4 ms·

We are getting off topic but I agree advances today are a massive opportunity to introduce a standard 4 day week. I feel this is much more short term achievable

We are getting off topic but I agree advances today are a massive opportunity to introduce a standard 4 day week. I feel this is much more short term achievable social advance than the often mentioned basic income. I've had this discussion a few times and the majority of people say a 4 day week is impossible/unrealistic. I enjoy pointing out ~80 years ago we had a 6 day work week and people were saying all the same excuses why we couldn't do a 5 day week. And given for most of us corporate types, the work day is typically going far beyond the 9-5 hours of a traditional day. Now our 40 hour week is easily covered in the 4 days. On a more personal note I'm wondering if your European. I find most Americans are very work obsessed. The idea life is for living and a job is a means to fund that is very foreign. I've found generally withing the first 10 minutes of conversation with someone from the states Ive not met before, they will say this phrase: "I love my job". I'm Australian and while we are heading toward the US view we have a history of life is for living and I'd hate to see that go.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> On a more personal note I'm wondering if your European. I find most Americans are very work obsessed. The idea life is for living and a job is a means to fund that is very foreign. I've found generally withing the first 10 minutes of conversation with someone from the states Ive not met before, they will say this phrase: "I love my job". I'm Australian and while we are heading toward the US view we have a history of life is for living and I'd hate to see that go. I'm American. I see my job as a means to an end; its not my purpose for being. My view has definitely shifted my view on this from my 20s into my 30s (My job previously made up a significant part of my identity; those days are long past now). I'm only 32, but I feel lucky to have shifted so early in life, so as to not waste the rest of it. This isn't to say I enjoy my job. I do. But its only a part of my life.
TheGRS 11y ago
There was and still is a very big push in the States to find your life's fulfillment in your work first. Its very ingrained into our culture these days. I think it stems from the old cliche "if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life". Doing work that you hate is maybe not frowned upon, but if you have that sentiment people will strongly advise you to switch career paths to something that you would find more fulfillment in.
- Gustomaximus 11y ago
  From the "I love my job" I get the feeling it's almost a career obligation to have this view. The view good employees think like this and you're no good at your job if you aren't passionate.
scrollaway 11y ago
There's some additional challenges society would face today with one less standard work day, namely the unavailability of a lot of services for one extra day. I agree we're making society massively more efficient but there are still issues that haven't been fixed. For example, the need for some services which aren't available 24/7 online and become swamped on the Monday. You often see this with embassies, actually. I've lived in several countries and going to the embassy, even for routine things, is often something I have to plan up to months in advance because of their 3 day work week. This would be a huge problem for any regular business and they'd be bankrupt in less time than it takes to run a pitch drop experiment, but the needs of the people who seek embassies don't actually go away, keeping the queue reliably more full than can ever be handled. The Central Bureaucracy building from Futurama [1] sums up the situation very nicely. I absolutely think a 4-day work week is possible; long term, even a lot less. But the model of "everybody works full time, services become unavailable outside of office hours" needs to be phased out first. [1] http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/en.futurama/images/e/e4/Central_Bureaucracy.jpg http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/en.futurama/images/e/e4/...
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  Your issue with the Embassy is not that they work only 3 days a week (they likely keep themselves busy 5 days like everybody else). Even in 'socialist' europe with its harsh enforcement of 5 day weeks you can typically go shopping on at least 6 days a week. You can also shop for more than 8 hours every day despite 8 hour shifts. That's just a simple scheduling puzzle, and (the much harder issue) of sharing the gains in profit that come from increased productivity. By the way, the Jetsons TV show envisioned a 3 times 3 hours work week (with enough income to feed a family of 4 and even have a robotic maid). In the 60s. I happily forfeit my right to flying cars or jetpacks in favor of that.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> On a more personal note I'm wondering if your European. I find most Americans are very work obsessed. The idea life is for living and a job is a means to fund that is very foreign. I've found generally withing the first 10 minutes of conversation with someone from the states Ive not met before, they will say this phrase: "I love my job". I'm Australian and while we are heading toward the US view we have a history of life is for living and I'd hate to see that go. I'm American. I see my job as a means to an end; its not my purpose for being. My view has definitely shifted my view on this from my 20s into my 30s (My job previously made up a significant part of my identity; those days are long past now). I'm only 32, but I feel lucky to have shifted so early in life, so as to not waste the rest of it. This isn't to say I enjoy my job. I do. But its only a part of my life.

TheGRS 11y ago

There was and still is a very big push in the States to find your life's fulfillment in your work first. Its very ingrained into our culture these days. I think it stems from the old cliche "if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life". Doing work that you hate is maybe not frowned upon, but if you have that sentiment people will strongly advise you to switch career paths to something that you would find more fulfillment in.

Gustomaximus 11y ago
From the "I love my job" I get the feeling it's almost a career obligation to have this view. The view good employees think like this and you're no good at your job if you aren't passionate.

scrollaway 11y ago

There's some additional challenges society would face today with one less standard work day, namely the unavailability of a lot of services for one extra day. I agree we're making society massively more efficient but there are still issues that haven't been fixed. For example, the need for some services which aren't available 24/7 online and become swamped on the Monday. You often see this with embassies, actually. I've lived in several countries and going to the embassy, even for routine things, is often something I have to plan up to months in advance because of their 3 day work week. This would be a huge problem for any regular business and they'd be bankrupt in less time than it takes to run a pitch drop experiment, but the needs of the people who seek embassies don't actually go away, keeping the queue reliably more full than can ever be handled. The Central Bureaucracy building from Futurama [1] sums up the situation very nicely. I absolutely think a 4-day work week is possible; long term, even a lot less. But the model of "everybody works full time, services become unavailable outside of office hours" needs to be phased out first. [1] http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/en.futurama/images/e/e4/Central_Bureaucracy.jpg http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/en.futurama/images/e/e4/...

pgeorgi 11y ago
Your issue with the Embassy is not that they work only 3 days a week (they likely keep themselves busy 5 days like everybody else). Even in 'socialist' europe with its harsh enforcement of 5 day weeks you can typically go shopping on at least 6 days a week. You can also shop for more than 8 hours every day despite 8 hour shifts. That's just a simple scheduling puzzle, and (the much harder issue) of sharing the gains in profit that come from increased productivity. By the way, the Jetsons TV show envisioned a 3 times 3 hours work week (with enough income to feed a family of 4 and even have a robotic maid). In the 60s. I happily forfeit my right to flying cars or jetpacks in favor of that.