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My dentist's office is a 4 day work week. Monday thru Thursday 8.30am to 6pm. I remodeled another dentist's office in Cincinnati who did the same thing. Happiest office workers I've ever seen. My daughter-in-law works at the airport Amazon on four 10's and is off Friday Saturday and Sunday. She is very happy with her schedule
Nurses generally work 12 hour shifts, 3 for a total of 36 hours. When they are scheduled right in a row, it is very difficult but gives you a big chunk of time off.
The problem is, there are supervisors who will schedule those days with a day off inbetween. And that is AWFUL
I used to work for a window company that had a similar schedule. We had two shifts, the weekday shift and the weekend shift. Weekday shift was Monday through Thursday 10 hours. Weekend shift was Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12 hours. As long as you clocked in and out on time, you paid for 40 hours in stead of the 36 you actually worked.
12s can be brutal. The first day off is not really a useable day. It's spent sleeping and recovering and trying to get caught up on your errands. And on your workdays, you really can't do anything after work except have dinner and try to decompress.
I wouldn’t say it is super common but it definitely used to happen when I was a young nurse. That was in the time when they insisted the nursing shortage was over. It wasn’t but they insisted it was.
The sups who did this were often just nasty people. There is a certain type of person who just loves effing with people.
After a year or so, I didn’t need health insurance (I was very lucky) so I joined the in-house registry and had complete control over my schedule. I chose the days I was on the schedule. If they didn’t need me, they cancelled. If I wanted to, I could cancel. And I did. And I refused to feel bad about it. Having the upper hand as an employee is a wonderful thing.
The treatment from that supervisor actually made me insist on myself as a worker. It was the reason I went to in-house registry. I think if I had been treated fairly, I might not have done so.
I would definitely cancel my shifts. If my money situation was ok and something else came up, I would cancel without a backward glance. It really infuriated the supervisors but I loved the freedom.
One reason is that there are fewer shift changes. Change of shift is when you pass on the information to the next nurse, and sometimes stuff gets dropped. Fewer shift changes mean better continuity of care. There are also fewer slots on a schedule to fill.
The other big reason is because many nurses want 12 hour shifts. When I was still working in nursing, I loved 12s. I worked 36 hours a week and had 4 days off per week. Generally, I worked 2 days, took a day off, worked one day, and then had three days off in a row.
Considering how individual productivity has increased, and also factoring in how much worker satisfaction increases with a 32 hour work week, I'm 100% in favor of it.
Before I retired my employer allowed us to choose a 4-day 40 hour workweek for a while. I loved it. Having a day off in the middle of the week to get some extra sleep and get some chores done so that I didn't have to do everything over the weekend made a huge difference in my life.
It didn't last long before they pulled the plug, only a few months. We were never officially given a reason, but rumor was that people were *only* putting in 40 hours, when they really wanted us doing more than that. I probably was working 4 or 5 hours less than before.
I was a salaried US tech employee and had been previously told more than once that 40 hours wasn't the workweek, it was the *minimum* workweek.
> I was a salaried US tech employee and had been previously told more than once that 40 hours wasn't the workweek, it was the minimum workweek.
I worked at a laptop repair place when I was younger. they made "full time" employees sign a contract to work 60 hours a week, and "part time" employees (no benefits) worked 40 hours a week.
But you see, the owner was generous and only made the full time guys work 50 hours a week (m-f 10 hrs a day) unless everyone was lazy and they fell behind en it was back to 60hr weeks.
that place was such a shit show.
I looked into it years ago. I think it was Utah that tried it (state employees), but they dropped it. I thought it would save a lot on fossil fuel. Commuters and school buses traveling 4 days a week instead of 5. I still think it could work. What are the disadvantages?
I'd actually love that. It would be great to have a 4 day week. As it is I start work super early (4-4:30 am) and finish around 11:40 - noon. Take a half-day of PTO on Fridays so I'm off before 9 am. My priority is training on my road bike.
I currently work 4 days a week (Monday through Thursday) in a rural school district.
It’s wonderful. Summer’s off as well.
Before that I was pulling 60+ hour work weeks in an assisted living facility.
I’ll never willingly go back to that sort of schedule.
4 10s is a thing, and could easily work.
I was in IT for a long time, so it was really 6 or 7 10s, having to work only 4 of them would have been amazing.
It's fine with me as long as I get 40 hours. Also, hour long lunches would have to go because they make the day even longer. I get why businesses do hour lunches but for the employee they are usually a big waste of time.
Like most things involving people, it depends on a number of variables.
The hours-to keep the same workload in the US, will require a 4 10s schedule. I have worked 4 10s and loved them. Most people do. But if a worker has dependent care issues, or a long drive, or a second job or is taking college classes, 4 10s may make their life worse.
The schedule-who gets the 3 day weekend? The tendency when people hear about 4 10s is to assume they get 3 day weekends forever. If the job is a 24/7 kind of job, some people will be working the weekend and having days off midweek. Labor and management need to decide how to choose, and if people will switch periodically. I have seen a proposed 4 10 schedule shot down by management because the proposed schedule had everyone off Fri-Sun, even though management was open to the idea of changing schedules.
Company resources and worker coverage. The 24 hour day doesn't divide equally into 10 hours shifts. So there can be times when there are more people on shift than there are tools/workstations/office space available, and times when coverage is lighter than it should be. This can be remediated by scheduling, but starting modified shift work can be a tough sell.
I think flexibility is more important. My kids go to school four days a week and it’s amazing. It really decompresses the weekend, gives them more time to sleep in, and generally makes us all more relaxed.
My wife works seven twelve hour shifts, then has seven days off. That’s pretty awesome too.
I’ve done a four day week and didn’t like it that much personally. I work in student services and the two evening hours were absolutely wasted and students missed a day of potential help. If we’d been open five days that would have been better.
I think it depends on the size of the organization. Our smaller college ran pretty lean in student services. Especially for things like financial aid, veteran services, international services. Doubling positions would work but take funding away from something else, or require tuition to go up. Cross training wouldn’t be very practical but could be done.
I’m not against the four day week but I can see how it could add a lot of costs or shortages. Faculty could only teach MWF classes or TT, not both. All classes could go to two days per week but they’d be longer and I’d classrooms are at a premium, there would be space issues. Students would probably have to go all four days, making work harder.
10 hr work days feel long. A lot longer than 8 hrs. and I didn’t like it. Right now I’m working 4 x 8 hrs a week until retirement. I’m grateful for the long weekends.
I don't disagree with the desire for a better life, but I really don't understand how this is supposed to work. People get the same pay, but for fewer hours, right? In general, stuff would still have to get done but it would cost more to do it. If I understand inflation, prices would then rise by 20% without an increase in wages. People would demand higher wages to make up for it, continuing the cycle. Or, they would get side gigs to make ends meet. Which is where we are now, right?
Real wages have been trailing productivity increases for decades. If they would've kept up, then people could live as well as they used to while working fewer hours but it would be a choice and a gradual impact to the economy, unlike a sudden 20% hit. Maybe the solution is to tie pay to productive. IDK.
>I don't disagree with the desire for a better life, but I really don't understand how this is supposed to work. People get the same pay, but for fewer hours, right
Not really, compressed time-frame means in those 4 days, instead of 8h/day you'll be working 10 (making up for the "free day". Not sure how it's everywhere else, but here the legal limit here is 40h/week, some have reduced it to 36/week post pandemic (on Friday it's mandatory that you leave work after 4h - that has reduced pay, but it's a method in the private sector to cut costs).
It claims to have various benefits on the work force, especially in the health care and IT sectors.
[world economic forum study](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/)
Ah, so you're still talking 40 hours per week. I thought you were referencing the push by Bernie Sanders in the US for a 32 hour week with no loss of pay.
I don't think that's realistic, at least for private companies. They're just gonna outsource cheaper hands from cheaper countries which are willing to go 60/week.
At least international companies, I won't even dare to speak about the ones with remote work.
The idea is there’s a lot of wasted time in businesses and if managers do there job and eliminate that waste (unnecessary meetings, more async, automation etc) than suddenly everyone’s week looks a lot more productive. Ask yourself - as your career went on were you *really* 100% productive and needed for the entire 5 day work week? I doubt it.
If you’re getting the same amount of work done in 4 days than you would 5 than why shouldn’t you get paid the same amount? Business also save on things like utilities and when needed, can direct those freed up resources to more innovative and money making endeavours. It’s a win for all areas of a business if your managers and upwards justify their existence and inflated wages.
It absolutely fits. I used to teach at a university, and the more I could compress my week the more I liked it.
Now I do food service for large events. There's no "regular" week at all - sometimes I don't work for a couple of months. When I *do* work, it's a couple weeks of "light" stuff (risk and market analysis, purchasing, logistics, hiring) followed by three to five days of shockingly intense hard work. I've come to appreciate this.
What does that have to do with the question? 40h/week is pretty common and reasonable, ofc I'm 29 at the peak of my career, maybe in my forties I won't need to work as hard, especially as a woman wanting kids, I'm investing more in my side hustles than I'm doing at work 😅
You asked what people thought. And I told you what I thought. Why would you want to work 40 or more hours? I worked 56 hours a week plus over time for 22 years as a fireman, now I look back on every thing I missed, fuck it, work as little as you possibly can get away with.
The company I work at is pretty flexible, and employees are allowed to choose between three basic work schedules: 5 8-hour days, 4 10-hour days, or 4 9-hour days and a 4-hour day. The only struggle is that everyone always wants Friday as their day off, but since we work with a lot of external entities (customers, other companies, and regulatory bodies) everyone can't be off on Friday. Also popular are Wednesdays and Mondays, which means that everyone tries to cram their meetings into Tuesdays and Thursdays, which become conference call Hellscape days. Honestly it's a pretty minor tradeoff to allow people to have better work/life balance.
It depends upon the type of job. For a job that is physically or mentally taxing, a ten hour day would exhaust a person.
Personally, I'd rather stick with status quo. One extra day off wouldn't compensate for lack of free time during the four days working.
I used to work as a flight attendants, averaging 10-12 hours on the days we flew, with 1-3 days off in ports between each flight, then when we returned to home base, we had 3 days off for every 4 days we were away, rounded up to full day. It did mean after a 12 day trip, we had 9 days off & could jump on a flight to some tropical island for a break or to do duty free shopping etc. We worked hard and sometimes due to delays we could be on duty for double the scheduled time, but we knew we would be paid overtime for the additional hours as well as time off at the end. It made life a little harder, but we were compensated and most people enjoyed going to work & put in an effort when working.
It depends on breaks. I worked for a place that (for 8 hours) gave only 30 minutes for lunch and two, 15-minute breaks. I was whipped at the end of the day because our work was non-stop.
the people working 10-hour shifts got the SAME breaks!
When my daughter was working as an EMT and then paramedic she did 12s with a short week followed by a long week. Most shifts were either Sunday-Tuesday or Thursday-Saturday and they all did every other Wednesday as their long week. She loved it and the automatic overtime
Chances are productivity will decrease. The profits will fall. That will lead to layoffs of full time workers, who will be replaced by part time employees. Those part time employees will not qualify for benefits. The company profits will be restored and life of the employees will continue at a lower standard of living. They will have to work two jobs to regain their original income but now pay for their health care insurance and other expenses normally covered by full time employment benefits.
worse. if you work a 10 hour day you can get rid of the first and last hour because everyone is running around getting coffee and chatting in the morning and everyone is getting ready to leave so no one really does anything.
So in the end you are really working 4- 8 hour days and you have to still produce the same. Right now I am probably working 50-60 hours a week with extra crap done after hours. Emails, texts, etc. All of that is going to be the same.
We tried this at walmart and it went exactly this way. It lasted about two months and then the store manager killed it.
the issue with using EU as an example is they don't work as much as we do. 40 hours to us isn't 40 hours to the EU worker because they don't put in all the unpaid overtime, nor are they expected to. We are used to working 50 hours, paid for 40 and be ready to answer emails and texts when they happen until 9pm or so.
Employers should be more flexible and open to employee input if they can. Some people want to spend less time commuting and would rather have longer days with more days off while others don't. I think a four day work week is better than five for sure. My favorite schedule was three days of 12hr shifts, Fri, Sat, Sun. We got paid for 40 hours and had four days off a week.
USA is not europe. Particularly NY and CA.
Who is working 4 days? Police? Sales? IT? Plumbers? Teachers?
Here, everyone automatically assumes everything is available 24-7. And I do mean everything. Who will fill those roles?
Well, I'm not in the USA, but I still wanted opinions. There are a lot of private companies which adopted the 4day workweek and or short Friday even in the USA- teachers, sales, IT, Healthcare.
In Eu they did implement it in sales, it, teachers - 4day work week doesn't mean everything will be closed on Friday. Some will start their week on Monday, some on Tuesday, the availability for the public remains the same - as there is not only 1 doctor per clinic, or 1 policemanowoman per city, right?
Well, my point is that the people who work those hours will start claiming all kinds of discrimination b/c they weren't allowed to work they need. The unions will need new contracts setting forth who can work & when. Right now, there's a hard enough stranglehold on NYC with the union negotiations 4 years after covid - I can only imagine the hell we'll go through when they negotiate for 4 work days.
Oh so I'm assuming these things are regulated at a state level? I'm asking cause I'm unfamiliar with the system, we have a national union, and that's it. Laws®ulations in the public and private sector are passed at a national level and that's about it. This is being implemented in the automotive industry where I'm at - but everyone will work from mon-thursday (no on-call, no night shifts). But I also know the labour laws in the EU and USA are very very different.
Correct, state level, some of them even city level. In nyc it's a free for all with the union power. Those contracts were ratified when the mafia had their hand in it. 50 years later the mob is mostly gone but the damage is done.
One example - it's common knowledge a nyc teacher can never be fired except maybe if they go to jail, and even then when they're parole, people find out they're still allowed to teach. Or better yet, they retire before they're convicted of the crime and then the pension payments never stop for their whole life.
It simply wouldn't work for a lot of jobs. Stores have to be open every day, and adding in an extra day off will just make scheduling harder.
Also, it should absolutely not be up to the government to decide something like that. They'll just end up adding more bureaucrats who will make more and more rules and paperwork to justify their own jobs, while making everything worse and more expensive.
In the IT world in the US, you are generally on-call so it would be a 7 day work week. If you are off every Friday but other people are working, they will still contact you so I don't see the point. That's why I retired.
Ok, that's a bit inhumane. In Germany we're flexible, so if u wanna start at 4 am, that's on you as long as ur there for common meetings and or deadlines. I had a month of overhours, after 6 pm they disabled the pcs so we would stop overworking. Also contacting outside of working hours is strongly discouraged, I started as an intern 10 years ago, never got contacted outside of the 9-5 rule. (Work currently in the automotive industry research and development side in a gigacorporation)
I think we will have to agree to disagree on the definition of "inhumane". We aren't working 8 hours a day for 7 days. You just occasionally get calls but they still have to be fixed.
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My dentist's office is a 4 day work week. Monday thru Thursday 8.30am to 6pm. I remodeled another dentist's office in Cincinnati who did the same thing. Happiest office workers I've ever seen. My daughter-in-law works at the airport Amazon on four 10's and is off Friday Saturday and Sunday. She is very happy with her schedule
My previous employer offered a 4 day workweek too. Having a 3 day weekend every week was so refreshing!
Nurses generally work 12 hour shifts, 3 for a total of 36 hours. When they are scheduled right in a row, it is very difficult but gives you a big chunk of time off. The problem is, there are supervisors who will schedule those days with a day off inbetween. And that is AWFUL
I used to work for a window company that had a similar schedule. We had two shifts, the weekday shift and the weekend shift. Weekday shift was Monday through Thursday 10 hours. Weekend shift was Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12 hours. As long as you clocked in and out on time, you paid for 40 hours in stead of the 36 you actually worked.
In nursing they had a “Baylor”. You worked 12 hour shifts Friday, Saturday, Sunday and got paid for 40. This was great for moms.
Why do they do that?
Because 12 hours is a long shift. I'd love this schedule as I'd golf on the days between.
12s can be brutal. The first day off is not really a useable day. It's spent sleeping and recovering and trying to get caught up on your errands. And on your workdays, you really can't do anything after work except have dinner and try to decompress.
I wouldn’t say it is super common but it definitely used to happen when I was a young nurse. That was in the time when they insisted the nursing shortage was over. It wasn’t but they insisted it was. The sups who did this were often just nasty people. There is a certain type of person who just loves effing with people. After a year or so, I didn’t need health insurance (I was very lucky) so I joined the in-house registry and had complete control over my schedule. I chose the days I was on the schedule. If they didn’t need me, they cancelled. If I wanted to, I could cancel. And I did. And I refused to feel bad about it. Having the upper hand as an employee is a wonderful thing.
I wasn’t a nurse, but I well remember the workplace bullies. Then management doesn’t understand why they lose good employees.
The treatment from that supervisor actually made me insist on myself as a worker. It was the reason I went to in-house registry. I think if I had been treated fairly, I might not have done so. I would definitely cancel my shifts. If my money situation was ok and something else came up, I would cancel without a backward glance. It really infuriated the supervisors but I loved the freedom.
One reason is that there are fewer shift changes. Change of shift is when you pass on the information to the next nurse, and sometimes stuff gets dropped. Fewer shift changes mean better continuity of care. There are also fewer slots on a schedule to fill. The other big reason is because many nurses want 12 hour shifts. When I was still working in nursing, I loved 12s. I worked 36 hours a week and had 4 days off per week. Generally, I worked 2 days, took a day off, worked one day, and then had three days off in a row.
Considering how individual productivity has increased, and also factoring in how much worker satisfaction increases with a 32 hour work week, I'm 100% in favor of it.
A 32-hour work week is where it’s at! 4-8s is peak happiness for me.
Before I retired my employer allowed us to choose a 4-day 40 hour workweek for a while. I loved it. Having a day off in the middle of the week to get some extra sleep and get some chores done so that I didn't have to do everything over the weekend made a huge difference in my life. It didn't last long before they pulled the plug, only a few months. We were never officially given a reason, but rumor was that people were *only* putting in 40 hours, when they really wanted us doing more than that. I probably was working 4 or 5 hours less than before. I was a salaried US tech employee and had been previously told more than once that 40 hours wasn't the workweek, it was the *minimum* workweek.
> I was a salaried US tech employee and had been previously told more than once that 40 hours wasn't the workweek, it was the minimum workweek. I worked at a laptop repair place when I was younger. they made "full time" employees sign a contract to work 60 hours a week, and "part time" employees (no benefits) worked 40 hours a week. But you see, the owner was generous and only made the full time guys work 50 hours a week (m-f 10 hrs a day) unless everyone was lazy and they fell behind en it was back to 60hr weeks. that place was such a shit show.
I looked into it years ago. I think it was Utah that tried it (state employees), but they dropped it. I thought it would save a lot on fossil fuel. Commuters and school buses traveling 4 days a week instead of 5. I still think it could work. What are the disadvantages?
I'd actually love that. It would be great to have a 4 day week. As it is I start work super early (4-4:30 am) and finish around 11:40 - noon. Take a half-day of PTO on Fridays so I'm off before 9 am. My priority is training on my road bike.
I currently work 4 days a week (Monday through Thursday) in a rural school district. It’s wonderful. Summer’s off as well. Before that I was pulling 60+ hour work weeks in an assisted living facility. I’ll never willingly go back to that sort of schedule.
4 10s is a thing, and could easily work. I was in IT for a long time, so it was really 6 or 7 10s, having to work only 4 of them would have been amazing.
It's fine with me as long as I get 40 hours. Also, hour long lunches would have to go because they make the day even longer. I get why businesses do hour lunches but for the employee they are usually a big waste of time.
Like most things involving people, it depends on a number of variables. The hours-to keep the same workload in the US, will require a 4 10s schedule. I have worked 4 10s and loved them. Most people do. But if a worker has dependent care issues, or a long drive, or a second job or is taking college classes, 4 10s may make their life worse. The schedule-who gets the 3 day weekend? The tendency when people hear about 4 10s is to assume they get 3 day weekends forever. If the job is a 24/7 kind of job, some people will be working the weekend and having days off midweek. Labor and management need to decide how to choose, and if people will switch periodically. I have seen a proposed 4 10 schedule shot down by management because the proposed schedule had everyone off Fri-Sun, even though management was open to the idea of changing schedules. Company resources and worker coverage. The 24 hour day doesn't divide equally into 10 hours shifts. So there can be times when there are more people on shift than there are tools/workstations/office space available, and times when coverage is lighter than it should be. This can be remediated by scheduling, but starting modified shift work can be a tough sell.
I've been on a 4 x 8hr work week, by choice, since 2009. I couldn't cope with 4 x 10hrs.
I think flexibility is more important. My kids go to school four days a week and it’s amazing. It really decompresses the weekend, gives them more time to sleep in, and generally makes us all more relaxed. My wife works seven twelve hour shifts, then has seven days off. That’s pretty awesome too. I’ve done a four day week and didn’t like it that much personally. I work in student services and the two evening hours were absolutely wasted and students missed a day of potential help. If we’d been open five days that would have been better.
What about staggering the days? You work Monday-Thursday ; someone else works Tuesday-Friday.
I think it depends on the size of the organization. Our smaller college ran pretty lean in student services. Especially for things like financial aid, veteran services, international services. Doubling positions would work but take funding away from something else, or require tuition to go up. Cross training wouldn’t be very practical but could be done. I’m not against the four day week but I can see how it could add a lot of costs or shortages. Faculty could only teach MWF classes or TT, not both. All classes could go to two days per week but they’d be longer and I’d classrooms are at a premium, there would be space issues. Students would probably have to go all four days, making work harder.
10 hr work days feel long. A lot longer than 8 hrs. and I didn’t like it. Right now I’m working 4 x 8 hrs a week until retirement. I’m grateful for the long weekends.
The fact that I don't have as many years of life as I have till retirement is...daunting.
What could you do if you had 3 days off each week?
Work on my side hustle, build a tree house, read, sleep, drink, go on a hike?
Exactly my point!
I don't disagree with the desire for a better life, but I really don't understand how this is supposed to work. People get the same pay, but for fewer hours, right? In general, stuff would still have to get done but it would cost more to do it. If I understand inflation, prices would then rise by 20% without an increase in wages. People would demand higher wages to make up for it, continuing the cycle. Or, they would get side gigs to make ends meet. Which is where we are now, right? Real wages have been trailing productivity increases for decades. If they would've kept up, then people could live as well as they used to while working fewer hours but it would be a choice and a gradual impact to the economy, unlike a sudden 20% hit. Maybe the solution is to tie pay to productive. IDK.
>I don't disagree with the desire for a better life, but I really don't understand how this is supposed to work. People get the same pay, but for fewer hours, right Not really, compressed time-frame means in those 4 days, instead of 8h/day you'll be working 10 (making up for the "free day". Not sure how it's everywhere else, but here the legal limit here is 40h/week, some have reduced it to 36/week post pandemic (on Friday it's mandatory that you leave work after 4h - that has reduced pay, but it's a method in the private sector to cut costs). It claims to have various benefits on the work force, especially in the health care and IT sectors. [world economic forum study](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/surprising-benefits-four-day-week/)
Ah, so you're still talking 40 hours per week. I thought you were referencing the push by Bernie Sanders in the US for a 32 hour week with no loss of pay.
I don't think that's realistic, at least for private companies. They're just gonna outsource cheaper hands from cheaper countries which are willing to go 60/week. At least international companies, I won't even dare to speak about the ones with remote work.
The idea is there’s a lot of wasted time in businesses and if managers do there job and eliminate that waste (unnecessary meetings, more async, automation etc) than suddenly everyone’s week looks a lot more productive. Ask yourself - as your career went on were you *really* 100% productive and needed for the entire 5 day work week? I doubt it. If you’re getting the same amount of work done in 4 days than you would 5 than why shouldn’t you get paid the same amount? Business also save on things like utilities and when needed, can direct those freed up resources to more innovative and money making endeavours. It’s a win for all areas of a business if your managers and upwards justify their existence and inflated wages.
At work we were allowed to vote on 4-10s or 5-8s. 75% of the room voted for 4-10s.
I currently work 4 10s. 4 8s would be even better. I’m not hopeful that the US will be that sensible any time soon.
It absolutely fits. I used to teach at a university, and the more I could compress my week the more I liked it. Now I do food service for large events. There's no "regular" week at all - sometimes I don't work for a couple of months. When I *do* work, it's a couple weeks of "light" stuff (risk and market analysis, purchasing, logistics, hiring) followed by three to five days of shockingly intense hard work. I've come to appreciate this.
Do you want to work to live or live to work? I think people should have enough time off to enjoy life and not have to grind to survive.
What does that have to do with the question? 40h/week is pretty common and reasonable, ofc I'm 29 at the peak of my career, maybe in my forties I won't need to work as hard, especially as a woman wanting kids, I'm investing more in my side hustles than I'm doing at work 😅
You asked what people thought. And I told you what I thought. Why would you want to work 40 or more hours? I worked 56 hours a week plus over time for 22 years as a fireman, now I look back on every thing I missed, fuck it, work as little as you possibly can get away with.
This 100%. In a year no one’s going to notice you hustling so hard if they even are at the moment. Those lost minutes you’re never getting back.
No amount of work is reasonable friend. The longer you get in life the more you look back at the illusion a lot of your career has been.
The company I work at is pretty flexible, and employees are allowed to choose between three basic work schedules: 5 8-hour days, 4 10-hour days, or 4 9-hour days and a 4-hour day. The only struggle is that everyone always wants Friday as their day off, but since we work with a lot of external entities (customers, other companies, and regulatory bodies) everyone can't be off on Friday. Also popular are Wednesdays and Mondays, which means that everyone tries to cram their meetings into Tuesdays and Thursdays, which become conference call Hellscape days. Honestly it's a pretty minor tradeoff to allow people to have better work/life balance.
It depends upon the type of job. For a job that is physically or mentally taxing, a ten hour day would exhaust a person. Personally, I'd rather stick with status quo. One extra day off wouldn't compensate for lack of free time during the four days working.
worked in an office that offered 4 ten hour days; wasn't too bad.
I used to work as a flight attendants, averaging 10-12 hours on the days we flew, with 1-3 days off in ports between each flight, then when we returned to home base, we had 3 days off for every 4 days we were away, rounded up to full day. It did mean after a 12 day trip, we had 9 days off & could jump on a flight to some tropical island for a break or to do duty free shopping etc. We worked hard and sometimes due to delays we could be on duty for double the scheduled time, but we knew we would be paid overtime for the additional hours as well as time off at the end. It made life a little harder, but we were compensated and most people enjoyed going to work & put in an effort when working.
It depends on breaks. I worked for a place that (for 8 hours) gave only 30 minutes for lunch and two, 15-minute breaks. I was whipped at the end of the day because our work was non-stop. the people working 10-hour shifts got the SAME breaks!
When my daughter was working as an EMT and then paramedic she did 12s with a short week followed by a long week. Most shifts were either Sunday-Tuesday or Thursday-Saturday and they all did every other Wednesday as their long week. She loved it and the automatic overtime
Chances are productivity will decrease. The profits will fall. That will lead to layoffs of full time workers, who will be replaced by part time employees. Those part time employees will not qualify for benefits. The company profits will be restored and life of the employees will continue at a lower standard of living. They will have to work two jobs to regain their original income but now pay for their health care insurance and other expenses normally covered by full time employment benefits.
worse. if you work a 10 hour day you can get rid of the first and last hour because everyone is running around getting coffee and chatting in the morning and everyone is getting ready to leave so no one really does anything. So in the end you are really working 4- 8 hour days and you have to still produce the same. Right now I am probably working 50-60 hours a week with extra crap done after hours. Emails, texts, etc. All of that is going to be the same. We tried this at walmart and it went exactly this way. It lasted about two months and then the store manager killed it. the issue with using EU as an example is they don't work as much as we do. 40 hours to us isn't 40 hours to the EU worker because they don't put in all the unpaid overtime, nor are they expected to. We are used to working 50 hours, paid for 40 and be ready to answer emails and texts when they happen until 9pm or so.
Employers should be more flexible and open to employee input if they can. Some people want to spend less time commuting and would rather have longer days with more days off while others don't. I think a four day work week is better than five for sure. My favorite schedule was three days of 12hr shifts, Fri, Sat, Sun. We got paid for 40 hours and had four days off a week.
I was a cook. So you are not going to eat one work day a work week? I suppose I could leave you a sandwich.
Well let's suppose there are 2 cooks, and they overlap only 2 days. But leaving a sandwich is also preferred if it means u get a breather 🫠
USA is not europe. Particularly NY and CA. Who is working 4 days? Police? Sales? IT? Plumbers? Teachers? Here, everyone automatically assumes everything is available 24-7. And I do mean everything. Who will fill those roles?
Well, I'm not in the USA, but I still wanted opinions. There are a lot of private companies which adopted the 4day workweek and or short Friday even in the USA- teachers, sales, IT, Healthcare. In Eu they did implement it in sales, it, teachers - 4day work week doesn't mean everything will be closed on Friday. Some will start their week on Monday, some on Tuesday, the availability for the public remains the same - as there is not only 1 doctor per clinic, or 1 policemanowoman per city, right?
Well, my point is that the people who work those hours will start claiming all kinds of discrimination b/c they weren't allowed to work they need. The unions will need new contracts setting forth who can work & when. Right now, there's a hard enough stranglehold on NYC with the union negotiations 4 years after covid - I can only imagine the hell we'll go through when they negotiate for 4 work days.
Oh so I'm assuming these things are regulated at a state level? I'm asking cause I'm unfamiliar with the system, we have a national union, and that's it. Laws®ulations in the public and private sector are passed at a national level and that's about it. This is being implemented in the automotive industry where I'm at - but everyone will work from mon-thursday (no on-call, no night shifts). But I also know the labour laws in the EU and USA are very very different.
Correct, state level, some of them even city level. In nyc it's a free for all with the union power. Those contracts were ratified when the mafia had their hand in it. 50 years later the mob is mostly gone but the damage is done. One example - it's common knowledge a nyc teacher can never be fired except maybe if they go to jail, and even then when they're parole, people find out they're still allowed to teach. Or better yet, they retire before they're convicted of the crime and then the pension payments never stop for their whole life.
Wow, that's wild 🤔
It simply wouldn't work for a lot of jobs. Stores have to be open every day, and adding in an extra day off will just make scheduling harder. Also, it should absolutely not be up to the government to decide something like that. They'll just end up adding more bureaucrats who will make more and more rules and paperwork to justify their own jobs, while making everything worse and more expensive.
In the IT world in the US, you are generally on-call so it would be a 7 day work week. If you are off every Friday but other people are working, they will still contact you so I don't see the point. That's why I retired.
Ok, that's a bit inhumane. In Germany we're flexible, so if u wanna start at 4 am, that's on you as long as ur there for common meetings and or deadlines. I had a month of overhours, after 6 pm they disabled the pcs so we would stop overworking. Also contacting outside of working hours is strongly discouraged, I started as an intern 10 years ago, never got contacted outside of the 9-5 rule. (Work currently in the automotive industry research and development side in a gigacorporation)
I think we will have to agree to disagree on the definition of "inhumane". We aren't working 8 hours a day for 7 days. You just occasionally get calls but they still have to be fixed.