exempt from shelling out for overtime pay. Give the employees enough work such that they have to work on weekends... and... done.
    • zeroonetwothree 5mo ago
      "Yeah, hello, Peter. What's happening? Listen, um, I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday. So, if you could be here around 9, that would be great. Mmhkay? Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. I'm also going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too."
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  • dwg 5mo ago
    Same logic applies internationally.
    • madrox 5mo ago
      Pretty much everywhere outside the US has stronger employee protections on this (with a few obvious notable exceptions). France is a great place to be an employee.
  • lII1lIlI11ll 5mo ago
    You would also need to ban them from employing people in other countries that allow 5 days work.
• zanecodes 5mo ago
  If only there were some kind of third party we could all collectively agree to delegate enforcement of cooperation to...
  • madrox 5mo ago
    Interestingly, software engineers are usually considered exempt in the US, meaning they can be required to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay if employers choose to. Unless you're imagining congress do something. I want to shoot fireballs from my fingers, but unfortunately we don't live in a world of magic.
    • shimman 5mo ago
      You can lobby Congress to do things, even better you can volunteer at campaigns and try to elect people to Congress that want to do these things. Acting like we are helpless and the future is determined is straight up loser talk while also not being historically accurate in the slightest. You should go read about people starting wildcat strikes while working in literal company towns. There is tremendous power when we organize together, a power so great the elites have spent almost a 100 years trying to destroy the fruits of their success.
      • madrox 5mo ago
        You, too, can do these things. I welcome you to. I will be happy to say I am wrong. Unions have real potential for creating change. I personally have no interest in joining a union for other reasons, but I am not opposed to them either. But we weren't talking about unions. We were talking about congress. I think you will find that tech workers are not the only job segment, and far from the most sympathetic due to their wages. Lobbying for an extra day off will not get you far in the face of many more pressing issues, and the party most likely to stand up for workers is more interested in stopping data centers at the moment. Unless you're talking about a time horizon past which I don't think I'll be around to notice.
    • quadrifoliate 5mo ago
      Influencing Congress is wildly easier than shooting fireballs from your fingers. This is supposed to be a site with optimistic people that do things. Imagine what you could do politically with the help of LLMs.
• hx8 5mo ago
  By this logic you could get promoted if you worked six day work weeks.
  • madrox 5mo ago
    Have you not seen people who work longer and harder get more promotions? That has been my experience.
    • lofties 5mo ago
      Right, so if it's happening already, nothing is going to change. Four days a week it is!
    • AngryData 5mo ago
      Not outside of the tech world, and in many industries if you aren't salaried it can get you fired because they have to pay overtime.
      • ishtanbul 5mo ago
        In finance this is the norm. The people who work the most make the most and there are no rules. I’ve seen people get fired for not working weekends. And overtime is not a thing, its just end of year bonuses.
  • satvikpendem 5mo ago
    There's a reason 996 culture is seeping into American startups. Whether it actually makes them more productive in the market remains to be seen.
    • shimman 5mo ago
      Yes, it's quite sad that when big tech leadership talks positively about China they really like the exploitive labor practices that the country exhibits.
  • dozerly 5mo ago
• apt-apt-apt-apt 5mo ago
  Alright guys, I'm running for president. 4 day work weeks (8 hours each) for employees or prison.
  • toomuchtodo 5mo ago
    You have my vote. Work to live, don’t live to work. ~90% of Iceland is on a 35-36 hours work week, seems to work fine. Remote work was also skeptically thought of up until a global pandemic forced it, and while there has been some retreat, 20% of Americans work remotely in some capacity still. Just need a catalyst to challenge norms and rigid mental models. https://autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ICELAND_4DW.pdf https://autonomy.work/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ICELAND_4DW... https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/business/iceland-shorter-working-week-economy https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/business/iceland-shorter-work... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/21/iceland-36-hour-working-week-stress-job https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/21/icelan...
    • DrProtic 5mo ago
      EU average is 35.9.
    • duskdozer 5mo ago
      >20% of Americans work remotely in some capacity still That's a pretty abysmal number considering the number who do want remote work and its productivity improvements and its overall lower waste. I'm surprised it's so low.
      • toomuchtodo 5mo ago
        How Remote Workers Are Counted Changes Results - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48312822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48312822 - May 2026
  • BirAdam 5mo ago
    You could likely get some funding for a PAC based around this. You just have to get Altman, Musk, and the other to realize that it’s a good marketing move. “Our AI is so awesome and boosts productivity so much that no one has to work another 5 day week, ever again.”
• sneak 5mo ago
  Why isn’t this the case for a six day workweek?
  • madrox 5mo ago
    This is a great question and I encourage you to learn the history of it, because it's fascinating. It’s rooted in labor movements and industrialization.
  • jedimastert 5mo ago
    It was, the 40 hour work week was hard fought for. Also, 996 is apparently a thing
• engineer_22 5mo ago
  A lot of people work less than full time.... Like... You can actually work 4 x 8 if you want to. Or 5x5... No gun to your head Yeah, agreed, you'll have a hard time finding a job with full benis and vacation yada yada, but like,.... Every CEO loves to negotiate So stop being a bitch If 4x8 is important to you: Negotiate *************** Reply to madrox: "Demands" is a loaded term. In negotiations you enter with "must haves" and "like to haves"... Through the course of negotiations you learn new information and reveal your own information.... At the end, whether you take the job or not: you end up with what you deserve. Not what you want. By my assessment, a lot of people are learning that "deserve" is not a character trait, it's market driven.
  • madrox 5mo ago
    This is true, and there is usually a tradeoff you make for it. To your point, it's a negotiation. You usually give something up to get something or be so good you simply cannot be replaced. Such people do not represent the bulk of the workforce, and we're talking about norms here. Because to that CEO you're talking about, you have to convince them your demands are better than the next candidate who doesn't mind working more hours.
  • deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
• burnto 5mo ago
  My thinking tends to be that our standard work week is an equilibrium among a few different forces. We’re motivated by social norms, capital markets, and biological needs and wants. In places like the U.S. the market forces have been powerful enough to really shift social norms. In tandem they’re probably slowly altering our biology too.
  • madrox 5mo ago
    I think you are right. It is practically baked into the American Dream.
• kelnos 5mo ago
  Yes, it's just norms. 15 years ago, I worked for a small startup. For a good 8 or 9 months, we were working 6 and sometimes 7 days a week. We weren't contractually required to, but everyone "wanted" to. I use scare quotes there, but I think a lot of people (myself included, for part of it), really did want to. But ultimately the unsaid thing was: you either work 6/7 days a week, or you get marginalized or fired. And it's not like we weren't putting in the hours on the weekdays; most of us were working 12-hour days, or more. (And wow, we got to drop down to 8-10 on the weekends! So generous!) Dumb. I'll never do something like that again. Not worth it, and certainly not for someone else's company.
• NothingAboutAny 5mo ago
  I went through a big back and forth with a small startup where I initially negotiated in at 3 days a week. Eventually they said "we really need you the full 5 days" and I explained that I'm gonna do the same amount of work regardless and they could pay me 40% less by agreeing to 3 days. they still wanted me 5 days, so I took the job and just coasted those 2 days from home, they were still very happy with my performance, I ended up quitting in 6 months because I wanted my hours in the day back. I really think management still doesn't get it.
  • madrox 5mo ago
    I personally believe in rolling company shutdowns. Give engineering a week off every quarter. Give product the following week off.
• gabrieledarrigo 5mo ago
  > but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. A four-day-a-week worker here. I don't know what you exactly mean, but my personal experience is exactly the opposite. I worked for a startup as a founding engineer, just 4d/w (the CTO was crazily open-minded), and I was never so productive. Doesn't matter that the others were working 5 days, pushing more; it was my responsibility to keep up, and it worked pretty well. Same now, working for a company with the same arrangement. And no one is or was "losing."
  • maleldil 5mo ago
    Out of curiosity, how many hours per day did you work? Was it the same overall time as a 5-day week, just distributed over 4 days, or did you work a whole day less than others?
• intronic 5mo ago
  Four day work week for same pay is entirely possible - change how the work happens https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40691306/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40691306/
• kakacik 5mo ago
  My wife effectively works 3-4 days a week. For mums with young kids its pretty common here in western Europe to have 60% deal, most I know have 80% deal. It means 3-4 days a week just to be sure, not say 6 work hour days. Made up self-pressure is among the worst things smart folks can do in their lives.
• Taronar 5mo ago
  Cynical take because why arent we working 6 days a week then
  • km144 5mo ago
    Because, as the OP said, working hours are powered by norms. There are salaried positions and companies and teams that certainly will make you work 6 days a week, or make you feel like a bad worker if you don't do anything on a Saturday. But the vast majority of companies (and employees within those companies) would consider the expectation of working a 6th day to be completely unacceptable.
• bean469 5mo ago
  > The four day work week is a prisoner's dilemma. If everyone did it, then we'd all get a payoff, but if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. If that is the case, then the same would apply to those who work overtime and on weekends.
• bean469 5mo ago
  > if someone defects to a longer work week they tend to get ahead at work. Thus we all do it and thus we all lose. If that is the case, wouldn't the same would apply to those who work overtime and on weekends?
• pickleglitch 5mo ago
  This is why labor laws and unions exist. It's unfortunate that in the US both have diminished under a withering assault from the ruling class over the past several decades.
• thiagowfx 5mo ago
  I feel these vibes whilst living in Munich (or Bavaria, for that matter). Most stores / shops are forbidden to operate on Sundays or past 8pm, that is enshrined in an ancient law. If you want to open a new store and you are willing to operate Sundays, or perhaps until 10pm, and your employees are also willing to work then...nope, can't do it. Would get ahead of the competition. Not fair, blablabla.
• nrlucas 5mo ago
  This is why it needs to be done top down. Pareto optimizations can only happen that way.