No, I don’t want to work longer hours. I can literally accomplish the same amount in 4 days as I do in a 5 day work week. What is this obsession with always being more productive anyway? We have improved efficiency and production like 300% (probably more) since the early 1900s, and we are still expected to be wage slaves. That’s dog shit corporate bullshit propaganda.
Tbf the working conditions and life conditions have improved enormously since the tge early 1900s. Just remember that the early 1900s was still a Victorian era hellscape in regards to working conditions, with child labor, no rights whatsoever, no protections, 18 hours work days until you dropped dead at 40 if you were lucky.
That being said, the issue is that in many cases production has gone up by 300% since the 90s, with no meaningful change in working conditions, just a reduction in personnel. A change is needed and this 4 day work week movement is a good thing.
The extra productivity just increased profits for the company and raise the stock price for investors. The ability to use less manpower increased profits and stock shares. Slowing pay and benefits advancements for the workers increased profits for the company and shareholders.
Companies don’t take the view of all we need to do is break even every year it’s about making more and more money every year. The actual people who put the work in to make those profits mean nothing to upper management and the shareholders they are all replaceable.
If the stock market and mega corporations were gone and there were only small regional privately owned companies you would see a huge difference in workers lives.
Speak for yourself. I work as an electrician at a hydropower plant. I suppose you could debate whether my job role matters or not, but if you like that your kettle, TV, phone and everything else that requires electricity works, then I think you’d be hard pushed.
I do agree strongly that some of the worst paid jobs are the most valuable. One of the best things to come out of the pandemic was a big push for unionism and I hope it stays that way.
Unfortunately in our current society, we need to work. I quite like the idea of not being destitute when I reach retirement age. I’d love to spend all my time following my passions but I need to be realistic.
The climate problem is interesting. Some countries are moving towards being CO2 neutral. I hope that others will follow them and it won’t be too late.
I’m an aerospace engineer, and my role is critical to the success of our project. Actually, I haven’t worked a professional job where that wasn’t the case. You’re not going to change my mind about how our society is structured. We’ve all been duped into participating in a system that is pushing us to extinction, and it’s insane
Five years older than me? Tell me, what was it like working by candlelight to invent electricity with only the warm sound of eight tracks to keep you steady at night? Was Millard Fillmore as awesome as people say? Did you prefer having a coffee with Oscar Wilde or Cleopatra?
Millennials is just the name for the group despised by Boomers, and Boomers is just the name for the group despised by Millennials. Otherwise, either term is completely meaningless.
Other sacrifices that Gen Z and millennial employees say they’d make in exchange for a four-day workweek include working longer hours (48%), changing jobs or companies (35%), working weekends or evenings (27%) and even taking a pay cut (13%).
If people can be as productive with a four-day workweek (and other surveys and studies have shown this to be the case), there should be no need for workers to sacrifice anything.
Realistically, employers should be the ones sacrificing to keep productive staff happy, including giving them a four-hour workweek with no strings attached.
If people are as productive in 4 days as they are in 5 days, I don’t see how the employer would be sacrificing anything at all. They would just be saving a day of office lighting bills.
The “sacrifice” is number of total man hours going down. Nevermind that the remaining hours are vastly superior to the ones you lose, that’s a number that’s smaller, and unless that’s “how much we’re paying”, numbers being smaller is a bad thing, mmkay?
The employer will see that you “could” be doing more work, since you accomplish everything in 4 hours. “You don’t have enough work to occupy your time”, they’d say in my country.
That’s why people act busy. Because when you’re efficient, you get punished with more work.
This is true. My company has afternoons off in the summer (4.5 day work weeks). Basically they acknowledge that no one is doing anything after lunch on a Friday.
The same amount of actual work gets done. It’s actually more efficient because no one is coming up with useless meetings and busywork.
Despite the popular belief that younger generations are champions of remote work, one-third of Gen Z and millennial workers say they’d be willing to work fully in-person if it meant shaving a day off of their workweek.
[. . .]
Other sacrifices that Gen Z and millennial employees say they’d make in exchange for a four-day workweek include working longer hours (48%), changing jobs or companies (35%), working weekends or evenings (27%) and even taking a pay cut (13%)
Fuckin based honestly. I thought they would ask for less compromise, but if they’re gonna go for the gut we’d better just tell them how it is. Less hours are proven to make better working happier more productive and cooperative employees. They’re just potentially less compliant.
Yeah, that’s not any kind of improvement, that’s just moving your hours around. People can do that now. Shouldn’t need to. The 40 hour workweek is way out of date, 32 hours is barely catching up to where we should be by now.
Absolutely. I also find 8 hours to be more than long enough. The days with overtime are actually fucking thievery as the rest of the day goes down the drain due to exaustion. I would prefer 5*6h to be honest, especially with remote work. It is very likely that i will do this in the future but right now i do not want to take the loss of money.
I took this option. 10/4 is significantly better for me than 8/5, so when I saw the availability in the schedule for that, I took it. Granted, I have a job where working 10 hrs and working 8 hours is a negligible difference, but it’s a trade I’d personally make regardless.
I have worked 10 hour days, I was not 25% more productive than I was over an 8 hour day. There is only so much work I can get done during a day. After a while, I get mentally tired and it gets harder to concentrate.
Often, walking away from a problem, getting a night of sleep, and coming back fresh gives me a different perspective and I come up with new solutions.