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The Case for a Four-Day Work Week (forbes.com) 125

Posted by EditorDavid from the three-day-weekends dept.
Recently a New York Times headlined asked "Is the four-day work week finally within our grasp?" Kickstarter, Shake Shack and Unilever's New Zealand unit are among those that have experimented with the four-day workweek, or have announced plans to. And after an experiment in Iceland supported the idea that the system improves worker well-being without reducing overall output, a majority of the country's workers have now moved to shorter workweeks, or will gain the right to... Roughly 1% of Iceland's working population was involved in its trials of shorter workweeks for equal pay, which ran for several years starting in 2015.

"The trials were successful," concluded a recent research report on the experiment. "Participating workers took on fewer hours and enjoyed greater well-being, improved work-life balance and a better cooperative spirit in the workplace — all while maintaining existing standards of performance and productivity...." And the extra day off means fewer commuting days, which saves time and reduces environmental impact....

Proponents of four-day weeks say the key is to rein in meetings. "You have better discipline around meetings. You're a lot more thoughtful in how you use technology," said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of "Shorter," a book about the four-day workweek. He also said that a shorter week requires workers to set aside time for focused work and refrain from email or other communications during that time.

"To paraphrase William Gibson, the four-day week is already here for most companies," said Pang, an organizational strategy consultant in Menlo Park, California. "It's buried under a whole bunch of rubble of outmoded practices and bad meetings. Once you clear that stuff away, then it turns out the four-day week is well within your grasp."
And now one commentator in Newsweek reports that 83% of U.S. workers favor a shorter work week. But there's also a business case for the change, since a Microsoft experiment with a four-day work week in Japan "led to a 40 percent improvement in productivity, as measured by sales per employee...." The strongest argument for a shorter work week is that it doesn't actually require a sacrifice. Although the average American works 8.8 hours a day, not much of this time is actually spent working. If a worker is in the office but isn't working, what is the purpose of them being there? Minutes spent chatting by the water cooler, checking social media and making snacks compound into hours that could be better spent elsewhere. As noted by the historian C. Northcote Parkinson, famous for "Parkinson's Law," work "expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." I think he's right.

Deadlines focus work, and focused work is better work. It's the quality, and not the quantity, of our work that matters.... As we near the post-COVID juncture, I believe it's time to refocus our sights on the forgotten promise of the industrial revolution — to finally help employees find a better work-life balance and actually increase business' productivity and bottom line at the same time. Four great work days are always better than five average days.
It's happening. "The coronavirus pandemic has sped up a transition into more flexible and diverse working hours around the world, opening up ways of working that were unthinkable just a few years ago," reports Reuters. (The traditional model of how we work has been broken," Meghana Reddy, vice president of video messaging service Loom, told the Reuters Next conference.")

And an article in Forbes reminds us that last month Britain's Atom Bank adopted a four-day week for most of its 430 employees, reducing working hours to 34 hours per week from 37.5 hours without reducing pay. "There's even talk at the congressional level: U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat from California, introduced a bill in July to reduce the standard work week from 40 hours to 32. The bill has 13 co-sponsors...." The four-day work week will take hold because it embodies the spirit of our times, because workers demand it, and because businesses that implement it will thrive...

Years from now we will look back on our pre-pandemic work habits and lifestyles and wonder why we worked the way we did. We will cringe to recall how we sacrificed evenings and weekends and friendships and family to work all the time. We will ponder how we allowed ourselves to sink beneath relentless professional demands and digital distractions without even noticing we were drowning.

The four-day work week is just one of the corporate experiments that will define the life-work revolution and ultimately the future of work.
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The Case for a Four-Day Work Week More

The Case for a Four-Day Work Week

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  • Priorities. (Score:3)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @02:45PM (#62049793) Journal

    Four days of work. Three days of partying at Cowboy Neal's house.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I always thought Santa was the ultimate job. 364 days of drunken debauchery and one day of work a year.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 )

      Why stop at 4. If they got a 40% improvement at 4 days maybe they'll get an 80% improvement at 3 days

      Republicans are like that about taxes.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      5 days is not some magic number based on the maximum productivity of a clerical worker. 5 days is because we ended up with a 7 day week through convoluted religious history, and then unions fought hard to get 2 days off at a time when most labour was manual.

      Which is not to say that 4 days is the best number either. It probably varies from person to person, but for most people I think they would be more productive on 4 days a week.

      • 5 days is not some magic number based on the maximum productivity of a clerical worker. 5 days is because we ended up with a 7 day week through convoluted religious history, and then unions fought hard to get 2 days off at a time when most labour was manual.

        No, five days is just the number that Henry Ford chose for his workers back about 100 years ago. Before that, the "weekend" was Sunday.

        Nothing intrinsically wrong with a four-day workweek, assuming that you don't need to work more than four to pay the

  • Might work for some (Score:3)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @02:48PM (#62049809)

    It might work for your average office worker. But what about the rest of society. Any job in a service industry is going to operate 5-7 days a week. Many banks are already bad enough with only being open on weekdays, imagine if they were only open 4 days a week. Sure they could just hire extra workers and have everyone on 4 day weeks.

    And there's another problem. For better or worse, schools act as a place of education, but also as daycare for younger kids. Are teachers going to also demand a 4 day week, or will they be happy with working 5 days while many other professions switch to 4 day weeks. If the schools operate monday-thursday, what about all the parents who work on friday? Will they have to pay for extra daycare for the day the school isn't open? We have enough issues with parents who can't be there because they have to work weekends or nights, and now we will tack an extra day onto that. Or just have teachers continue to work 5 days a week and make it an even less appealing position than it has already become.

    As programmer, I would love to go down to 4 day weeks, but what I really see is that this would lead to an even bigger gap and even more feeling of unfairness going forward as some office workers are allowed the luxury of doing 4 day weeks, often from home, while many other jobs stay at 5 days a week or more, with the office workers often getting paid better than many other positions. I don't see this becoming a regular thing outside a few companies where everyone can take advantage of the 4 day week.

    • Why would the banks need to hire more when their customers are already doing the work for free?

    • You know a bank that hasn't already outsourced almost all its work to its customers?

      • You call the support line and you speak to "Sue" from Georgia, USA and she speaks with a Southern accent and even knows the local humor and other cultural aspects of that state.

          Turns out, Sue is an Indian worker working from a call center in New Delhi.

          The more 'high quality' call centers do their best to disguise the actual country they're located in.

    • It might work for your average office worker. But what about the rest of society.

      While you touched on it, forget about a four day week if you're in IT. Sure, you as a programer might get to work four days, but if you're on the support side you'll still be on call 24/7 even if you only work M-F. And I'm including database and networking as support since without either of those, as well as desktop support, your organization will not run.

      Sure, hiring more people might be an answer, but then companies will sa

      • One of my early network support jobs was 4 days a week.

        Two guys, one Sunday - Wednesday, other Wednesday - Saturday. Meetings, training, anything requiring 2 people scheduled for Wednesdays. Other days it was a one man show.

    • Re:Might work for some (Score:5, Interesting)

      by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @04:06PM (#62050015)

      You have questions, I have answers. Per some of the follow along post, the real ask is for less working hours per week. The real headline should be 32 hour work week. And yes, some things would have to adjust.

      IMHO one of the points of a shorter work week is to be able to recognize the productivity gains we as a society have made over the last...hmm 100 years since the 40 hour work week was made the de facto standard. Teachers can work in the classroom from 9a-3, that's 6 hours per day, 30 hours a week. And yes, they spend quite a bit more than that on prep, grading, etc. But that's also where tech can help. Banks? I dunno wtf anyone is doing going into an actual branch. Maybe it's like the EV argument...I drive 600 miles every day in the snow with a trailer so EV's suck. Maybe you have to deposit bars of gold-pressed Latinum in person every week, but mostly banks are empty because they are unecessary.

      And retail need not be a 24/7 operation. Hopefully we have passed peak consumerism, and we can all agree that stores can be closed on Thanksgiving, and other major holidays. They can open at a sane hour and close at a sane hour. Heck doesn't even have to be 7 days a week. Indeed Bergen County, NJ across the river from Manhattan, has its malls closed on Sundays due to some old, arcane, law. But the residents of that county are super ok with that and keep the rule in place. The rest is just changing shifts and that's something computers can also do well. I think the real problem areas would be in transportation sector, like truck drivers and airline pilots. This will require more people, increases the prices of some goods, but perhaps we can start measuring the success of our society by the well being of the people and not the absolute cheapest television set.

      As mentioned by others, laws and regs should change. Really I wish Biden or any president preceding him, would do something like a 21st century re-write of work rules. That would do more IMHO than these bogus infrastructure spending bills. Make it easier and more worthwhile for people to work and guess what, more people will work.
      1.) Disallow linking retirement and health benefits to employment. Private health insurance is sold like life insurance, individually. Make allowances for pre-existing conditions, etc ...all the old straw man arguments around health insurance are to be disregarded. Same thing with retirement, make retirement accounts like Roths more accessible to all, with higher contribution limits, but done individually, but with the default contribution made from your paycheck. If you want to opt out of saving for retirement, it's an easy 17 step process with multiple phone calls to the IRS and trips to a notary...i.e. should be hard to opt out.
      2.) Dissolve the full time/part time distinction given the above changes will make it irrelevant
      3.) Gig work versus 'real' work. Contributions to govt plans like unemployment insurance, Medicare, Social security are done by all workers, gig or 'regular' You work an hour, you contribute to the funds.
      4.) Heavily subsidized childcare, with sliding scale. 1-2 kids 75%, 3rd kid 30%, 4+ 20%. The planet doesn't need a lot more people.
      5.) And an improved, min wage, I don't know that it has to be a living wage, i.e. a head of household should support a family of 4 on min wage, but an individual working for wage should be more financially rewarding than welfare or gaming social security disability

    • Not everyone wants only 4 days of work. Some want 6 or even 7 (though 7 is extremely unhealthy and needs to be curbed no matter what).

        One size fits all never works out in reality.

      • I spent some time as an overpaid contractor working only four days per week. It was great. I referred to Thursday as "Thriday" which I'm sure endeared me to the full-time employees.

      • That's OK, but if anything beyond 32 hours is overtime, then your employer may not be happy to pay you too many extra hours. That's probably good as it cuts down the expectation of unpaid overtime. I've worked at some places that expect LOTS of that, I moved on fast.

    • Re:Might work for some (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Sunday December 05, 2021 @04:23PM (#62050067) Homepage

      Any job in a service industry is going to operate 5-7 days a week.

      In service/support/retail, where 7-day-a-week availability is required, it is not uncommon to see a rotating 4/3 schedule. Two teams of employees cover 7 days a week by working 4 days with 3 days off on one week and 3 days on with 4 days off of the second week. Each team works 7 days out of 14.

      These are usually hourly employees, so less hours worked is lower pay, but if your needs are met the extra days off are nice.

      • health care or insurance because no one would qualify as full time employees. It's a 35 hour/wk requirement IIRC. It also means it would be impossible to sue for unpaid overtime, because at least on paper, no one is working even 40 hours. I'm guessing the reality is VERY different.

    • Most teachers already only work 4 days or less.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      All these questions came up when France shifted to a 35 hour week, i.e. 4.5 days. Many people did alternative 5 day and 4 day weeks. Many UK companies do half days on Friday too.

      Somehow business goes on and companies aren't bankrupted by needing some extra staff, probably because productivity increases. Service industries have always had a lot of part time workers and odd shifts anyway.

  • 4-day weeks only work for white-collar jobs (Score:3)

    by Guy Smiley ( 9219 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @02:51PM (#62049813)
    For jobs that require a human in attendance, you can't make that "more efficient by cutting out meetings". That includes brick & mortar stores, restaurants, medical staff, construction, delivery, etc.

    • A relative of mine is a purchasing agent. She has to compile huge lists of stuff to buy from hundreds of suppliers, put orders together, manage quotes, and get stuff ready for signoff. She has almost no meetings, it's all work - handling calls, email and physical mailings. She one or two quick meetings a week, it's at least 40 hours of pure work every week. There is no way for her to work more efficiently. It's 80% communicating with engineers and suppliers and 20% dealing with paperwork.

      • What I just heard you say was, "a relative of mine has a job which could be entirely automated, except nobody has done it yet".

        Compiling "lists of stuff" is computer work. "managing quotes" is computer work.

        • She works for a job shop. The reason she has a job is because someone ultimately has to align what engineers are asking for with what any one of several hundred suppliers are selling with particular lead times and at particular prices.

          If they made the same thing over and over again, she absolutely would not have a job. However, everything they do is custom, so everything is different for every build. The engineers *could* do it, but then you'd have engineers spending dozens hours per week tracking parts dow

    • I'm concerned about the quality of meetings. Do the meetings happen too frequently? Are they laden with bullshit and fluff that cuts into actual work? Do workers rightfully fear that they will be berated at the meetings and they get that sickening feeling at the mere mention of one?

  • Good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)

    by thomn8r ( 635504 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @02:52PM (#62049817)
    Years ago at a company I worked, I asked if I could switch to working work 4-10's. His reply? "Why would I let you work 4 10's when I can make you work 5 10's?"

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      If there are rival companies being successful with 4-10's, they could use it to steal you from the 5-10 company.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Companies should take note of this. If you want good people but can't afford them, maybe look at offering better hours. They will probably be more productive so you won't lose out on the amount of work being done, and you can pay the going rate rather than a premium.

        Of course that only applies in normal times, right now you need to offer better hours just to get any good to even look at you.

        • Companies should take note of this. If you want good people but can't afford them, maybe look at offering better hours. They will probably be more productive so you won't lose out on the amount of work being done, and you can pay the going rate rather than a premium.

          Of course that only applies in normal times, right now you need to offer better hours just to get any good to even look at you.

          Unless - your employees figure out they can use the extra time to work a side job/their own gig/whatever, and you don't get the productivity gains from having non-tired employees.

    • Because you can't. If you try, I say good bye.

    • Sounds like a boss that is narcassist and a taskmaster, and a comment like this indicates that you are dealing with a tree with many rotten branches.

        I would start your job search for a better enviroment now, because your very health and well being depends on it.

  • And in the next step, with six-hour workdays, on average. Then we're nearing something I'd call halfway humane working conditions. Even if it is, of course, still forced labor.

    • And in the next step, with six-hour workdays, on average. Then we're nearing something I'd call halfway humane working conditions. Even if it is, of course, still forced labor.

      Why do you work at all? Depending on where you live, you can have a doctor certify you as disabled, and never lift a finger in having to do anything. Sounds like a great career path for you.

      Consider that you might be undriven and lazy. I work a lot of hours, and am pretty darn happy doing it, while you think any work is inhumane. That doesn't sound too happy.

      • I'm not driven. I tend to like to drive myself, though. So if the job you're handing to me is not interesting, don't expect me to pursue it with enthusiasm.

        • I'm not driven. I tend to like to drive myself, though. So if the job you're handing to me is not interesting, don't expect me to pursue it with enthusiasm.

          That happens, not everyone will work hard on things they don't like. I had a co worker who if he was given a task he didn't like, he'd do a bad job on it. Weirdly enough, we were friends - in no small part because he had some different insights and would tell me if he disagreed with me

      • and am pretty darn happy doing it

        Man, you really need a hobby, or some fantasy of your own on how to spend time...

        I work, too, but I enjoy working on what I want, not on what makes my boss, my customer, or my boss's customer happy.

        • and am pretty darn happy doing it

          Man, you really need a hobby, or some fantasy of your own on how to spend time...

          I work, too, but I enjoy working on what I want, not on what makes my boss, my customer, or my boss's customer happy.

          I have many hobbies, woodworking, Amateur Radio, Drone and model airplane flying and construction, Motorcycling, off roading and travel. My SO will probably kill me if I come up with another one!. Sitting still is not one of my core competencies.

          You'll really freak when I tell you that I solve technical issues in my dreams. It's just me doing me. Like I enjoy it.

  • The Case for a Four-Day Work Week

    It took me five days to read that "summary" -- geesh. :-)

    • Yeah, /. has gone from providing a brief summary of an article to just cut-n-paste the whole thing. The publishers could probably sue for copyright infringement, since there is no selective quoting or paraphrasing happening at all (which are permissible under copyright law), just an outright copy of the article.
  • Hey - I support however few hours the undriven and lazy want to work. Wanna work 2 hours a week? Great.

    So I realize the undriven and lazy won't understand, but they just make me look better, as my productivity soars by comparison. So unless they make it illegal to work more than 32 hours, I'll just put in however many hours I like.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      Yeah, you look so good to your bosses. I'm sure your bosses will give you an extra fancy watch as severance pay when they cut your job. All the friends you would have had if you had any time to spend with them would have really admired your fancy watch.

      The enjoyment of your time is more valuable than a number on a savings account.

      • Re:Less competition for me (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @08:58PM (#62050729)

        Yeah, you look so good to your bosses. I'm sure your bosses will give you an extra fancy watch as severance pay when they cut your job. All the friends you would have had if you had any time to spend with them would have really admired your fancy watch.

        The enjoyment of your time is more valuable than a number on a savings account.

        That's an interesting narrative. But it's not correct. My"bosses" were people I worked with, not under. And to a person, they were friends. We socialized, and enjoyed each others company.

        I was/am in a science/research field. Perhaps it is different in your field, where the bosses are all evil people, out to destroy the working guys and gals.

        It's even the sort of field where part of the week is going out to dinners with clients and sponsors and politicos in the evenings, so your narrative would automatically exclude you, because that makes the workweek 40+ hours to begin with. Some times experiments are longer than 8 hours, sometimes you have to have your part finished so the next person can continue the experiment.

        Funny, y'all revile me, the guy who is happy to keep busy and gain experiences, and you who hate your work, hate your bosses, hate any time you are working.

        Who's happy - you who hate so much, or me, having a good time? You do you. I'll do me.

    • the undriven and lazy

      Just because I don't enjoy spending my time on what your boss wants me to spend it on doesn't mean I'm undriven, or lazy. Why do you assume that everyone else, too, lacks the phantasy to do interesting stuff woth their day only because you need someone to tell you what to do?

      • the undriven and lazy

        Just because I don't enjoy spending my time on what your boss wants me to spend it on doesn't mean I'm undriven, or lazy. Why do you assume that everyone else, too, lacks the phantasy to do interesting stuff woth their day only because you need someone to tell you what to do?

        I do woodworking (live edge stuff), model plane flying, travel, offroading, Amateur Radio, motorcycling, am the president of one club and the safety officer of another.

        I know I am not like others. But I am like I am. As noted in another reply, sitting still for me isn't a particularly good option. But it's a great advantage over the "normals. But if I have drive and energy, why not use it to my advantage?

        • This is goid for you, but this doesn't make the others "lazy" or "undriven". Some people would rather not invest most of their waking time to the sole material benefit of their boss.

          Also, these things change as you get older. Some people always have more energy than others, but ability to recover always declines with age. Children and other private life enterprises also have another priority.

          Nobody stops you from working more, but the typical workweek is what essentially eberybody needs to work for and to s

          • This is goid for you, but this doesn't make the others "lazy" or "undriven". Some people would rather not invest most of their waking time to the sole material benefit of their boss.

            I was at times, paid more than my boss. Same with my SO. I had plenty of material benefits.

            Also, these things change as you get older. Some people always have more energy than others, but ability to recover always declines with age.

            Oh heck yes. Why I ended up retiring from Ice Hockey at 55. The injuries and wear and tear just took too long to recover from. But I'm waiting for the drive reduction. I retired from full time work at 55, 10 years ago, but when called back to the workforce part time, it turned out to be very helpful regarding the drive. As well, the pay is fantastic. For those who like to work as little as possible, over those ten

            • My point through all of this is that the concept of the evil employer and the downtrodden masses might be part of the downtrodden masses problem.

              I've been fortunate enough to have had both perspectives - involved in a family business while also having a regular job. And yes, you certainly have a point. Buy even in "good" bosses I've seen the "I work 60 hours a week, why don't you" argument. And: no, I'm not only not buying it, I see right through the BS.

              Me, as a boss, spending 60+ hours in office or on company premises, is not me working, is me living my life. It's not even about money, it's about spending time as I see fit, earning money in the pro

              • My point through all of this is that the concept of the evil employer and the downtrodden masses might be part of the downtrodden masses problem.

                Me, as a boss, spending 60+ hours in office or on company premises, is not me working, is me living my life. It's not even about money, it's about spending time as I see fit, earning money in the process. Whenever I get fed up with that, I stop doing it; whether it's just for the day, or whether I'm keeping myself mostly out of office for a year, I owe nobody any explanation.

                For me, part is living my life, part of the money is a metric the boss and I can gauge.

                My situation to be precise is that I retired 10 years ago at 55, and a few years back took up a part time position. Turns out that may hobbies just amped up during the time I was no longer employed. But the old adage of "Retirement Kills" is probably based on the folks who have only one interest and retired from it. The new work is tremendous, and pays extremely well. And while having a lot of responsibility, responsi

    • So you get paid the same for working 80 hours as you would 40? No wonder the company loves you. You’re saving them all kinds of money.

      • So you get paid the same for working 80 hours as you would 40? No wonder the company loves you. You’re saving them all kinds of money.

        Nope - I got paid at over 3 times the salary as the other people supposedly doing the same job. Any savings to the employer are not having to pay another person's overhead. As well, I was generally more productive.

        A lot of other perks as well.

  • The usual twisting of the facts (Score:3)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @03:06PM (#62049859) Homepage Journal

    The Iceland experiment involved government workers, and the "four days" involved an average of about 1 1/2 hours less work time a week.

    It didn't do what's always claimed it did.

    And a "four day work week" doesn't necessarily involve any reduction in work time. Four 10 hours days is still 40 hours a week. So stop talking about reducing the numbers of days a week, and start talking about reducing the number hours a week. Then you've got something meaningful to say. Until then, it's just hot air.

    • Back in the 60s, economist were talking about having to "create" work to keep people employed, and even then the work week would probably drop well below 40 hours due to productivity gains.

      Instead we have those gains accumulate at the top, and people work more hours than in the 60s.

      Even now, I giggle at the thought of concern given to keeping people employed, Such a different world.

      And my suspicion is, with the known drop in productivity with an increase in hours, maintaining (or expanding) the work week is

      • Private sector productivity has generally increased since the 1960s. If the typical level of wealth has not increased, it's because government has siphoned off the productivity gains. Government jobs either decrease productivity or hinder productivity.

        Consider Connecticut: In 1955, Connecticut had a 3% sales tax and no income tax. Now, the sales tax is 6.35% and there's a burdensome income tax, which makes life better for nobody but government employees. Are roads or government services or schools any bette

  • 4 days = part time Part time = no benefits, employed at the will of employer Be careful of what people are telling you is fabulous.
  • If all your employees are working 60 hours a week that puts downward pressure on wages. This is especially useful in things like restaurants, construction work and manufacturing. This is why Kellogg's just had a major strike because they are average work week was over 60. If you have an employee working 60 hours even if you lose 10 hours of productivity to exhaustion you not only gain a net 10 hours of productivity but the downward pressure on wages means that you're paying less overall for labor. This is w

  • Mister President,
    do we really have to work *every* Wednesday?

  • Won't somebody think of the Corporations??

  • When you get older (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Malays2 bowman ( 6656916 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @04:01PM (#62049999)

    You come to the realization that your time on earth is running out, and you don't know if today is the last day of your life.

    You also start realizing that you don't want to squander it on making somebody else rich and happy.

      When the Black Plague hit Europe during the middle ages, serfs saw their buddies dying left and right, and then thought "Why the FUCK do I need to make the big fat baffoon happy? I could be dead any day now and goddammit I want to be happy too!" coupled with the fat wastes of space and air having increasing difficulty finding new serfs to use and abuse brought about demands from serfs and changes for to a better lifestyle.

    We are seeing the same thing now with Covid, and people are just not willing to take shit like they used to.

    • I think it's more that lots of serfs *died*, which led to a labor shortage and higher wages for the remaining serfs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kaur ( 1948056 )

        I think it's more that lots of serfs *died*, which led to a labor shortage and higher wages for the remaining serfs.

        Eventually this lead to the industrial revolution. Higher labour costs pushed the need to increase the efficiency of the remaining workers. This lead to better tools. Research into mechanical engineering suddenly paid off and had a clear economic outcome. And for some time, Europe was the master of technology both in civil and military, and could conquer and rule the world.

      • Pretty much the point I was making (the difficulty in finding new serfs).

          And the serfs who lived were emboldened by what was happening around them. ("Hell, what do I have to lose?")

          The screws got put to the lords of the realm, and they had no choice but to give into the serfs' demands.

  • So young people I don't think are going to see this as much. Because young people will go into work and burn themselves out. But if you put any real time in, you start seeing how little work people are getting done. And you start thinking you are a sucker for getting 50% done for the same or less pay so you start slowing down. So you end up with a large number of workers putting in 40 hours and only doing the work that they could do in 3 or 4 days.
    I think in many workplaces, you aren't going to see any redu

  • A week+ vacation that can be taken in one block may be better? The extra day of sitting home and watching more TV is not so benefitial. Granted I like to travel far.... It all would have to be synchronized/sunchronizable locally w/ others (spouses, shools) ideally in some rolling fashion so it's not the same month for everybody in the world.

  • Does this mean you'll also stop going onto Facebook on company time?

  • Nah... (Score:3)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Sunday December 05, 2021 @04:49PM (#62050177) Homepage Journal

    If people have too much time, they start to think. Can't have that. They might question things. Better to have even more people in 2nd and 3rd jobs just to make ends meet, when they finally come home they're half alive and will fall asleep after an hour on the TV. That's good sheep.

  • From the summary

    "Proponents of four-day weeks say the key is to rein in meetings. "You have better discipline around meetings. You're a lot more thoughtful in how you use technology," said Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of "Shorter," a book about the four-day workweek. He also said that a shorter week requires workers to set aside time for focused work and refrain from email or other communications during that time"

    The thing is - those changes would also make a 5 day work week more productive. Unle
  • For all the Americans, don't even think this will transpire here. We got enough idiots that fight against anything good for a worker that this is a pie in the sky dream. Hell, we tie healthcare to employment- that's how dumb we are.

  • A large fraction of the population has already embraced the zero day work week.

  • If cutting out 20% of your work time leads to productivity gains, surely cutting it down 80% would lead to more gains.

    So I propose the 1 work day a week plan

  • In the US, at least, does this mean that management will not be legally allowed to bother you off-hours, even if you're "salaried"? And/or pay overtime - that's 1.5 times your salaried rate - if they do bother you off-hours?

    And will it prevent them from saying "whatever it takes" multiple times a year?

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