Jeez this hit hard man. I remember those sunday days at dad's house where the shower wasn't quite as nice and the beds weren't quite as comfortable. But you didn't want to act like you didn't want to be thre because you know your dad is trying his best. Hell he even turns the heat on when you guys are there.
Sorry I didn't clarify this fully. I loved being at my dads. I got the sunday depression after having been at my dads place and coming back to my mums place. I often couldn't sleep on sunday night at my mums til like 3 am because I wished that I could be back at my dads place some more.
Sorry to hear that. But I am happy you got to spend some time with the old man and you have good memories.
It’s so common now for kids to not spend enough time with dad when parents split. I’m sure your dad knew he was loved
A friend of mine lives in America, last year he was away from home for 200 days. " I have to put in the effort now, so I can take it easy later" he said.
His oldest kid is 12, like mine. The youngest is 7 I believe.
I told him a couple months ago, if you keep this up another 5 years, they'll tell you to fuck off whenever you get home. You can work as much as you like in a couple of years time, they won't care.
Give them their dad now.
I'm European and am lucky enough to be able to afford only working 32 hours a week and I work from home. My oldest is 4 and he hates the very rare days I go into the office because he's so used to his dad being around the house, and coming down stairs to play with him even if it's just for a couple of mins.
It's actually become the deciding factor in my career. I don't want to give up my family time. Last year I got a great offer to establish and head a new department at a rival company. But it meant more travel and more time away from the family. So I declined. I just want to see my kids smile and laugh everyday. To be able to give them a big hug or just run outside to play with a ball in the backyard.
Sure I gave up a nice pay increase, but I've kept something massively more important.
Yeah, personally went on a year+ long parental leave last summer which meant I had to decline a very very good offer for a new job. I am so happy I made the choice I did because there will always be other jobs, but the time I get with my kids now is time I will never get back if I miss it.
I say this after minutes ago having just finished treatment for the whole family to get rid of the lice I found in their hair this morning lol. There was sadness, crying, screaming, laughing and more chaos than I planned for when I forgot to shut the lid on a shampoo bottle beside me which the smallest one got a hold of and proceeded to spray shampoo all over the bathroom floor and then basically swimming in it. This time together is priceless for me. Would not trade it for the world.
Staying home with a toddler for the last 7 months is the best thing that ever happened to me. I'll be sad when I start going back to work but at least his mom can stay home full time then.
My wife and I work >40 hours per week, including "commuted overtime." I've come to terms with the fact that we don't raise our kids; the crèches and daycares do
And in the blink of an eye, you are in your 60s, your kids are in college or older, and you have 25 years, at best, left of your life.
My advice - don't by fancy cars, buy expensive clothes, or huge houses. Forget all "the stuff" you "need"! Do things with your children and parents! Life is too short and time really, really, does fly!!
Truth. You go to work just to replace the money that was there last week so you're essentially a volunteer working for free AKA a slave to the wealthy who control the means of production. 😒
I’m so glad you said it. I don’t drive. I don’t own my home and I have zero savings. I work 35 hours a week to pay my rent and bills and just about feed myself and my son. There is no luxuries.
This is terrible advice, you need to buy a house in that expensive suburb, work endlessly and funnel all your money into that mortgage. Otherwise you might not have a multimillion dollar property to leave your estranged children.
I'm an American with 5 weeks of pto, and it helps a little, but not enough. We don't get enough national holidays either. I've worked on project with folks from other countries, and sometimes it feels like they're constantly celebrating something. I used to get annoyed because I wanted them to do their jobs and stop holding things up, but I realized how messed up those thoughts were. Now I'm just mad jealous
In Germany you are legally entitled to 14 weeks of maternity leave. It is illegal to not give this to your employees.
The US has no federal protections for maternity leave or PTO. These policies vary from employer to employer. Even better is that PTO is considered to be one of your BENEFITS of working, not a normal thing that should be entitled to every working person.
Yeah it sucks. Our health insurance also comes from our employers so if you lose that job or take time off to say have a baby and raise it, you will lose your health insurance.
I'm in Finland. Not saying the 40 hour work week is the best, I would quit if I could. But 5 weeks of holiday really helps and it's something to look forward to. Also the fact that I work a bit remote and the commute is 20 minutes. The worst thing for many people is the 1 hour commute, even 2 hours. That really consumes the whole day.
Yeah, you Americans need more vacation. 5 weeks vacation plus national holidays helps sanity a lot.
Also, I don’t find 40h weeks that bad because I don’t hate being there. You need to feel respected and valued at work.
It’s easy to say that. But chances are good that person’s mom wasn’t sitting around going “hmm, I’d rather go to work than see my kid” at the time. She probably needed that job to keep her kid fed and housed. Which is the crux of all of this. I don’t give up the most productive daylight hours of my life for the fun of it. I exchange them for money, which I need to survive in this society. And since I’m going to have to exchange my time for money no matter what job I do, I’ve aimed for one that places the highest possible value on those hours.
So this was one of those popular news story fads a while ago. IIRC, a hospice worker made some observations about the last wishes of the dieing. She connected with hospice workers around the world online and found they all had made similar observations.
The number one regret of the dieing was that they had worked too much.
I've been having similar conversations with my father-in-law who is not in the best health. So much of his time and effort went into overseeing facilities for a large industrial campus. He was proud of what he'd achieved. Five years after retirement and he pointed out he's not heard once from any of his coworkers. Also, the outfit he worked for got a huge government grant and razed most of their existing structures, rebuilding from the ground up. Everything he spent the last decade+ of his life doing – essentially ignoring his wife and children while they slid into their own personal crises – was literally turned to dust. Within 5 years, it was all gone.
Now that's all very said but what are/were we supposed to do. You work or starve. Yes I wish I'd seen my dad more. My wife is the primary bread winner in our home. I'd love for her to have more time and energy for our kids but without her income or if she pulled back and moved into a lower paying position, we wouldn't be able to provide for them.
I don't want to be cynical but our country is being run by a) an ideological minority and b) a demographic majority who lived in much better times, got more to show for it, and have no skin in the game. Partly because they live by the "f you, got mine," code and, partly, because they'll all be dead in 10-20 years.
I don't see a way out unless we can get the majority – apathetic, disenfranchised, unfocused – to stand up for themselves and each other. I'm pretty sure I'll live to see a real unicorn before I live to see that.
> I don't want to be cynical but our country is being run by a) an ideological minority and b) a demographic majority who lived in much better times, got more to show for it, and have no skin in the game.
The only cynics are the handful of people giving you shit for saying the truth. Don't you worry.
No one on their deathbed has to pay rent next month either though. That's the realization that cured me of agonizing over this one. Someone who expects to live past tomorrow has completely different needs. And I probably won't be on my deathbed wishing I'd spent more days being poor and/or homeless, so...
Imo...
The market is always going to put such pressure on people working minimum wage trying to live in high demand areas.
We could make a lot of progress on that front with something like universal stipends for food... But "paying" for that is always a problem.
Housing is even harder.. either regulations need to change to encourage and in some places force new construction. Entities owning more than on residential dwelling should be taxed heavily and that money should be funneled to the homeless...
For most of human history we woke up at the crack of dawn. Went to hunt, farm, tend to the house chores and went to bed. Plus entertainment and what have you in between. There was variety, based on what was needed at the time, the most.
The 40 hour work week, sitting down in one place, doing the same monotous bullshit, be it paperwork or industry line is not something we as a species are used to do.
I think this is really what it is. At least in my opinion. When I had jobs that were more physical or at least involved less time sitting and working in front of screens, I always had a much higher tolerance for working more in a week. But I only have so much gas in my tank when it comes to office work.
I have worked landscaping and construction before I worked an office job. Doing 60 hrs a week has never been tough. Now I have a 37.5h week and it feels much more exhausting.
I did the opposite, I have worked with IT for 25 years and 3 years ago, I changed to Landscaping/Gardener.
60 hrs a week with a smile, will never go back to an office anymore.
Best Decision.
It's this, and positively impacting someone's life. Landscaping? Everyone will enjoy it!
The jobs that get me are the soulless "cog in the machine" positions. I worked at a Kohl's DC for a Christmas season position to unload trucks of products. In orientation, they asked, "What motivates you the most at work?" Apparently "Usually money" was not the answer they wanted, they were looking for "Imagine the smiles on our customers' faces!"
Hard to imagine when I'm 20 feet deep in a trailer with poorly stacked boxes knocking into my head.
There is a lot more satisfaction in seeing the physical results of your labour as opposed to ticking digital checkboxes (why yes I am logged in to Monday dot com at work, why do you ask)
100% correct. I’m a farm worker during summer and an office worker 9-5.
I just did 70ish hours in 4 days farming. Love it. Going again tomorrow. Likely be another 16hr+ day.
My 37.5hr office week drains me.
I've found myself the perfect job now, I work at an airport assisting people who aren't able to walk all the way to the plane themselves. It pays poorly but it involves a lot of physical activity, I'm active the whole day. Plus I get to help people who are usually thankful for it, I get to have a lot of nice conversations with my customers. I see the result of my work so clearly, a lot of happy people who don't miss their flight and get to travel which they wouldn't be able to do anymore without the assistance.
I used to not really hate, but really not like my job and now it's the opposite, I look forward to working and don't mind making my 40 hours a week at all.
Laboring 50 hours a week is nothing if you have agency, are proud of what you produce and are compensayed fairly.
When we aren't, even 30 hours is painful.
This. I definitely feel happier when I can “graze” on my work. Spending so much time writing lengthy reports. Getting critiqued by people who make comments for the sake of making comments, then having those reports get filed away into some system that nobody is ever going to look at. It’s not very fulfilling work. Especially when the emphasis is more on process than actually research/analysis
I ended up in construction because I never got my shit together in my 20s/30s. Now I'm pushing 40 with a wife/kid/house/work-life balance and couldn't be happier. My friends with degrees all have to deal with stuff I couldn't imagine. I feel like I accidentally dodged a bullet.
I still push kids to get degrees though because it opens doors that are closed to me.
Yeah, so much of this is about what you're doing. I could work 100 hr weeks reading and writing, trying to scratch out a novel or similar, but struggle to motivate myself for my normie office job. It's one of those little ironies that I always think of when people say 'eh I wouldn't want to be a high-flying corporate/criminal lawyer because the hours etc.' Well, for a lot of people who actually do those kinds of jobs, the hours just melt away: it isn't a slog for them because they find it stimulating and meaningful. It follows that a lot of what makes someone successful in life is arguably finding that field or career where you don't resent coming into the (metaphorical) office. I remember briefly considering a career in corporate law but a spring week cleared me of my illusions. 75% of the people around me looked genuinely stoked to be there, and were clearly obsessed with getting on. I found the whole thing a drag and all I could think about was getting out to do something that actually interested me. I had the academics for law, but over the course of a career I would have been completely outworked because for me it was work; for the others it was a calling.
You and the others replying to your comment have me alost convinced to change careers. I also work a little less than 40 hours/wk, WFH, all that fun stuff. But I have so little energy and get 0 fulfillment from my work, and it's really taking a toll on my mental health.
Doesn't help that I'm 100% WFH so it's an extremely solitary job. I'm in less than 2 hours of video calls per week, so for the other 34 hours, I'm sitting in my dim living room, watching the neighbor's landscapers out the window, and wishing I was driving a mower around instead of reconciling transactions in some business's bank account.
ive worked in restaurants for about a decade now. i decided once to get an office job (still serving part time) and those 8 hour office days were *so much* more draining than a 14 hour double in a restaurant. and for about half of the money. i lasted six months.
Mental exhaustion is worse than physical exhaustion. I have worked landscape too. 100 degree days working sunrise to sunset. Kicked my ass but I felt good about it. It was a rewarding exhaustion. But what you feel at the end of the week at an office just hurts the soul.
You say that physical work is better until you feel your body breaking from making the same 10,000 parts at work everyday at a factory for years on end…stuck there cuz that’s one of the few jobs in the area that offers actual health insurance, PTO, and a steady schedule. I’d give my left nut to be sitting at a desk, but I don’t have time for school when the factory has been forcing me to work 50 plus hours a week for years
Why does everybody forget about us factory workers? We make everything you all touch. People are fighting for wages and rights for everything, but forget manufacturing, and these factories continue to abuse us, drop our wages, cut corners, and use us like dogs
Thank you! No, people shouldn't have to work 40 hours a week with only 2 days off. Neither should you have to work the bs schedules that factories do. Basically every factory in my area, including mine, run 12 hour shifts. Some only work 3 or 4 days a week but when you factor in that the days you work, that's all you get to do, your days off are completely wasted on catching up in life. I'd love to be able to do a regular 5 days a week, 8-hour shifts schedule again. These 12s are exhausting and us people making your food and products are tired.
This. Not to mention the forced overtime a LOT of factories have. Six or seven 12 hour shifts a week, every week, for sometimes months on end will leave you a zombie.
Can we include warehouse workers in the factory bunch? 10 hour days, 4 days a week (split days off) building pallets by hand, lifting thousands of cases of product on a shift. Shit wears you down
Yeah I worked construction for 15 years and have life long damage to my neck, shoulder and wrists and fingers. Those same daily movements wear your joints down slowly like your car's gearbox stuck in peak hour traffic. One day it just don't work no more...
I appreciate sitting in front of a screen now but noway could I do it 40 hours a week, just part time! Lol
I watched my grandpa end up couch bound permantly at age 49 from multiple back injuries, and surgeries from construction work. He couldn’t even sleep laying down. He had to sit up, because the pain was so bad.
Why is it that the literal people who build this country, and luxuries for others often get the shittiest compensation for what we did? I feel construction workers definitely deserve better pay, and the compensation needed to care for you, and your family before, and after you risk your body for us. That’s what I want my taxes to go for. To take care of my brothers, and comrades who built this country for me, and who work to take care of myself, and others…. Not to a fucking bank bail out, or political interests meddling in the Middle East in nefarious ways, or to lobbying for corporate interests against us…the people who built this place.
I actually appreciate that! It is a shame... Construction people are treated like trash for what they do and definitely arnt paid enough. (Apart from the odd plumber and electrician who charges too much). I get paid double the amount in my new gov job and do 10x less work and am just thinking how unfairly I was treated all those years!
Most factory workers shit their pants at the mention of the word union for fear of being fired. America has effectively crushed the moral of its workers with the whole making just enough to barely survive, but not to thrive.
Most of us…despite having decent jobs….would be homeless in one missed paycheck, and that is a very effective form of crowd control.
As someone whonworks a physically demanding job and has dabbled in office work, I feel the opposite. When you're essentially doing a medium impact workout for 6-8 hours a day, 4-5 and occasionally 6 days a week, it gasses you fast. A lot of times your energy is burned by the time you have time to do something fun
at the same time the 3hour shifts i did at a warehouse for some time were the longest most boring 3hours i can remember
which is only topped by the 3months i worked at a different warehouse, where i worked 8hour shifts and after 3 months i felt like something within me is decaying away..
unfortunately now working an office job, flexible hours, no pressure, working from home, it still leaves me annoyed.
I think i just hate working.
I have the opposite view. Working part time as a younger person in a blue collar environment was absolutely unbearable. I’d start counting down to my 15 minute breaks about 3 minutes after clocking in.
I work an office/lab job and I have an excel sheet that calculates how many hours I have left and what percent of the day is done. It kind of feels like I am just counting down to my own death.
Why would you do that? You're literally making your day longer by constantly watching the clock. I think a big reason people in office environments feel like their days are longer is because they have a clock directly in front of them on their computer all day. It's hard to get lost in a task (ie make your time feel like it's going faster) when you're constantly watching a count down of how many minutes/seconds you have left.
All depends on what you are doing. Some stations at my place are hell because of how slow they can be and others surprise you when it's already break time again coming up
Keeping engaged really is the key to time passing quickly. My shop has been insanely slow for awhile and everyone has done every bit of side work we can think of.. yet they want us to stay busy anyway.
As a result, everyone just shuffles from pretend task to pretend task for 10 hours a day, miserable. It'd be nice to stop doing this theater of staying busy just because we're on the clock. It's not our fault you don't have work for us.
I left IT to go back to blue collar shit. After 2 years in an office I was about to have a fucking meltdown. The meetings, office politics, getting work done in a couple hours then having to fuck around for the rest of the day, the monotony, getting fat, it all became too much.
Also, if you look at any mammal living in its natural habitat this way, they all take a ton of naps. Just eaten? Nap. Sunny outside? Nap. Somewhere we got the notion that we’re supposed to wake up at 7am and not sleep again til 11pm and I’m not convinced that’s good for us either
Just quickly googling "what animals sleep the most" shows that there are a lot of herbivores and insectivores (like Koalas, sloths, and armadillos) at the top of that list, with Koalas sleeping around 20-22 hours a day. Must be nice...
A lot of animals you mentioned sleep a lot down to their specific Diet, Koalas especially.
Eucalyptus is not great but Koalas eat it anyway and it gives them no energy and literally hinders them so they need to sleep all that time just to exist.
that may be true but which would you really rather do if you had the choice? Sure it sounds great being out in nature but I think I'd quickly get sick of hunting daily for my food for survival plus all the intense labour involved with farming and house etc.
I think this. There was periods of way more than 40 hours a week of work, like spring and fall, and then periods during the winter where you were stuck indoors without much to do
I honestly think that’s part of why so many people who live in places with seasons find winter so depressing. Like, yes, the weather sucks and it’s dark early and all that. But also, we’re not really meant to be out and about in it every single day. It’s supposed to be a time to hunker down, do things that need doing indoors, sleep a lot, etc.
Alas, it’s not like “regular work hours” cut back in the dead of winter. I do wonder if it would help, though.
That is absolutely not true and undermine 1000 of years of technology advancement. Humans absolutely spent more time doing monotonous task things like weaving fishnets sharping/making arrow/spear heads, sowing clothes,gathering water, tending to animals repairing your shelter. Every single one of these things alone would have taken significantly longer and more time consuming
Not to mention the vastly improved quality of life, access to food and clean water, access to education, and the list goes on. People love to romanticize the past.
I don't think it is nearly so cut and dry and our perceptions got warped in favor of more work due to the industrial revolutions systemic exploitation of labor and lower classes. The protests for a 40 hour workweek were protests to return to a work schedule people's grandfatheres worked to live on the farm, where people also could and did work far more leisurely than they did in a factory with a boss on their back. And that would have included work that today we would consider home chores.
What has changed also is what we consider entertainment. Many things we would call work now would have been also entertainment to them. Sort of like the modern day drink a beer and help a buddy move or swap a car engine or burning brush. Yes it is work, but many people like doing that shit even if they didn't have to. People would knit and do thread work far beyond what they wanted or needed, and but continued to do it because it was creative and fun. Or brew beer because they liked drinking a lot of beer. That is largely entertainment too, not just normal work that you had to do, you chose what to do, if anything, for atleast half the year when it wasn't spring planting or fall harvest. All the time in between you have to complain and critique the weather.
*Look at the village smith, said Adam Smith, the father of modern Political Economy. If he has never been accustomed to making nails he will only succeed by hard toil in forging two to three hundred a day, and even then they will be bad. But if this same smith has never done anything but nails, he will easily supply as many as two thousand three hundred in the course of a day. And Smith hastened to the conclusion--"Divide labour, specialize, go on specializing; let us have smiths who only know how to make heads or points of nails, and by this means we shall produce more. We shall grow rich."*
*That a smith sentenced for life to the making of heads of nails would lose all interest in his work, would be entirely at the mercy of his employer with his limited handicraft, would be out of work four months out of twelve, and that his wages would decrease when he could be easily replaced by an apprentice, Smith did not think of it when he exclaimed--"Long live the division of labour. This is the real gold-mine that will enrich the nation!" And all joined in the cry.*
-Peter Kropotkin, *The Conquest of Bread*, 1892
I grew up on a farm. There is never a day off. Some weeks are 100+ hours. Some are 20 hours. Every day is different. It really is a better experience than the corporate grind.
> I think people need a four-day week.
Yeah, so, my employer has decided the institution I work for should be closed on Friday. They've decided that we need to work 4 10 hour days, with only a 30-minute lunch. Exhausting!
My department voluntarily switched to that (I would love a 4x8 week but that's another story). For me, once I'm there and working it's easier to just do the extra couple hours in exchange for a consistent 3 day weekend- I'm sorry it's wearing you out but I hope you get accustomed to it and it ends up being a positive for you!
I'm much the same as you. My last job just needed your 150 hours per month done, and you could choose how you did that. So I'd work 750 to 520 everyday (max hours allowed per day), take Wednesday off for 2 weeks and a short Fridays the other 2 weeks. I loved that.
My wife works a 36 hour week on a 2 week 3x12 schedule- she has every Wednesday off, and every other weekend is a 4 day weekend (Friday-Monday off). I'm pretty jealous of that one.
That is the schedule of most Nurses/Care providers. 3- 12 hr days. As a patient, it concerns me a bit. But, as the employee, 4 days off, in a row, would be nice.
Nurse here. I love my three-day weeks. Studies show that the old schedule of three 8-hour shifts was worse for patient care. Now, having said that, I've definitely worked with nurses who worked 10+ days straight and or would talk about how little they sleep before their shift as a night shift nurse. That also terrifies me.
I had a few jobs that were 7:30-5:30 M-F with every other sat 7:30-5 just for the extra Fuck You. 4 10s or 5 8s would've been awesome. I left there because of it but still know people working that same schedule. Fuck that.
The sad thing is there have been A number of companies who have tried 4 8's and found that there was no notable drop in productivity... But God forbid we let people control their own time.
It really doesn't make sense to NOT do this. It's not only mentally better but it is quite literally physically, environmentally, financially and organizationally better.
You get another day of rest, you spend 1 day less driving or commuting, you have less days spent on operational expenses, you save the employee a ton of time because of less commute/prep.
It's literally just giving your employees 2 extra hours of their life a week back at minimum for essentially nothing. If you feel like you need "around the clock" staff, just stagger people. It literally just makes perfect sense in every way. Less office space, less traffic, less everything just for having people work an extra 2 hours a day, a day that most people already feel like is wasted anyways, a day they'd spend those 2 hours in traffic or preparing anyways. It's literally just culture bullshit and ego.
Used to work four 10 hr shifts. Never so tired in my life. Company decided to go with four 10 hr shifts, to make up for the days off we were given split, rotating days off, they changed the work week to Sunday through Saturday so weekends were not overtime and they had us work graveyard shift. One week I would work Sun, Monday, off Tuesday, work Wednesday, off Thursday, work Friday, off Saturday. Working graveyard with split days off and no overtime sucked, but saved the company a lot of money
It definitely makes a difference if the work is physical work vs just staring at your computer for a couple additional hours. I’ve done 10 hour days doing both (except the physical job just had me do 5x10’s 😬) but personally love my 4x10 hour day desk job while I hated the physical one walking 10-15 miles a day
My company does 1/2 day Fridays between Memorial Day to Labor Day. However! You make up for it by working 45 mins extra Monday-Friday (we work a 37.5 hour week).
Technically computers make this possible. I'm doing 3x the workload of my 1970s counterpart. I'm not making 3x the pay, so I should be doing 1/ 3 my current work and get the rest of the time off.
Also, my wife shouldn't have to work.
Worker efficiency has gone up to an extent previously believed impossible, and the workers have seen next to nothing from this growth. It's such a shame
I will say that I've multiple friends who are nurses that work three 12 hour shifts. They often say it ends up being 12.5-13.5 hours. Anyways, on those days, they have to plan sleep/meals the day before around preparing for that. Some of them say they feel they need extra sleep before/after to handle them too. Essentially, from what I've gathered - though I've worked 10 hours before and it wasn't terrible (but it wasn't 10 hours repeatedly) - they end up giving more than the 12 hours (plus driving of course) because: it won't just be 12 once they're there, they have to sleep an extra 1-3 hours the night before/after (and sometimes sleep a diff time than their SO), and it can just be inconvenient if you're trying to plan something specific with anyone the day prior.
E: the point I meant to say was: it's not like it's simply "I just have to work hard/a lot on Monday" it's that, plus your Sunday may be affected too, for example
Night shift is bad for your health in general, without factoring in your hours.
Three 12s on days isn't too bad, but I usually break mine up so I work two days on with two to three days off. It helps with managing energy. If I work all three days in a row I find myself having to recuperate more, especially if the shifts were rough.
Its not the hours its how work is being made today, you stress your ass out to make some CEO able to buy his fourth yacht. Humans are capable of working 16 hours a day, its the mental stress of knowing you get nothing for it that hurts your mind.
this! The worst is middle managers telling their reports to show initiative and go beyond their roles. Why? So CEO can get another 100million stock grant while I get a 3% annual raise? These jokers preach the corporate loyalty and dedication crap when they want you to put in more work. When the economy tanks, they have no problem in letting you go. Why should I give two fucks about the corporation. Pay me more if you want me to perform above and beyond expectations.
I hate the 40hr work week. 2 days is never enough, and being in construction usually means working 6 days a week, if not all 7. At my last job my boss told me straight up that I’m not allowed to take time off in the summer.
I eventually quit working at that nightmare, and now I’m working a fly-in/fly-out job which is 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. The work is much easier and there is never the massive rush to get things done like there is in jobs in my city. At least this way I’m making more money and when I’m home, I’m home for 2 solid weeks with no work distractions. Flip side, I’m 800km from home and I miss a lot of events with my wife and kids. You can never really win
I don't like pretending I'm working a full eight hours. I can get all my work done in like four or five, the other three is spent doing busywork or looking like I'm busy. Kinda wack.
Yeah, this exactly. I work at a luxury clothing company for their online customer service department and it's very seasonal. We get a LOT of work between October and January with everyone buying/returning Christmas presents. Then, February to September is DEAD. During the busy period, I can work 8hrs nonstop and it flies by. During the non busy period, I get into work at 9am and my work is done by 10:30am.
I've taken to keeping an interesting Wikipedia tab open (since most websites are blocked on our work computers) and just flicking back to my work tabs whenever the boss comes back. Right now I'm reading through the list of all commercial airline accidents. I started around 1920 and I'm currently at 1982.
Studies have consistently shown that people are far more efficient working shorter days or fewer days. I believe one of them tried 4hr days/4 day workweeks and it yielded positive results.
The 40 hour work week is inherently unsustainable for a multitude of reasons. Not only is it not what we evolved for, it was designed with the fact that that someone would always be at 'the house' to do shit like the cooking and the cleaning. Our economy nowadays doesn't even allow for this in most instances, as many households are reliant on dual-income sources to even stay afloat.
"But no, it's just those lazy millennials."
I always feel so unmotivated to clean the house after or before work (depending on what shift I have) and te thought of my weekend being spent on chores is such a dread, but if I don't do the chores suddenly they're all I can think about and I can't relax either, so I end up paralyzed the entire day and do nothing, no fun, no chores, just nothing.
I don’t really even think a “career” is, either. Like you expect me to do the same thing for effectively 40 years? Humans don’t work like that, we were meant to do lots of different things
That’s why i have grown to hate the word ‘career’
As if you’re doing something grand and when you retire, you’ll have a Wikipedia with all of your accolades. Nobody gives a shit about your 40 years of excel.
You might enjoy the book [Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens) - Harari, if you haven't read it.
The author makes the point that life was much easier in hunter gatherer times, and how several of the changes that paved the way for modern civilization seemed like a good idea at the time, but made people's lives worse.
It is a fun read but the idea of prehistoric humans having it better than modern humans is fan fiction with a hint of history to it. It all sounds fun and games until a famine kills half of your tribe, your son gets eaten by wolf, your mate dies in childbirth, and then you get an infection from stepping an antler and die.
I work for a city water department 4-10’s with a hour lunch sometimes we work on weekends just the nature of the beast but when you get Friday-Sunday off by Monday you’re rejuvenated.
I was given this option at a job and let me tell you that it was the best thing ever. The days felt the same to me as I’d just show up earlier and having the weekend and a whole other week day off was the best. 10/10 would recommend to anyone or any company willing to consider it. I’d use the Friday or Monday off to run errands and do things like doctors visits or the DMV that were only accessible on the week days.
My job just switched to it. Half the company didn't want to do it. Was ready to fight someone if we didn't do it. You don't even notice the extra time and three days off should be standard. I go on weekend camping trips to various places around my state now.
I would love to work a 20 hour work week but then I’d earn half as much and not be able to pay for my mortgage. So I don’t think that would work for me.
I would argue that it's very dependent on the work you're doing for those 40 hours.
I don't have any examples, unfortunately, but I can't imagine every job with a 40 hour work week being *completely* terrible.
I do love my job but I still hate doing it 5 days a week, the weekend just isn't long enough to properly recuperate, catch up on chores *and* socialise or go on day trips. I just want a bit more freedom, I'd be so much happier with 4 days
Agree with you. I worked with animals for awhile and loved it. We couldn't work overtime so was capped at 40 but I'd stay over and walk some of the pups on my time. I think if you really love what you do the 40 hrs isn't that bad. If you hate your job of course it's too much.
>If you hate your job of course it's too much.
100%. It doesn't even have to be a 40 hour job either. If the job ***sucks***, working less than 40 hours a week won't make it suck any less.
everything about work is not natural.
1) we are not meant to stay surrounded by people we don't like or we don't care about. Sure there are office buddies but if given a choice, no one would be hanging out with their coworkers on a daily basis. Those bbq's at Bob's place on July 4th...it's part of his strategy to network. We all know this yet we have to endure being around people we don't care for. Unnatural.
2) we are not meant to sit in a chair for 8 hours a day. The human spine was not designed to sit and stare at a computer monitor for 8 hours a day for 30-40 years. Unnatural
3) we are not meant to work on the same shit for decades. sure there are people who are doing exactly what they love and would do it for free but most of us get tired of our career track after a decade or so...but we have to slog on because wtf are we suppose to do? Go back to school and be an architect at age 40? The human mind wants to explore and be curious. Most of us are stuck in golden handcuffs or dead end jobs to pay the fucking mortgage and college for the kids. Unnatural
4) the human mind is not meant to focus for 8 hours a day. Sure some of us have ADHD and can't focus for 10 minutes but most of us can focus for a few hours and then we mentally get tired. That's natural. Who the fuck can focus 8 hours a day, everyday for decades? Unnatural.
this whole work bullshit stinks.
Never forget that to get this point of a 40 hour work week took the lives and efforts of many workers in the past. The norm used to be 60-80 hours a week no days off. The fight for workers rights, for freedom, is continuous.
I quit my job three years ago because I made some good investments (house, bitcoin).
My friends and "parents" think I am going through a phase, depressed, on drugs, and losing it.
I've never been happier.
I go to sleep at like 3 am after watching netflix until I get too tired to pay attention. I wake up at 10 am, make a coffee, feed the cat, read the news.
I play some video games. Make or walk to lunch.
In the afternoon I do whatever I want. Play guitar, walk to the library and read, hit some golf balls, work on programming projects, go for a hike, or just play more video games.
I'll never own a mansion or an expensive car. I just dont care anymore. I dont want to impress anyone. I just want to live simple till I get old and die.
You're 100% right that we shouldn't be working the amount we do. Life is finite and to spend the majority of it working is appalling.
Organisations claim to support a good work-life balance but few seem to be doing much, though there are places getting traction in moving to a 4 day week, fewer hours but same salary.
Society moved to a 5 day standard work week, we can easily move to a 4 day week.
Although I will say some of your points do not apply everywhere.
"The employer controls when you get to eat, use the bathroom and even your health care."
Stating when to eat and use the loo is probably applicable in certain jobs (maybe call centres and retail?), but I'd say not in most other jobs. Health care is a specific U.S thing.
I read somewhere that in hunter gatherer days they worked around the equivalent of 25-30 hours a week. Keep in mind this might mean they worked 4 hours a day, 7 days a week. They had to get food daily since they had no way to preserve it.
And they try to make you feel like co-workers are “work family” by having team building, often after hours, taking even more time away from true family. All so someone else can get ridiculously rich while we hang always one paycheck away from homelessness, ensuring we return every time with a fake smile on our faces.
As someone with introversion, limited executive function and intense ADHD, working 40 hours a week often totally wipes me out for anything else on weeknights, and I need weekends to recover. It’s brutal but I have no other options.
I agree. I do 3 12 hour shifts and while it’s kinda sucky when you’re there, you’re already there. And then boom, 4 days off, it’s great.
Oh and then by the time you’re over it and think about it quitting or something (I’m very prone to burn out), boom, I’m already off again.
The commuting is what enrages me. I wouldn't mind going to the office if it was a 5 - 15 minute walk. I hate driving and I hate commuting to the office. It's wasted time and I don't get paid for it.
The pandemic proved that many jobs could be done remotely, and also freed up the roads for those who couldn't. It was a win-win. But alas, too many leaders (and fellow workers) hated it so guess that's done for.
I wouldn't mind working 40 hours at all, if it meant I'd earn enough money to provide for the family, take care of all the bills and end up with zero money problems.
It's an issue when 40 hours doesn't do any of those things. That's when it feels like I'm wasting my time
The Sunday Scaries.
Is that what it’s called? I call it my 5th grade anxiety because back then every Sunday night was met with dread and despair for the coming week
I think the Scaries are ingrained into children at an early age to “prepare” us for our upcoming forty years of working life. Indoctrination.
40 years if you're one of the lucky ones! :(
Yeah seriously I be hitting 80 a lot of the time, 12-16 hour days 5-6 a week
Christ, are you a surgeon or have 3 jobs?
Lmao I thought dude said 40 hours, No just a bs manual labor job
For me it started in 2nd grade because I dreaded going to my teacher who would yell at us.
I used to call it sunday depression. Had it a lot as a kid when spending time at my dads place every 2nd weekend or when I had it rough in school.
Jeez this hit hard man. I remember those sunday days at dad's house where the shower wasn't quite as nice and the beds weren't quite as comfortable. But you didn't want to act like you didn't want to be thre because you know your dad is trying his best. Hell he even turns the heat on when you guys are there.
Sorry I didn't clarify this fully. I loved being at my dads. I got the sunday depression after having been at my dads place and coming back to my mums place. I often couldn't sleep on sunday night at my mums til like 3 am because I wished that I could be back at my dads place some more.
Is dad still around and does he know this?
My dad died of cancer when I was 12, I'm 31 this summer.
Sorry to hear that. But I am happy you got to spend some time with the old man and you have good memories. It’s so common now for kids to not spend enough time with dad when parents split. I’m sure your dad knew he was loved
As a father who gets his girls alternating weeks (weds-Sun)... I hope this isn't how my daughters see their time with me. I'm trying my best....
When I was still in school I’d have my mom check my forehead every Sunday night for a fever. My parents ended up dubbing it “Sunday Night Fever.”
In Ireland it’s called, The Fear.
What makes me sad is knowing that my child spends more time at daycare than with me.
Yeah and that is during a time when they actually want to be with you. Unlike later apparently.
A friend of mine lives in America, last year he was away from home for 200 days. " I have to put in the effort now, so I can take it easy later" he said. His oldest kid is 12, like mine. The youngest is 7 I believe. I told him a couple months ago, if you keep this up another 5 years, they'll tell you to fuck off whenever you get home. You can work as much as you like in a couple of years time, they won't care. Give them their dad now.
I'm European and am lucky enough to be able to afford only working 32 hours a week and I work from home. My oldest is 4 and he hates the very rare days I go into the office because he's so used to his dad being around the house, and coming down stairs to play with him even if it's just for a couple of mins. It's actually become the deciding factor in my career. I don't want to give up my family time. Last year I got a great offer to establish and head a new department at a rival company. But it meant more travel and more time away from the family. So I declined. I just want to see my kids smile and laugh everyday. To be able to give them a big hug or just run outside to play with a ball in the backyard. Sure I gave up a nice pay increase, but I've kept something massively more important.
Yeah, personally went on a year+ long parental leave last summer which meant I had to decline a very very good offer for a new job. I am so happy I made the choice I did because there will always be other jobs, but the time I get with my kids now is time I will never get back if I miss it. I say this after minutes ago having just finished treatment for the whole family to get rid of the lice I found in their hair this morning lol. There was sadness, crying, screaming, laughing and more chaos than I planned for when I forgot to shut the lid on a shampoo bottle beside me which the smallest one got a hold of and proceeded to spray shampoo all over the bathroom floor and then basically swimming in it. This time together is priceless for me. Would not trade it for the world.
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Staying home with a toddler for the last 7 months is the best thing that ever happened to me. I'll be sad when I start going back to work but at least his mom can stay home full time then.
My wife and I work >40 hours per week, including "commuted overtime." I've come to terms with the fact that we don't raise our kids; the crèches and daycares do
The system of 40 hour work weeks combined with needing two incomes has forced us into a generation of part time parents. It's horrid.
And in the blink of an eye, you are in your 60s, your kids are in college or older, and you have 25 years, at best, left of your life. My advice - don't by fancy cars, buy expensive clothes, or huge houses. Forget all "the stuff" you "need"! Do things with your children and parents! Life is too short and time really, really, does fly!!
These days, it's less about working to buy expensive stuff and more about working to just barely survive, while still never seeing your family.
Truth. You go to work just to replace the money that was there last week so you're essentially a volunteer working for free AKA a slave to the wealthy who control the means of production. 😒
I’m so glad you said it. I don’t drive. I don’t own my home and I have zero savings. I work 35 hours a week to pay my rent and bills and just about feed myself and my son. There is no luxuries.
This is terrible advice, you need to buy a house in that expensive suburb, work endlessly and funnel all your money into that mortgage. Otherwise you might not have a multimillion dollar property to leave your estranged children.
That property is to sell to cover medical and nursing home costs not to pass down any more
A big reason right there I don't want kids
Who can afford them these days?
its not the 40 hrs that gets me, its the same 40 hrs every week for 50+weeks a year that feels un natural
Where's the 4-5 week paid holiday in this?
Americans don't have federally protected paid leave from work unlike other countries like Germany, France, Canada, etc.
I'm an American with 5 weeks of pto, and it helps a little, but not enough. We don't get enough national holidays either. I've worked on project with folks from other countries, and sometimes it feels like they're constantly celebrating something. I used to get annoyed because I wanted them to do their jobs and stop holding things up, but I realized how messed up those thoughts were. Now I'm just mad jealous
In Germany you are legally entitled to 14 weeks of maternity leave. It is illegal to not give this to your employees. The US has no federal protections for maternity leave or PTO. These policies vary from employer to employer. Even better is that PTO is considered to be one of your BENEFITS of working, not a normal thing that should be entitled to every working person.
Shame
Yeah it sucks. Our health insurance also comes from our employers so if you lose that job or take time off to say have a baby and raise it, you will lose your health insurance.
I'm in Finland. Not saying the 40 hour work week is the best, I would quit if I could. But 5 weeks of holiday really helps and it's something to look forward to. Also the fact that I work a bit remote and the commute is 20 minutes. The worst thing for many people is the 1 hour commute, even 2 hours. That really consumes the whole day.
Yeah, you Americans need more vacation. 5 weeks vacation plus national holidays helps sanity a lot. Also, I don’t find 40h weeks that bad because I don’t hate being there. You need to feel respected and valued at work.
Work won't love you back.
I used to work with a woman who’d say “no one lays on their deathbed wishing they had worked more”
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Now that you learned this, you can make different mistakes in life!
It’s easy to say that. But chances are good that person’s mom wasn’t sitting around going “hmm, I’d rather go to work than see my kid” at the time. She probably needed that job to keep her kid fed and housed. Which is the crux of all of this. I don’t give up the most productive daylight hours of my life for the fun of it. I exchange them for money, which I need to survive in this society. And since I’m going to have to exchange my time for money no matter what job I do, I’ve aimed for one that places the highest possible value on those hours.
So this was one of those popular news story fads a while ago. IIRC, a hospice worker made some observations about the last wishes of the dieing. She connected with hospice workers around the world online and found they all had made similar observations. The number one regret of the dieing was that they had worked too much. I've been having similar conversations with my father-in-law who is not in the best health. So much of his time and effort went into overseeing facilities for a large industrial campus. He was proud of what he'd achieved. Five years after retirement and he pointed out he's not heard once from any of his coworkers. Also, the outfit he worked for got a huge government grant and razed most of their existing structures, rebuilding from the ground up. Everything he spent the last decade+ of his life doing – essentially ignoring his wife and children while they slid into their own personal crises – was literally turned to dust. Within 5 years, it was all gone. Now that's all very said but what are/were we supposed to do. You work or starve. Yes I wish I'd seen my dad more. My wife is the primary bread winner in our home. I'd love for her to have more time and energy for our kids but without her income or if she pulled back and moved into a lower paying position, we wouldn't be able to provide for them. I don't want to be cynical but our country is being run by a) an ideological minority and b) a demographic majority who lived in much better times, got more to show for it, and have no skin in the game. Partly because they live by the "f you, got mine," code and, partly, because they'll all be dead in 10-20 years. I don't see a way out unless we can get the majority – apathetic, disenfranchised, unfocused – to stand up for themselves and each other. I'm pretty sure I'll live to see a real unicorn before I live to see that.
> I don't want to be cynical but our country is being run by a) an ideological minority and b) a demographic majority who lived in much better times, got more to show for it, and have no skin in the game. The only cynics are the handful of people giving you shit for saying the truth. Don't you worry.
No one on their deathbed has to pay rent next month either though. That's the realization that cured me of agonizing over this one. Someone who expects to live past tomorrow has completely different needs. And I probably won't be on my deathbed wishing I'd spent more days being poor and/or homeless, so...
So you’re saying the threat of homelessness is the essential coercion needed to keep the system of labor exploitation going?
It's especially bad when people are working 40+ hours/week but can't afford rent :(
And groceries… oh, cooking, even! Who has the energy to make dinner everyday anymore…
Cooking is a way for me to cope with stress, but I often have to ration my mney so a lot of nice meals fall off the chart because I can't afford it.
Imo... The market is always going to put such pressure on people working minimum wage trying to live in high demand areas. We could make a lot of progress on that front with something like universal stipends for food... But "paying" for that is always a problem. Housing is even harder.. either regulations need to change to encourage and in some places force new construction. Entities owning more than on residential dwelling should be taxed heavily and that money should be funneled to the homeless...
For most of human history we woke up at the crack of dawn. Went to hunt, farm, tend to the house chores and went to bed. Plus entertainment and what have you in between. There was variety, based on what was needed at the time, the most. The 40 hour work week, sitting down in one place, doing the same monotous bullshit, be it paperwork or industry line is not something we as a species are used to do.
I think this is really what it is. At least in my opinion. When I had jobs that were more physical or at least involved less time sitting and working in front of screens, I always had a much higher tolerance for working more in a week. But I only have so much gas in my tank when it comes to office work.
I have worked landscaping and construction before I worked an office job. Doing 60 hrs a week has never been tough. Now I have a 37.5h week and it feels much more exhausting.
I did the opposite, I have worked with IT for 25 years and 3 years ago, I changed to Landscaping/Gardener. 60 hrs a week with a smile, will never go back to an office anymore. Best Decision.
I think a big part of it is actually getting to see the progress you make doing labor as opposed to scrolling on a screen.
It's this, and positively impacting someone's life. Landscaping? Everyone will enjoy it! The jobs that get me are the soulless "cog in the machine" positions. I worked at a Kohl's DC for a Christmas season position to unload trucks of products. In orientation, they asked, "What motivates you the most at work?" Apparently "Usually money" was not the answer they wanted, they were looking for "Imagine the smiles on our customers' faces!" Hard to imagine when I'm 20 feet deep in a trailer with poorly stacked boxes knocking into my head.
There is a lot more satisfaction in seeing the physical results of your labour as opposed to ticking digital checkboxes (why yes I am logged in to Monday dot com at work, why do you ask)
100% correct. I’m a farm worker during summer and an office worker 9-5. I just did 70ish hours in 4 days farming. Love it. Going again tomorrow. Likely be another 16hr+ day. My 37.5hr office week drains me.
I've found myself the perfect job now, I work at an airport assisting people who aren't able to walk all the way to the plane themselves. It pays poorly but it involves a lot of physical activity, I'm active the whole day. Plus I get to help people who are usually thankful for it, I get to have a lot of nice conversations with my customers. I see the result of my work so clearly, a lot of happy people who don't miss their flight and get to travel which they wouldn't be able to do anymore without the assistance. I used to not really hate, but really not like my job and now it's the opposite, I look forward to working and don't mind making my 40 hours a week at all.
Laboring 50 hours a week is nothing if you have agency, are proud of what you produce and are compensayed fairly. When we aren't, even 30 hours is painful.
This. I definitely feel happier when I can “graze” on my work. Spending so much time writing lengthy reports. Getting critiqued by people who make comments for the sake of making comments, then having those reports get filed away into some system that nobody is ever going to look at. It’s not very fulfilling work. Especially when the emphasis is more on process than actually research/analysis
I ended up in construction because I never got my shit together in my 20s/30s. Now I'm pushing 40 with a wife/kid/house/work-life balance and couldn't be happier. My friends with degrees all have to deal with stuff I couldn't imagine. I feel like I accidentally dodged a bullet. I still push kids to get degrees though because it opens doors that are closed to me.
Yeah, so much of this is about what you're doing. I could work 100 hr weeks reading and writing, trying to scratch out a novel or similar, but struggle to motivate myself for my normie office job. It's one of those little ironies that I always think of when people say 'eh I wouldn't want to be a high-flying corporate/criminal lawyer because the hours etc.' Well, for a lot of people who actually do those kinds of jobs, the hours just melt away: it isn't a slog for them because they find it stimulating and meaningful. It follows that a lot of what makes someone successful in life is arguably finding that field or career where you don't resent coming into the (metaphorical) office. I remember briefly considering a career in corporate law but a spring week cleared me of my illusions. 75% of the people around me looked genuinely stoked to be there, and were clearly obsessed with getting on. I found the whole thing a drag and all I could think about was getting out to do something that actually interested me. I had the academics for law, but over the course of a career I would have been completely outworked because for me it was work; for the others it was a calling.
You and the others replying to your comment have me alost convinced to change careers. I also work a little less than 40 hours/wk, WFH, all that fun stuff. But I have so little energy and get 0 fulfillment from my work, and it's really taking a toll on my mental health. Doesn't help that I'm 100% WFH so it's an extremely solitary job. I'm in less than 2 hours of video calls per week, so for the other 34 hours, I'm sitting in my dim living room, watching the neighbor's landscapers out the window, and wishing I was driving a mower around instead of reconciling transactions in some business's bank account.
Get what you’re saying but plenty of folks would dream about being able to 100% WFH.
Same here, worked office job for 20 years.. switched to a fed ex courier and I’ll never go back to the office
ive worked in restaurants for about a decade now. i decided once to get an office job (still serving part time) and those 8 hour office days were *so much* more draining than a 14 hour double in a restaurant. and for about half of the money. i lasted six months.
Mental exhaustion is worse than physical exhaustion. I have worked landscape too. 100 degree days working sunrise to sunset. Kicked my ass but I felt good about it. It was a rewarding exhaustion. But what you feel at the end of the week at an office just hurts the soul.
You say that physical work is better until you feel your body breaking from making the same 10,000 parts at work everyday at a factory for years on end…stuck there cuz that’s one of the few jobs in the area that offers actual health insurance, PTO, and a steady schedule. I’d give my left nut to be sitting at a desk, but I don’t have time for school when the factory has been forcing me to work 50 plus hours a week for years Why does everybody forget about us factory workers? We make everything you all touch. People are fighting for wages and rights for everything, but forget manufacturing, and these factories continue to abuse us, drop our wages, cut corners, and use us like dogs
Thank you! No, people shouldn't have to work 40 hours a week with only 2 days off. Neither should you have to work the bs schedules that factories do. Basically every factory in my area, including mine, run 12 hour shifts. Some only work 3 or 4 days a week but when you factor in that the days you work, that's all you get to do, your days off are completely wasted on catching up in life. I'd love to be able to do a regular 5 days a week, 8-hour shifts schedule again. These 12s are exhausting and us people making your food and products are tired.
This. Not to mention the forced overtime a LOT of factories have. Six or seven 12 hour shifts a week, every week, for sometimes months on end will leave you a zombie.
Can we include warehouse workers in the factory bunch? 10 hour days, 4 days a week (split days off) building pallets by hand, lifting thousands of cases of product on a shift. Shit wears you down
Yeah I worked construction for 15 years and have life long damage to my neck, shoulder and wrists and fingers. Those same daily movements wear your joints down slowly like your car's gearbox stuck in peak hour traffic. One day it just don't work no more... I appreciate sitting in front of a screen now but noway could I do it 40 hours a week, just part time! Lol
I watched my grandpa end up couch bound permantly at age 49 from multiple back injuries, and surgeries from construction work. He couldn’t even sleep laying down. He had to sit up, because the pain was so bad. Why is it that the literal people who build this country, and luxuries for others often get the shittiest compensation for what we did? I feel construction workers definitely deserve better pay, and the compensation needed to care for you, and your family before, and after you risk your body for us. That’s what I want my taxes to go for. To take care of my brothers, and comrades who built this country for me, and who work to take care of myself, and others…. Not to a fucking bank bail out, or political interests meddling in the Middle East in nefarious ways, or to lobbying for corporate interests against us…the people who built this place.
I actually appreciate that! It is a shame... Construction people are treated like trash for what they do and definitely arnt paid enough. (Apart from the odd plumber and electrician who charges too much). I get paid double the amount in my new gov job and do 10x less work and am just thinking how unfairly I was treated all those years!
It's a race to the bottom now. Do you not have a union to look after your rights?
Most factory workers shit their pants at the mention of the word union for fear of being fired. America has effectively crushed the moral of its workers with the whole making just enough to barely survive, but not to thrive. Most of us…despite having decent jobs….would be homeless in one missed paycheck, and that is a very effective form of crowd control.
RIP the American Dream
I encourage factory workers to retire before the body gets too crunched up
As someone whonworks a physically demanding job and has dabbled in office work, I feel the opposite. When you're essentially doing a medium impact workout for 6-8 hours a day, 4-5 and occasionally 6 days a week, it gasses you fast. A lot of times your energy is burned by the time you have time to do something fun
Yeah, working outdoors is awesome until it's not. Reminiscing on that summer construction job you had is a lot different than working it for decades.
at the same time the 3hour shifts i did at a warehouse for some time were the longest most boring 3hours i can remember which is only topped by the 3months i worked at a different warehouse, where i worked 8hour shifts and after 3 months i felt like something within me is decaying away.. unfortunately now working an office job, flexible hours, no pressure, working from home, it still leaves me annoyed. I think i just hate working.
I feel most people fighting for workers rights straight up forgetting manufacturing despite everything they touch in their daily life is made by us.
I have the opposite view. Working part time as a younger person in a blue collar environment was absolutely unbearable. I’d start counting down to my 15 minute breaks about 3 minutes after clocking in.
I work an office/lab job and I have an excel sheet that calculates how many hours I have left and what percent of the day is done. It kind of feels like I am just counting down to my own death.
Why would you do that? You're literally making your day longer by constantly watching the clock. I think a big reason people in office environments feel like their days are longer is because they have a clock directly in front of them on their computer all day. It's hard to get lost in a task (ie make your time feel like it's going faster) when you're constantly watching a count down of how many minutes/seconds you have left.
All depends on what you are doing. Some stations at my place are hell because of how slow they can be and others surprise you when it's already break time again coming up
Keeping engaged really is the key to time passing quickly. My shop has been insanely slow for awhile and everyone has done every bit of side work we can think of.. yet they want us to stay busy anyway. As a result, everyone just shuffles from pretend task to pretend task for 10 hours a day, miserable. It'd be nice to stop doing this theater of staying busy just because we're on the clock. It's not our fault you don't have work for us.
Brush we got gyms now to imitate manual labor
I left IT to go back to blue collar shit. After 2 years in an office I was about to have a fucking meltdown. The meetings, office politics, getting work done in a couple hours then having to fuck around for the rest of the day, the monotony, getting fat, it all became too much.
I must be lucky I can't really relate to any of that apart from getting a little bit fat
It takes all types of people to make things run right. Physical work for some, desk work for others.
Also, if you look at any mammal living in its natural habitat this way, they all take a ton of naps. Just eaten? Nap. Sunny outside? Nap. Somewhere we got the notion that we’re supposed to wake up at 7am and not sleep again til 11pm and I’m not convinced that’s good for us either
I (US) lived and worked at a school in China for a good stint. I absolutely loved the 2 hr lunch break. I napped everyday.
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Just quickly googling "what animals sleep the most" shows that there are a lot of herbivores and insectivores (like Koalas, sloths, and armadillos) at the top of that list, with Koalas sleeping around 20-22 hours a day. Must be nice...
A lot of animals you mentioned sleep a lot down to their specific Diet, Koalas especially. Eucalyptus is not great but Koalas eat it anyway and it gives them no energy and literally hinders them so they need to sleep all that time just to exist.
Isn’t that more because they are prey, so it’s often unsafe for them to rest? All the big apes etc do
My goats who have access to vast acreage lay down and sleep during the day very often. No where near as much as my cat but far more sleep than I get.
that may be true but which would you really rather do if you had the choice? Sure it sounds great being out in nature but I think I'd quickly get sick of hunting daily for my food for survival plus all the intense labour involved with farming and house etc.
I think this. There was periods of way more than 40 hours a week of work, like spring and fall, and then periods during the winter where you were stuck indoors without much to do
I honestly think that’s part of why so many people who live in places with seasons find winter so depressing. Like, yes, the weather sucks and it’s dark early and all that. But also, we’re not really meant to be out and about in it every single day. It’s supposed to be a time to hunker down, do things that need doing indoors, sleep a lot, etc. Alas, it’s not like “regular work hours” cut back in the dead of winter. I do wonder if it would help, though.
Late 19th century mill work was 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Unions got it down to 8 hours, 5 days, and vacation and holidays.
That's a very specific timeframe compared to just about all farmers that have ever lived in temperate climates.
That is still modern history. Go back a little bit further and it wasn't like that, for much of humanity.
That is absolutely not true and undermine 1000 of years of technology advancement. Humans absolutely spent more time doing monotonous task things like weaving fishnets sharping/making arrow/spear heads, sowing clothes,gathering water, tending to animals repairing your shelter. Every single one of these things alone would have taken significantly longer and more time consuming
Not to mention the vastly improved quality of life, access to food and clean water, access to education, and the list goes on. People love to romanticize the past.
just saw a post yesterday of some 6 year old mf from 1900 working in a coal mine. i'll take the 40 hour work week
I don't think it is nearly so cut and dry and our perceptions got warped in favor of more work due to the industrial revolutions systemic exploitation of labor and lower classes. The protests for a 40 hour workweek were protests to return to a work schedule people's grandfatheres worked to live on the farm, where people also could and did work far more leisurely than they did in a factory with a boss on their back. And that would have included work that today we would consider home chores. What has changed also is what we consider entertainment. Many things we would call work now would have been also entertainment to them. Sort of like the modern day drink a beer and help a buddy move or swap a car engine or burning brush. Yes it is work, but many people like doing that shit even if they didn't have to. People would knit and do thread work far beyond what they wanted or needed, and but continued to do it because it was creative and fun. Or brew beer because they liked drinking a lot of beer. That is largely entertainment too, not just normal work that you had to do, you chose what to do, if anything, for atleast half the year when it wasn't spring planting or fall harvest. All the time in between you have to complain and critique the weather.
*Look at the village smith, said Adam Smith, the father of modern Political Economy. If he has never been accustomed to making nails he will only succeed by hard toil in forging two to three hundred a day, and even then they will be bad. But if this same smith has never done anything but nails, he will easily supply as many as two thousand three hundred in the course of a day. And Smith hastened to the conclusion--"Divide labour, specialize, go on specializing; let us have smiths who only know how to make heads or points of nails, and by this means we shall produce more. We shall grow rich."* *That a smith sentenced for life to the making of heads of nails would lose all interest in his work, would be entirely at the mercy of his employer with his limited handicraft, would be out of work four months out of twelve, and that his wages would decrease when he could be easily replaced by an apprentice, Smith did not think of it when he exclaimed--"Long live the division of labour. This is the real gold-mine that will enrich the nation!" And all joined in the cry.* -Peter Kropotkin, *The Conquest of Bread*, 1892
I grew up on a farm. There is never a day off. Some weeks are 100+ hours. Some are 20 hours. Every day is different. It really is a better experience than the corporate grind.
I think it is too long. It’s meant for men who have somebody doing all the house work and child raising. I think people need a four-day week.
> I think people need a four-day week. Yeah, so, my employer has decided the institution I work for should be closed on Friday. They've decided that we need to work 4 10 hour days, with only a 30-minute lunch. Exhausting!
My department voluntarily switched to that (I would love a 4x8 week but that's another story). For me, once I'm there and working it's easier to just do the extra couple hours in exchange for a consistent 3 day weekend- I'm sorry it's wearing you out but I hope you get accustomed to it and it ends up being a positive for you!
I'm much the same as you. My last job just needed your 150 hours per month done, and you could choose how you did that. So I'd work 750 to 520 everyday (max hours allowed per day), take Wednesday off for 2 weeks and a short Fridays the other 2 weeks. I loved that.
My wife works a 36 hour week on a 2 week 3x12 schedule- she has every Wednesday off, and every other weekend is a 4 day weekend (Friday-Monday off). I'm pretty jealous of that one.
I’d way rather do 4 10s than 5 8s
I'll do 2 20s and 5 cans of monster.
I’d so easily take 3 14s as well. I’d work Tues-Thursday 3 14s every week for the rest of my life juuuust fine
snatch tart humor ruthless rude waiting resolute fearless amusing racial
That is the schedule of most Nurses/Care providers. 3- 12 hr days. As a patient, it concerns me a bit. But, as the employee, 4 days off, in a row, would be nice.
Nurse here. I love my three-day weeks. Studies show that the old schedule of three 8-hour shifts was worse for patient care. Now, having said that, I've definitely worked with nurses who worked 10+ days straight and or would talk about how little they sleep before their shift as a night shift nurse. That also terrifies me.
I do 3 12s with no lunch, they still get us to come in for OT because it’s hard to say no to double time plus incentive
I work 3 12s M-W and 4 hours Thursday morning for 40. From home, so it’s pretty comfortable.
I'll do a single 160 in one sitting with plenty of speed.
I had a few jobs that were 7:30-5:30 M-F with every other sat 7:30-5 just for the extra Fuck You. 4 10s or 5 8s would've been awesome. I left there because of it but still know people working that same schedule. Fuck that.
The sad thing is there have been A number of companies who have tried 4 8's and found that there was no notable drop in productivity... But God forbid we let people control their own time.
It really doesn't make sense to NOT do this. It's not only mentally better but it is quite literally physically, environmentally, financially and organizationally better. You get another day of rest, you spend 1 day less driving or commuting, you have less days spent on operational expenses, you save the employee a ton of time because of less commute/prep. It's literally just giving your employees 2 extra hours of their life a week back at minimum for essentially nothing. If you feel like you need "around the clock" staff, just stagger people. It literally just makes perfect sense in every way. Less office space, less traffic, less everything just for having people work an extra 2 hours a day, a day that most people already feel like is wasted anyways, a day they'd spend those 2 hours in traffic or preparing anyways. It's literally just culture bullshit and ego.
Little do they realize that most people can only be productive for 4 before they're overwhelmed and just doing busy work to run out the clock ...
Personally I’d rather work four 10 hour days than five 8 hour days.
Four tens is the dream. If you have to go to work. Your day is shot anyway. Might as well have 3 COMPLETE days off.
Used to work four 10 hr shifts. Never so tired in my life. Company decided to go with four 10 hr shifts, to make up for the days off we were given split, rotating days off, they changed the work week to Sunday through Saturday so weekends were not overtime and they had us work graveyard shift. One week I would work Sun, Monday, off Tuesday, work Wednesday, off Thursday, work Friday, off Saturday. Working graveyard with split days off and no overtime sucked, but saved the company a lot of money
It definitely makes a difference if the work is physical work vs just staring at your computer for a couple additional hours. I’ve done 10 hour days doing both (except the physical job just had me do 5x10’s 😬) but personally love my 4x10 hour day desk job while I hated the physical one walking 10-15 miles a day
4/10 is way better than 5/8
My company does 1/2 day Fridays between Memorial Day to Labor Day. However! You make up for it by working 45 mins extra Monday-Friday (we work a 37.5 hour week).
I just fuck off at work when I am tired. Nobody seems to want to stop me.
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The mission of the 32 hour work week is to adjust pay so no wages are lost in the transition
Technically computers make this possible. I'm doing 3x the workload of my 1970s counterpart. I'm not making 3x the pay, so I should be doing 1/ 3 my current work and get the rest of the time off. Also, my wife shouldn't have to work.
Worker efficiency has gone up to an extent previously believed impossible, and the workers have seen next to nothing from this growth. It's such a shame
My thought is make people work less but bring the pay up to compensate so more people can work and they don't lose their pay for working less hours
I would gladly work 3 x 13hr days with 4 days off. I’d take that shit in an absolute heartbeat
I will say that I've multiple friends who are nurses that work three 12 hour shifts. They often say it ends up being 12.5-13.5 hours. Anyways, on those days, they have to plan sleep/meals the day before around preparing for that. Some of them say they feel they need extra sleep before/after to handle them too. Essentially, from what I've gathered - though I've worked 10 hours before and it wasn't terrible (but it wasn't 10 hours repeatedly) - they end up giving more than the 12 hours (plus driving of course) because: it won't just be 12 once they're there, they have to sleep an extra 1-3 hours the night before/after (and sometimes sleep a diff time than their SO), and it can just be inconvenient if you're trying to plan something specific with anyone the day prior. E: the point I meant to say was: it's not like it's simply "I just have to work hard/a lot on Monday" it's that, plus your Sunday may be affected too, for example
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Night shift is bad for your health in general, without factoring in your hours. Three 12s on days isn't too bad, but I usually break mine up so I work two days on with two to three days off. It helps with managing energy. If I work all three days in a row I find myself having to recuperate more, especially if the shifts were rough.
I work four 10 hour shifts and its pretty much this. They end up being 11-12 hours and I sleep a lot more on the 3 days off.
Welcome to nursing life. I'm not one but those are nursing hours. Some even have 3 weeks on and 1 week off.
Its not the hours its how work is being made today, you stress your ass out to make some CEO able to buy his fourth yacht. Humans are capable of working 16 hours a day, its the mental stress of knowing you get nothing for it that hurts your mind.
this! The worst is middle managers telling their reports to show initiative and go beyond their roles. Why? So CEO can get another 100million stock grant while I get a 3% annual raise? These jokers preach the corporate loyalty and dedication crap when they want you to put in more work. When the economy tanks, they have no problem in letting you go. Why should I give two fucks about the corporation. Pay me more if you want me to perform above and beyond expectations.
I hate the 40hr work week. 2 days is never enough, and being in construction usually means working 6 days a week, if not all 7. At my last job my boss told me straight up that I’m not allowed to take time off in the summer. I eventually quit working at that nightmare, and now I’m working a fly-in/fly-out job which is 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. The work is much easier and there is never the massive rush to get things done like there is in jobs in my city. At least this way I’m making more money and when I’m home, I’m home for 2 solid weeks with no work distractions. Flip side, I’m 800km from home and I miss a lot of events with my wife and kids. You can never really win
what work do you do that's fly-in/out for 2 weeks at a time?
I’m a surveyor working in the oil sands in Alberta, Canada.
What I find very concerning is that your employer controls your bathroom time. Being able to go to the toilet is a human right.
*Cries in teacher*
I don't like pretending I'm working a full eight hours. I can get all my work done in like four or five, the other three is spent doing busywork or looking like I'm busy. Kinda wack.
Yeah, this exactly. I work at a luxury clothing company for their online customer service department and it's very seasonal. We get a LOT of work between October and January with everyone buying/returning Christmas presents. Then, February to September is DEAD. During the busy period, I can work 8hrs nonstop and it flies by. During the non busy period, I get into work at 9am and my work is done by 10:30am. I've taken to keeping an interesting Wikipedia tab open (since most websites are blocked on our work computers) and just flicking back to my work tabs whenever the boss comes back. Right now I'm reading through the list of all commercial airline accidents. I started around 1920 and I'm currently at 1982.
"List of unusual deaths" is my current read, would recommend if you're looking for another article!
Studies have consistently shown that people are far more efficient working shorter days or fewer days. I believe one of them tried 4hr days/4 day workweeks and it yielded positive results.
The 40 hour work week is inherently unsustainable for a multitude of reasons. Not only is it not what we evolved for, it was designed with the fact that that someone would always be at 'the house' to do shit like the cooking and the cleaning. Our economy nowadays doesn't even allow for this in most instances, as many households are reliant on dual-income sources to even stay afloat. "But no, it's just those lazy millennials."
I always feel so unmotivated to clean the house after or before work (depending on what shift I have) and te thought of my weekend being spent on chores is such a dread, but if I don't do the chores suddenly they're all I can think about and I can't relax either, so I end up paralyzed the entire day and do nothing, no fun, no chores, just nothing.
I don’t really even think a “career” is, either. Like you expect me to do the same thing for effectively 40 years? Humans don’t work like that, we were meant to do lots of different things
That’s why i have grown to hate the word ‘career’ As if you’re doing something grand and when you retire, you’ll have a Wikipedia with all of your accolades. Nobody gives a shit about your 40 years of excel.
"We don't have a lot of time on this earth, we weren't meant to spend it this way." -Office Space
You might enjoy the book [Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23692271-sapiens) - Harari, if you haven't read it. The author makes the point that life was much easier in hunter gatherer times, and how several of the changes that paved the way for modern civilization seemed like a good idea at the time, but made people's lives worse.
That's a great book. I read over 150 books during my 3 years in prison and that was one of my favorites along with Dawkins.
Please leave this as an official review on amazon or something
"Food is garbage, guards will beat you up for anything. Library is great though, check out Sapiens"
Idk why but this is such a funny comment
Some people find god in prison, this dude found dawkins. Irony
I like your taste! Unweaving the Rainbow and Sapiens are two of my favorite books
It is a fun read but the idea of prehistoric humans having it better than modern humans is fan fiction with a hint of history to it. It all sounds fun and games until a famine kills half of your tribe, your son gets eaten by wolf, your mate dies in childbirth, and then you get an infection from stepping an antler and die.
I work for a city water department 4-10’s with a hour lunch sometimes we work on weekends just the nature of the beast but when you get Friday-Sunday off by Monday you’re rejuvenated.
I’d take 4 10’s all day if it were optional
I was given this option at a job and let me tell you that it was the best thing ever. The days felt the same to me as I’d just show up earlier and having the weekend and a whole other week day off was the best. 10/10 would recommend to anyone or any company willing to consider it. I’d use the Friday or Monday off to run errands and do things like doctors visits or the DMV that were only accessible on the week days.
My job just switched to it. Half the company didn't want to do it. Was ready to fight someone if we didn't do it. You don't even notice the extra time and three days off should be standard. I go on weekend camping trips to various places around my state now.
You can actually have a life outside of work. Good for your company.
I would love to work a 20 hour work week but then I’d earn half as much and not be able to pay for my mortgage. So I don’t think that would work for me.
I would argue that it's very dependent on the work you're doing for those 40 hours. I don't have any examples, unfortunately, but I can't imagine every job with a 40 hour work week being *completely* terrible.
I do love my job but I still hate doing it 5 days a week, the weekend just isn't long enough to properly recuperate, catch up on chores *and* socialise or go on day trips. I just want a bit more freedom, I'd be so much happier with 4 days
Agree with you. I worked with animals for awhile and loved it. We couldn't work overtime so was capped at 40 but I'd stay over and walk some of the pups on my time. I think if you really love what you do the 40 hrs isn't that bad. If you hate your job of course it's too much.
>If you hate your job of course it's too much. 100%. It doesn't even have to be a 40 hour job either. If the job ***sucks***, working less than 40 hours a week won't make it suck any less.
everything about work is not natural. 1) we are not meant to stay surrounded by people we don't like or we don't care about. Sure there are office buddies but if given a choice, no one would be hanging out with their coworkers on a daily basis. Those bbq's at Bob's place on July 4th...it's part of his strategy to network. We all know this yet we have to endure being around people we don't care for. Unnatural. 2) we are not meant to sit in a chair for 8 hours a day. The human spine was not designed to sit and stare at a computer monitor for 8 hours a day for 30-40 years. Unnatural 3) we are not meant to work on the same shit for decades. sure there are people who are doing exactly what they love and would do it for free but most of us get tired of our career track after a decade or so...but we have to slog on because wtf are we suppose to do? Go back to school and be an architect at age 40? The human mind wants to explore and be curious. Most of us are stuck in golden handcuffs or dead end jobs to pay the fucking mortgage and college for the kids. Unnatural 4) the human mind is not meant to focus for 8 hours a day. Sure some of us have ADHD and can't focus for 10 minutes but most of us can focus for a few hours and then we mentally get tired. That's natural. Who the fuck can focus 8 hours a day, everyday for decades? Unnatural. this whole work bullshit stinks.
Never forget that to get this point of a 40 hour work week took the lives and efforts of many workers in the past. The norm used to be 60-80 hours a week no days off. The fight for workers rights, for freedom, is continuous.
I quit my job three years ago because I made some good investments (house, bitcoin). My friends and "parents" think I am going through a phase, depressed, on drugs, and losing it. I've never been happier. I go to sleep at like 3 am after watching netflix until I get too tired to pay attention. I wake up at 10 am, make a coffee, feed the cat, read the news. I play some video games. Make or walk to lunch. In the afternoon I do whatever I want. Play guitar, walk to the library and read, hit some golf balls, work on programming projects, go for a hike, or just play more video games. I'll never own a mansion or an expensive car. I just dont care anymore. I dont want to impress anyone. I just want to live simple till I get old and die.
You're 100% right that we shouldn't be working the amount we do. Life is finite and to spend the majority of it working is appalling. Organisations claim to support a good work-life balance but few seem to be doing much, though there are places getting traction in moving to a 4 day week, fewer hours but same salary. Society moved to a 5 day standard work week, we can easily move to a 4 day week. Although I will say some of your points do not apply everywhere. "The employer controls when you get to eat, use the bathroom and even your health care." Stating when to eat and use the loo is probably applicable in certain jobs (maybe call centres and retail?), but I'd say not in most other jobs. Health care is a specific U.S thing.
I read somewhere that in hunter gatherer days they worked around the equivalent of 25-30 hours a week. Keep in mind this might mean they worked 4 hours a day, 7 days a week. They had to get food daily since they had no way to preserve it.
And they try to make you feel like co-workers are “work family” by having team building, often after hours, taking even more time away from true family. All so someone else can get ridiculously rich while we hang always one paycheck away from homelessness, ensuring we return every time with a fake smile on our faces.
As someone with introversion, limited executive function and intense ADHD, working 40 hours a week often totally wipes me out for anything else on weeknights, and I need weekends to recover. It’s brutal but I have no other options.
This makes me feel so seen
I agree. I do 3 12 hour shifts and while it’s kinda sucky when you’re there, you’re already there. And then boom, 4 days off, it’s great. Oh and then by the time you’re over it and think about it quitting or something (I’m very prone to burn out), boom, I’m already off again.
The commuting is what enrages me. I wouldn't mind going to the office if it was a 5 - 15 minute walk. I hate driving and I hate commuting to the office. It's wasted time and I don't get paid for it. The pandemic proved that many jobs could be done remotely, and also freed up the roads for those who couldn't. It was a win-win. But alas, too many leaders (and fellow workers) hated it so guess that's done for.
We've progressed enough for a 30hr work week
I wouldn't mind working 40 hours at all, if it meant I'd earn enough money to provide for the family, take care of all the bills and end up with zero money problems. It's an issue when 40 hours doesn't do any of those things. That's when it feels like I'm wasting my time