The 8-hour 5 days syndrome not etched in stone

a reply to: Edumakated

Yeah, in hindsight...women kinda screwed the family income this way. I can admit that, it wasn't the wisest choice.

I loved it when I was a young IT desk jockey - 4 9's and a 4 on Friday, manager gave us our paycheck and out the door at 1pm!

Nowadays being a director in a knowledge and service based industry it's 5 10's and some messaging on weekends but the money is worth it.

a reply to: Willtell


An 8 hour day, too funny.

In Sweden they tried a 6hr day experiment for 2yrs They called it work life balance. Although it was great for the staff involved as they were on full pay, and said they had more energy less sick hours logged etc it was allegedly financially not viable costing the city of Gothenburg around 12mill krona, due to having to employ more people to cover hours not covered under the 6hr day trial.

A bit of a conundrum, creates more jobs, makes for happy staff, costs more money....businesses won't fall for it :0

You forgot to mention also can’t compete with China.

Which brings us to the core of the issue, once developed industrialised countries had unions and fought for rights, including such things as the right to limit the working hour week.

Some businesses decided to export the labour abroad and import the product as it was far more profitable. At first the products were of poor quality, cheap and nasty but soon improved and other businesses in order to compete were forced to follow suit.

At least that’s what happened with the manufacturing sectors.

Also wasn’t it Henry Ford who came up with the production assembly line? Which while making production far more efficient, at the same time took away the skill and thus value from the individual worker. A process which is now mostly automated.

originally posted by: PhyllidaDavenport
In Sweden they tried a 6hr day experiment for 2yrs They called it work life balance. Although it was great for the staff involved as they were on full pay, and said they had more energy less sick hours logged etc it was allegedly financially not viable costing the city of Gothenburg around 12mill krona, due to having to employ more people to cover hours not covered under the 6hr day trial.

A bit of a conundrum, creates more jobs, makes for happy staff, costs more money....businesses won't fall for it :0

Yeah that’s a good excuse and proves it can work on the micro level but now were stuck in the macro conundrum of production value

Almost like the spiritual realm where were all tied into the macro demiurge and only a few get out of that matrix

The devil is god for a time

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Ibwork more than i should. I make money for other people.

Id like having a 4 day, 32 hour week.

I work 10 hour days, I'd love being able to just have a 40 hour work week instead of 50 or 60 hours.

a reply to: eriktheawful

An advanced rectenna design that utilizes organic diodes to accomodate for the switching frequency aka cheap and highly efficient super solar devices. Think 80 to 90% efficiency.

Imagine an a/c unit sized device on top of your house that provides power 50 to 100% of the year. Combine that with capacitors and all houses and businesses in a large area providing 'shared' energy on a single grid.

Theres your free power.


The problem is with monopolies and powerful greed mongers, including centralized power, stifling innovation and the will of the people to not be broken by supply and demand charts.

Also, the inability for enough people to:

a) recognize that lowering stress by relaxing more and doing what you enjoy, leads to one being happier and healthier

b) actually having the ability to believe in and/or assist a change in the work grind norm



I like to work and be productive, dont get me wrong.

But i see so many friends of mine working 50+ hour weeks to barely scrape by, working like slaves for companies they dislike, doing things they dislike.

They often seem drained beyond belief and pissed off at life, and in turn, take it out on those around them including their own family...

Some will say then find a new job that suits you better. That is not always an option for the vast majority of people.

Throw into that mix spending a total of 2 to 5 hours in traffic to and from work in densely populated areas...

Honestly, this to me is somewhat of a dystopia. All of this stress and lack of free time to be with loved ones and friends and actually unwind from the hideous grind is erroding people's psyche and tbh, is probably a huge factor in failing relationships, depression, alcoholism and drug abuse, sickness in general, social disgruntlement, and a lot more.


But hey, we are supposed to work for the economy, the economy isnt supposed to work for us.


Wait. What?

originally posted by: kelbtalfenek

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
Ibwork more than i should. I make money for other people.

Id like having a 4 day, 32 hour week.

I work 10 hour days, I'd love being able to just have a 40 hour work week instead of 50 or 60 hours.

I'd love to only have to work 50 or 60 hours a week, tbh.

a reply to: Willtell

I used to be a night shift supervisor for a security firm specialising in onshore security for supply vessels for the oil industry. My shifts were 12 hours long and I worked in another city, an hour and a half bus journey away from where I lived,. All in all I was away from home for 15 hours minimum each night, leaving me 8 hours between shifts to wash, sleep and do everything else. Then I was a bouncer for the same firm on the doors, every Friday and Saturday, an hours bus journey from home. So was away an extra 12 hours every weekend on top of the 75 I was away Sunday to Thursday.

I haven't worked thar much for years and have been pretty broke since, sadly...

I do 12 hour nightshifts.
4 on 3 off.
3 on 2 off.
It really jacks with one's circadian rhythms, but I make fair pay.
Is it today yet?

The Four Hour work Week by Timothy Ferris. That's my bible. Of course I work more than that, but I work for myself and one day I will have the four hour work week!

originally posted by: djz3ro
a reply to: Willtell

I used to be a night shift supervisor for a security firm specialising in onshore security for supply vessels for the oil industry. My shifts were 12 hours long and I worked in another city, an hour and a half bus journey away from where I lived,. All in all I was away from home for 15 hours minimum each night, leaving me 8 hours between shifts to wash, sleep and do everything else. Then I was a bouncer for the same firm on the doors, every Friday and Saturday, an hours bus journey from home. So was away an extra 12 hours every weekend on top of the 75 I was away Sunday to Thursday.

I haven't worked thar much for years and have been pretty broke since, sadly...

I sympathize and wish you well.

When I changed careers I worked 3 jobs for a while, I know how you feel

The question is, when the f___ are we going to wake up?


The teachers in West Virginia have awakened….Somewhat

I read an article and it says Uber and Lyft drivers when you add it all up make 3 dollars an hour! I kid you not.

And they did them a favor by preventing them from working more than 12 hours.
Gee thanks uber

www.npr.org...

They conned these mercenaries to destroy a decent living cab industry for 3 dollars an hour!

Oh boy, oh boy, were far away from 6 hours a day my friends

Its all about how the elite run our lives and we work for them, to maintain their wealth.

They distract us with all this crap and keep us far away from change, real change.

And further mire us into the mud of slavery

But one day we'll wake up and take control of our lives

www.cnn.com...

A six-hour workday could be good for you -- and your employer

It may sound counterintuitive, but working less could actually result in higher productivity. Seriously. Although many of us continue the tradition of working at least eight hours per day, with an hour's break in the middle -- if we're lucky -- a recent study found that productivity is actually highest when people spend fewer hours working, according to researchers at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which examined working hours in several countries over a period of 22 years.

Are you addicted to work? In fact, one paper (PDF) suggested that output actually starts to fall if people work more than 48 hours per week. Data on munition plant workers in Britain during World War I showed that long hours led to fatigue and stress that not only reduce productivity, they make accidents, errors and sickness more likely.

I know I'm but a voice crying in the wilderness of greed

but rest assured, one day that voice will be
heard and people will wake up

originally posted by: Nyiah
a reply to: Edumakated

Yeah, in hindsight...women kinda screwed the family income this way. I can admit that, it wasn't the wisest choice.

Behind every good man, is a woman who bears the blame!!

originally posted by: Willtell
The question is, when the f___ are we going to wake up?

Maybe after you answer my question.

originally posted by: Willtell
All one wants to do generally is after dinner, maybe a little light socializing, TV, reading, all without much real involvement since your always thinking work-sleep, sleep-work in the back of your brain. Then just maybe sit down and loaf for a few hours then your sleep again rearing up for work

I believe this has to do with mental/physical discipline and nothing more. If something is important to you, you can make time for it. To many, video games, reading, tv, and whatever else is low effort entertainment. People get off work, come home to relax, and don't want to do more work, so they turn to relaxation. There's nothing wrong with that... but even for people with lots of spare time, look at their daily activities. Very little is spent on self improvement. It's not the 40 hour week that prevents that, it's human nature.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Willtell

I wish I worked 8 hours 5 days a week. More like 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, with an occasional day and a half off to reset my hours.

Most weeks I work 20 hours a week, at any schedule I prefer (with an occasional meeting here and there), and get paid more money than I know how to spend.

The jobs exist, but you have to be able to deliver productivity value to a company. Rather than drive a truck, devise and maintain a system that drives 1000 trucks at once. That's how it is for me at work too, I get paid more than an entire Indian dev team combined, but I'm expected to also outproduce all 25 of them at once, and the work involves making lots of people redundant.

Basically, my job is to deliver cost savings. If you can do that, you can work whatever hours you want.

originally posted by: Willtell
It will take an innovator, like the great Henry Ford who cut through the misery of the 14-16 hour unsustainable slave conditions and had the foresight and courage to start normalizing the 8-hour workday.

Some powerful industrialist who might begin working his force 6 hours a day and maybe even 4 days a week.

It requires education. Every few weeks I get an opportunity to travel the country, visit another corporate office, and tour their on site factory. Without giving away the company I work for, it's a fortune 500 manufacturer with diverse product lines. There's a really interesting thing I've noticed in the factories. In the factories that build low end inexpensive equipment, the sort of stuff that's really just a couple of plates and motors bolted together... the factories are loud, dirty, low paid, and relatively dangerous, and they're staffed by high school dropouts. In the factories that build the high tech, high margin, important products you still have factory workers, but the places are clean, quiet, 100x safer, and the work force is educated. I visited a California site recently and every factory worker was either a biologist or an engineer.

They got to work 4x10 shifts, and time shifted to dodge traffic.

My experience is that most factory workers want to do, not learn. And that's why their conditions aren't improving.