7 ms·

When I was living in France, I thought it was a great idea. As a white collar (so not being bound to the 9 to 5 and sometimes pulling in 36h shifts...), the sy

by bato 12y ago

When I was living in France, I thought it was a great idea. As a white collar (so not being bound to the 9 to 5 and sometimes pulling in 36h shifts...), the system worked as such: I would work 5 days a week, and get an extra day off of my choice every fortnight. The results were really great for me and people I knew: I no longer needed to take days off to deal with paperwork, and other administrative tasks, I could finally get an appointment with my banker. I could afford to go to the day market to buy fresh produce. I knew of married couples that would alternate theirs to be on days where the kids didn't have school (traditionally wednesdays) so they didn't have to source someone to watch over the kids on a traditionally very busy day for childcare. Obviously the system is not perfect, but surely as work gets "easier" the way forward would be to reduce hours worked, not increase them...

zobzu 12y ago
i think thats a great point - that said most french ppl i know pull about 45h a week in the tech industry and are "manager" level (but arent actually managers)
- bato 12y ago
  That's what most white collar jobs are ("cadre"). They do come with a more favourable termination notice and retirement plan as well so it's not all bad.
nilkn 12y ago
A friend of mine is a chemical engineer at Chevron and he gets every other Friday off. This is in the US. Technically he's supposed to be working 9 to 6 instead of 9 to 5 to make up for it (which amounts to an extra 8-9 hours over the 9 working days from the two week period), but I think in practice it's still pretty lenient. That said, this sort of arrangement seems to be extremely rare in the US, and I think even among oil companies it's fairly rare for desk jobs.
- derf_ 12y ago
  > That said, this sort of arrangement seems to be extremely rare in the US No, this is pretty common in government and government contracting. It's called an RDO: "regular day off"... more commonly known outside the US as a "rostered day off". When I was a contractor we had even more flexible arrangements: we could work whatever hours we wanted, as long as they added up to 80 every two weeks. Eventually this got abused enough it was cut down so you could shift at most 10 hours between week 1 and week 2, but you could still, say, work just four 10-hour days every week.
  - Axsuul 12y ago
    This is also called 9/80 in defense jobs.
  - 5555624 12y ago
    Or "CWS Day" - Compressed Work Schedule. Four 9-hour days and one 8-hour day one week and four 9-hour days the second week for a total of 80-hours for a two week pay period. We used to have offices in New Jersey, just outside New York City, and they had four 10-hour days each week. (Supposedly a state law?)
  - VLM 12y ago
    I do four tens and a little known feature is by missing rush hours I still spend 40 hrs in the office but I spend MUCH less time away from home, I spend much less time in my car. five eights is an hour each way in the car ten times a week thats 50 hours away from home. for tens is 20 minutes each way eight times a week thats about 43 hours a week away from home. Its like getting a free day off every week! Also I burn much less than 4/5 the gas because no stop and go!
    - icelancer 12y ago
      4x10 is what I pulled at Microsoft; actually 9, 10, 10, 11 hr shifts. It worked out really well but did occasionally cause headaches with scheduling.
- keypusher 12y ago
nrao123 12y ago
Because of Robots- the whole world may move to a 3 day work week. Here is Larry Page on that. “If you really think about the things that you need to make yourself happy—housing, security, opportunities for your kids—anthropologists have been identifying these things. It’s not that hard for us to provide those things,” he said. “The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that actually needs to go into that is pretty small. I’m guessing less than 1% at the moment. So the idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet people’s needs is just not true.” “You just reduce work time,” Page said. “Most people, if I ask them, ‘Would you like an extra week of vacation?’ They raise their hands, 100% of the people. ‘Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?’ Everyone will raise their hand. Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/07/07/googles-larry-page-on-the-40-hour-work-week-jm-keynes-got-there-first/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/07/07/googles-l...
- rumcajz 12y ago
  I've done a little write-up on the sociology/economics of the work done beyond what's actually useful: http://250bpm.com/blog:44 http://250bpm.com/blog:44
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Whomever develops and owns that automation is going to have to give it away (similar to what Elon did with the Tesla patents) if Page wants to move towards that model. We've already seen wages stagnate for 30+ years because of productivity's decoupling from human capital (with productivity now captured through technology, which would encompass software, robotics, and other various automations): http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity-and-real-wages.jpg http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/producti...
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Wages where? Certainly not in China. Perhaps American wages are stagnating because they are getting closer to the average while at the same time the average wage is skyrocketing.
FoeNyx 12y ago
What you are describing is not the 35h system, but the "RTT" (the extra days off coming for the accumulated extra time per day). There are a lot of private companies in France where the 35h do not implies those extra days off. For example, in some companies, they say the employees "can" take 15min break time every half day, but 80% of employees work during this so called break so effectively doing working 37.5h per week, paid 35h. (And lot of extra work hours are not even paid either for blue or white collars). But yes people I know who benefit from RTT are generally truly happy with them, for all the reasons you cited.
- blencdr 12y ago
  Also some company pay the RTT at the end of the year. It's a good solution for a employee to get a little bonus once a year.

by bato 12y ago

zobzu 12y ago

i think thats a great point - that said most french ppl i know pull about 45h a week in the tech industry and are "manager" level (but arent actually managers)

bato 12y ago
That's what most white collar jobs are ("cadre"). They do come with a more favourable termination notice and retirement plan as well so it's not all bad.

nilkn 12y ago

A friend of mine is a chemical engineer at Chevron and he gets every other Friday off. This is in the US. Technically he's supposed to be working 9 to 6 instead of 9 to 5 to make up for it (which amounts to an extra 8-9 hours over the 9 working days from the two week period), but I think in practice it's still pretty lenient. That said, this sort of arrangement seems to be extremely rare in the US, and I think even among oil companies it's fairly rare for desk jobs.

derf_ 12y ago
> That said, this sort of arrangement seems to be extremely rare in the US No, this is pretty common in government and government contracting. It's called an RDO: "regular day off"... more commonly known outside the US as a "rostered day off". When I was a contractor we had even more flexible arrangements: we could work whatever hours we wanted, as long as they added up to 80 every two weeks. Eventually this got abused enough it was cut down so you could shift at most 10 hours between week 1 and week 2, but you could still, say, work just four 10-hour days every week.
- Axsuul 12y ago
  This is also called 9/80 in defense jobs.
- 5555624 12y ago
  Or "CWS Day" - Compressed Work Schedule. Four 9-hour days and one 8-hour day one week and four 9-hour days the second week for a total of 80-hours for a two week pay period. We used to have offices in New Jersey, just outside New York City, and they had four 10-hour days each week. (Supposedly a state law?)
- VLM 12y ago
  I do four tens and a little known feature is by missing rush hours I still spend 40 hrs in the office but I spend MUCH less time away from home, I spend much less time in my car. five eights is an hour each way in the car ten times a week thats 50 hours away from home. for tens is 20 minutes each way eight times a week thats about 43 hours a week away from home. Its like getting a free day off every week! Also I burn much less than 4/5 the gas because no stop and go!
  - icelancer 12y ago
    4x10 is what I pulled at Microsoft; actually 9, 10, 10, 11 hr shifts. It worked out really well but did occasionally cause headaches with scheduling.
keypusher 12y ago

nrao123 12y ago

Because of Robots- the whole world may move to a 3 day work week. Here is Larry Page on that. “If you really think about the things that you need to make yourself happy—housing, security, opportunities for your kids—anthropologists have been identifying these things. It’s not that hard for us to provide those things,” he said. “The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that actually needs to go into that is pretty small. I’m guessing less than 1% at the moment. So the idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet people’s needs is just not true.” “You just reduce work time,” Page said. “Most people, if I ask them, ‘Would you like an extra week of vacation?’ They raise their hands, 100% of the people. ‘Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?’ Everyone will raise their hand. Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/07/07/googles-larry-page-on-the-40-hour-work-week-jm-keynes-got-there-first/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/07/07/googles-l...

rumcajz 12y ago
I've done a little write-up on the sociology/economics of the work done beyond what's actually useful: http://250bpm.com/blog:44 http://250bpm.com/blog:44
toomuchtodo 12y ago
Whomever develops and owns that automation is going to have to give it away (similar to what Elon did with the Tesla patents) if Page wants to move towards that model. We've already seen wages stagnate for 30+ years because of productivity's decoupling from human capital (with productivity now captured through technology, which would encompass software, robotics, and other various automations): http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/productivity-and-real-wages.jpg http://thecurrentmoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/producti...
- seanflyon 12y ago
  Wages where? Certainly not in China. Perhaps American wages are stagnating because they are getting closer to the average while at the same time the average wage is skyrocketing.

FoeNyx 12y ago

What you are describing is not the 35h system, but the "RTT" (the extra days off coming for the accumulated extra time per day). There are a lot of private companies in France where the 35h do not implies those extra days off. For example, in some companies, they say the employees "can" take 15min break time every half day, but 80% of employees work during this so called break so effectively doing working 37.5h per week, paid 35h. (And lot of extra work hours are not even paid either for blue or white collars). But yes people I know who benefit from RTT are generally truly happy with them, for all the reasons you cited.

blencdr 12y ago
Also some company pay the RTT at the end of the year. It's a good solution for a employee to get a little bonus once a year.