I am absolutely not willing to make any sacrifices. We deserve the four day work week. Full stop
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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I'm willing to sacrifice in-office work in favor of WFH. That should save the corpos money on renting office space that they can then pass on as increased wages as well.
Oh wait...
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.
Tbh if we got a four day work week we would have more time to think about and advocate for the things we want anyway. A pay cut would be temporary.
That's why the owner class doesn't want it. Keep the masses busy and tired.
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four-hour workweek
Now we're getting somewhere!
After all, a typical office employee only does 15 minutes of real actual work.
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 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.
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Since when did we have to "give anything up" to get a four-day work week?
We simply need to take the four-day work week by force.
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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%)
Translation:
- 67% would not switch from remote to in-person
- 52% would not work longer hours
- 65% would not change jobs
- 73% would not work evenings/weekends
- 87% would not take a pay cut
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.
Hey, studies show 8/4 wouldn't appreciably lower productivity. Why the fuck should I give my employer anything else?
Fuck no, I will not budge an inch. Those C Suite motherfuckers stroll on in here for 25 hours a week. Fuck them and fuck the author of this article. I'll burn my workplace to the ground before I compromise for a 4-day work week.
4 days. 6 hour day is full time. 24 hour work week is where we should be.
1 day, 1 hour, let's knock this shit out. I've got better things to do.
Exactly I spend more down time at my job then I ever had in my life. Even though my job can't be done at home we literally could be open only 6 hours a day and still make the same amount of money.
This how much free time I have. I have read 32 John Grisham novels in the Last two months that is peepered in with other novels. It's ridiculous the amount of commuting tolls and gas I pay and I might altogether work literally 3 of the 9 hours I am at work.
I've heard that Sweden did a research about 6 hours long work day (not the same thing as less work days I know).
The results were simply that the workers were more happy and more efficient.
People just tune out after a while, and looking busy is not the same as being busy. Management just doesn't want to get that.
They get it, but to them the only good worker is one who is well controlled.
If a work week of thirty two hours would be proved equally productive as one of forty, if most in society would be caused no harm from such a reduction, then workers may begin shortly after to consider a twenty hour work week.
Then, while considered the new objective, workers also may be discovering new opportunities for self care and community care, developing new relationships with hobbies and leisure, and expanding their identities into new facets and in new directions.
After not too much time would pass, a critical mass of workers might start to feel convinced that the whole system is a house of cards, built only on threat and deception, and deserving be dismantled in favor of one that is new and different.
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Personally I would much prefer to have a 6h work day or 6,5 hour (for it to be 32h, like the 4-day work week) than to have 8 hours a day for 4 days. I don't care about having one more day of free time if I still don't have as much time during 4 days of the week. I would much rather work less time those 5 days so that I actually have time to cook, exercise and do my shit every single day.
I give up 20% of my paycheck to work 4 days a week.
I suspect the folks upstairs have some change to spare.
"...include working longer hours..." ?? Absolutely not. Who thinks this is a good idea.
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.
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.
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I work an extremely physical job. I get home on friday, basically become a vegetable, saturday is a blur if I go out an do anything, and I just start to feel rested and like I want to get up and do stuff on sunday. Of course, i have to go to bed early to make my commute the next day. 2 days off is flat out not enough, and I would really prefer to not give up other aspects of my life just to have free time I can actually take advantage of.
This works in Netherlands and a number of other European countries, without cutting pay. We should be able to figure it out. Should.
I smell ya! I used to work 12 hour shifts of manual labor. First day off was always spent with a huge headache. What a waste.
Millennials are considered young people? Well, that just made my day.
At this point, I think millennials were scapegoated so hard as a generation that some boomers think it's a synonym for young person.
I always thought our inexplicable youth was owed to all the Avocado toast we snarf down instead of buying houses.
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I'm 42 years young!
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?
Hey, we didn't all know cleopatra. Like you had to be in the right circles to hang out with her.
I will say though that Alexander Graham Bell was an absolute fucking hoot
“Let’s disco-dance Hammurabi!”
Why does this sound like it's all made up? lol. I wouldn't do any of those things for shaving off one day. I don't want to just switch miseries.
All of the individual things people say they would give up are under a majority.
I also have noticed that I start wanting something extra from life after a few months of 8h/5d/w.
Nowadays I'm looking for my optimal limits. How much can I do work and still consider myself having enough free time?
Give nothing!
Clickbait title is clickbait
The problem most people don't mention is you need to rope public school into the same equation or else you're leaving that entire, extremely large, workforce out which involves maintenance, custodians, IT, nurses, useless administration, teachers, etc etc etc.
No one said everybody had to work the same four days. If one custodian works Monday - Thursday and another works Tuesday - Friday, that still covers a full 5 day week. The whole reason for a 4 day work week is that, right now, life is all work all the time. If you work a 9-5 Monday - Friday and you need to go to the doctor, who is only open 9-5 Monday - Friday, the only way to see them is to take time off of work.
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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.
How does paying to commute four days a week versus five days fully remote make any sense? It's still 80% of the cost and time of commuting.
Note that this is one third. And there are people who live close enough to their workplace that it wouldn't add much burden.
This is where it sucks for me. I’m an optometrist and I own my own practice. If I work less, then I see less patients and I do, indeed, make less. And I can’t just cram more patients into the day because then I can’t really spend time addressing my patients’ concerns. I’d become like all the other docs who people complain about who barely listen to them and get to spend 5 mins with each patient.
On top of all of this, vision plans have not increased reimbursement in 30+ years… so we have college tuition and CoL that has skyrocketed (I just graduated) and reimbursements are stagnant. So where’s the growth for me profession? Vision plans can be great for you, the patient, but they completely screw over the doc that accepts them in most instances. I’ve come across a lot of docs who simply don’t accept most insurances because they bottleneck our income.
Build class solidarity. Erode the power of insurance companies. Demand reimbursements that cover both your operating expense and personal income. Support other workers. Support every worker. Take down the system.
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Maybe do fewer hours but do them in the evening. Hopefully since people are out of work it becomes easier for them to go, so overall you might have similar numbers.
I have full books for weeks so it’s not a matter of scheduling. It’s a matter of if I work less I make less because that’s one less day every week that I’m seeing less patients. If I’m not seeing patients, I don’t make money
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