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> Here’s Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man: “We should be working only 3 days a week.” So... why doesn't Carlos Slim, as chairman of several large co

> Here’s Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man: “We should be working only 3 days a week.” So... why doesn't Carlos Slim, as chairman of several large companies, restructure them to be 3 day work-week environments? Surely as someone who is about the richest man on the planet would be able to have some influence in the companies he owns/manages?

ohmyiv 11y ago
The author linked to an article in his story: "To a certain degree, Slim has been applying this train of thought to his own businesses. According to the Financial Times, Slim's phone company Telmex has implemented a system where workers on a collective labor contract who joined the company in their late teens can retire before they reach 50, and can continue to work for full pay four days per week." While he could probably be doing more, he is working on it.
- mgkimsal 11y ago
  Thank you. My question was intended seriously, but probably came across sarcastically. FWIW, it still feels like 'not enough', but if he is pushing things in that direction, that's definitely a good sign. I didn't see the linked article before.
- vacri 11y ago
  Working for three decades continuously for one company in the prime of your life to "retire" (scare quotes intended) at 80% hours for normal pay is a pretty half-arsed attempt at addressing the spirit of the concept.
  - omouse 11y ago
    It's hard enough to explain to people that we should only be working 5hrs/day, can't just dive into it right away.
  - chii 11y ago
    it's a start. Rome wasn't built in a day
- onion2k 11y ago
  That strikes me much more as a policy to retain employees and stop competitors getting access to that wealth of experience more than anything else. I imagine someone whose been working for a telco (especially in Mexico where technology probably isn't cutting edge in many places) for 30 years is very valuable to the business, so stopping them leaving is important.
  - greggyb 11y ago
    Why can only one party benefit from a decision or policy? This sounds like a pretty mutually beneficial arrangement to me.
esaym 11y ago
haha, good point. Guess he is waiting for someone else to lead the way.
crimsonalucard 11y ago
Because Carlos Slim's 3 work day a week philosophy is supported by other people working 5 or 7 day shifts.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  This is my thinking as well. As you advance up the ladder of business, you get some unexpected benefits. The higher I go, I feel the less "tough" I have to be, as those under me are being tough for me. I find the less overtime and "skill work" I have to do, because those under me are doing that. Compared to my younger self I'm much less stressed and just overall nicer to staff, clients, etc. If I had some narcissistic level of tunnel vision I'd say I'm like this because I'm a good person - see how amazing I am? In reality, I'm only like this because others are suffering for me and the lack of suffering allows me to act a certain way. Slim doesn't seem to realize this, or like most public figures, makes public statements for his own political ends not out of belief (remaining likeable, etc). This was recently addressed by this great Atlantic article, "Why It Pays to be a Jerk" http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/392066/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-p... Personally, I'm a little surprised we havent moved to a 6 hour work day. I feel between 3-5 no one is productive and leaving at 3 ties in nicely when school ends and gets you a couple hours of much needed sunlight and freetime/chores time/family time/exercise time. Funny how pro-family politicians never fight for more hours to spend with your family. I told myself long ago that if any of my little side-projects takes off, I'd make a real effort to implement the 6 hour workday. So far, no luck, but I feel its feasible. Most places I've worked at have a unwritten rule of no meetings and no "real" work after 3:30 or so. 9-1 seems to be when everything gets done.
balabaster 11y ago
But then those companies wouldn't be as profitable and he'd slip to being the world's 5th or 6th richest man... so why would he do that? Unless he replaced all his workers with robots reducing everyone to 3 days a week, and reducing their salaries accordingly.
branchless 11y ago
also we can't all work 3 days a week because productivity improvements have not been passed on to workers by corporations. Which is how we come to have really rich people.
spacehome 11y ago
It's difficult in the current environment to work 3-day weeks, but the growing Financial Independence movement advocates a different strategy that gets somewhat similar results without requiring buy in from your employer: instead of working 60% of a "standard" workweek, work a 5-day week, but live off of 60% of your income, and retire in 22 years. You end up working much less than 60% of the normal 40-hour week over a 40+ year career, because you can front load your earnings such that you get a boost from the investment returns. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...
antimagic 11y ago
OK, so here goes: (all comments refer to the modal human being - yes, there are other ways of living your life, but this is how it works for most people) 1) We all have a fixed number of hours per day. 2) If we don't have enough money to pay for housing near the centre of a city, we lose a significant chunk of those hours commuting for work, shopping, cultural, entertainement purposes. 3) So we try to move as close to the centre of cities as possible, but 4) land in the city centre is constrained, so we are now in competition with everyone else to pay for central housing 5) So we try to earn more by working more, up until the extra hours worked are more than the hours commuting saved. It turns out that at the moment, thanks to various regulations / societal norms in the western world, this changeover point occurs at about 5 days work a week (for higher-paying professions, you can get this down to 4, for lower paying it may increase up to 6, or even 7) This pattern will occur until we can remove scarcity of all resources - whilst scarcity exists, we will always be in competition with our neighbours for those scarce resources, and we will have pressure to work more to obtain them. Thankyou for reading this economic theory from someone who knows next to nothing about economics...
- collyw 11y ago
  Because renowned economists were so good at predicting the last crash, they are the only ones listening to?
  - antimagic 11y ago
    Just because economists suck doesn't mean that you should listen to someone that admittedly knows nothing about economics sprout economic theories :)
    - collyw 11y ago
      When the experts seem to know just as much, I don't see much difference.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Spot on.

ohmyiv 11y ago

The author linked to an article in his story: "To a certain degree, Slim has been applying this train of thought to his own businesses. According to the Financial Times, Slim's phone company Telmex has implemented a system where workers on a collective labor contract who joined the company in their late teens can retire before they reach 50, and can continue to work for full pay four days per week." While he could probably be doing more, he is working on it.

mgkimsal 11y ago
Thank you. My question was intended seriously, but probably came across sarcastically. FWIW, it still feels like 'not enough', but if he is pushing things in that direction, that's definitely a good sign. I didn't see the linked article before.
vacri 11y ago
Working for three decades continuously for one company in the prime of your life to "retire" (scare quotes intended) at 80% hours for normal pay is a pretty half-arsed attempt at addressing the spirit of the concept.
- omouse 11y ago
  It's hard enough to explain to people that we should only be working 5hrs/day, can't just dive into it right away.
- chii 11y ago
  it's a start. Rome wasn't built in a day
onion2k 11y ago
That strikes me much more as a policy to retain employees and stop competitors getting access to that wealth of experience more than anything else. I imagine someone whose been working for a telco (especially in Mexico where technology probably isn't cutting edge in many places) for 30 years is very valuable to the business, so stopping them leaving is important.
- greggyb 11y ago
  Why can only one party benefit from a decision or policy? This sounds like a pretty mutually beneficial arrangement to me.

esaym 11y ago

haha, good point. Guess he is waiting for someone else to lead the way.

crimsonalucard 11y ago

Because Carlos Slim's 3 work day a week philosophy is supported by other people working 5 or 7 day shifts.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
This is my thinking as well. As you advance up the ladder of business, you get some unexpected benefits. The higher I go, I feel the less "tough" I have to be, as those under me are being tough for me. I find the less overtime and "skill work" I have to do, because those under me are doing that. Compared to my younger self I'm much less stressed and just overall nicer to staff, clients, etc. If I had some narcissistic level of tunnel vision I'd say I'm like this because I'm a good person - see how amazing I am? In reality, I'm only like this because others are suffering for me and the lack of suffering allows me to act a certain way. Slim doesn't seem to realize this, or like most public figures, makes public statements for his own political ends not out of belief (remaining likeable, etc). This was recently addressed by this great Atlantic article, "Why It Pays to be a Jerk" http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/392066/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-p... Personally, I'm a little surprised we havent moved to a 6 hour work day. I feel between 3-5 no one is productive and leaving at 3 ties in nicely when school ends and gets you a couple hours of much needed sunlight and freetime/chores time/family time/exercise time. Funny how pro-family politicians never fight for more hours to spend with your family. I told myself long ago that if any of my little side-projects takes off, I'd make a real effort to implement the 6 hour workday. So far, no luck, but I feel its feasible. Most places I've worked at have a unwritten rule of no meetings and no "real" work after 3:30 or so. 9-1 seems to be when everything gets done.

balabaster 11y ago

But then those companies wouldn't be as profitable and he'd slip to being the world's 5th or 6th richest man... so why would he do that? Unless he replaced all his workers with robots reducing everyone to 3 days a week, and reducing their salaries accordingly.

branchless 11y ago

also we can't all work 3 days a week because productivity improvements have not been passed on to workers by corporations. Which is how we come to have really rich people.

spacehome 11y ago

It's difficult in the current environment to work 3-day weeks, but the growing Financial Independence movement advocates a different strategy that gets somewhat similar results without requiring buy in from your employer: instead of working 60% of a "standard" workweek, work a 5-day week, but live off of 60% of your income, and retire in 22 years. You end up working much less than 60% of the normal 40-hour week over a 40+ year career, because you can front load your earnings such that you get a boost from the investment returns. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...

antimagic 11y ago

OK, so here goes: (all comments refer to the modal human being - yes, there are other ways of living your life, but this is how it works for most people) 1) We all have a fixed number of hours per day. 2) If we don't have enough money to pay for housing near the centre of a city, we lose a significant chunk of those hours commuting for work, shopping, cultural, entertainement purposes. 3) So we try to move as close to the centre of cities as possible, but 4) land in the city centre is constrained, so we are now in competition with everyone else to pay for central housing 5) So we try to earn more by working more, up until the extra hours worked are more than the hours commuting saved. It turns out that at the moment, thanks to various regulations / societal norms in the western world, this changeover point occurs at about 5 days work a week (for higher-paying professions, you can get this down to 4, for lower paying it may increase up to 6, or even 7) This pattern will occur until we can remove scarcity of all resources - whilst scarcity exists, we will always be in competition with our neighbours for those scarce resources, and we will have pressure to work more to obtain them. Thankyou for reading this economic theory from someone who knows next to nothing about economics...

collyw 11y ago
Because renowned economists were so good at predicting the last crash, they are the only ones listening to?
- antimagic 11y ago
  Just because economists suck doesn't mean that you should listen to someone that admittedly knows nothing about economics sprout economic theories :)
  - collyw 11y ago
    When the experts seem to know just as much, I don't see much difference.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
Spot on.