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Comment by Apreche | Hacker News Reader

I get a raise every year without asking. I frequently get offers from other companies that are willing to pay me much more than I currently make. The biggest stress is that I don't want a raise.

What I want is to work less. I currently work slightly less than 40 hours a week, and have a few weeks of vacation. Ideally I would like to work 4 or fewer days per week and have 5+ weeks of vacation time per year. I have attempted to negotiate this with my current employer as well as potential ones. I have never been successful. Everyone wants me to waste my life away sitting at a desk in their office.

TL;DR: How do I successfully negotiate more time off instead of more money?

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What's worked for me for the past ten years was to negotiate to be an hourly employee at hiring time. In that position, there's no conflict of interest if I work 30 hour weeks, or take two extra weeks of unpaid vacation.

Once I'm at the job, I just take a normal raise when it comes along. That means I can then work less hours from that point forward for the same pay, giving me the same end result as what you're looking for without having to negotiate for something unusual every year.

I think the reason employers might be uncomfortable with letting you work four days is that it'll create the illusion of unfairness to your co-workers. They can't see how much you're getting paid, but you having a day off a week is very visible.

What kind of work do you do, and what kind of companies are letting you do this setup?

This is easier to do when getting hired on as a long term contractor for development work.

Apply for a remote job! I work the hours I want, and took >5 weeks vacation this year. As long as I ship, nobody really minds when/where I work.

Congrats BTW... I know there are many who would love to be in your situation.

You could try to disconnect your employer's association with your butt in a chair in the office with the value the get from paying you. One way to do that is to negotiate a remote work arrangement, Tim Ferris or Remote by 37 Signals have some great advice about how to do that.

As far as actually setting an expectation that you will work 4 days a week when everyone else works five, unless you've established yourself as a particurally irreplaceable piece of their puzzle.. you're probably going to need to find an employer that embodies that culture, I know there are various companies that do 4 day work weeks. It becomes really difficult for employers to justify why one person isn't around when everyone else is, they're afraid of the dominos... wether justified or not. Again... remote work makes this much easier.

I did this for a few years -- after my son was born, I started working 30 hour weeks and got paid 75% of my "real" salary, while staying employed normally. Went back full time this year but it worked great while I was doing it.

Don't really have any advice; I started as a regular full time employee, and after 9 months or so went to my manager, said "how about I only work 30 hours?" and he said "sure". No issues at all. So just have to find the right company I guess.

I work 60 hours a week with 2 weeks vacation a year. I am also not highly paid. I would love to work at a place that just required the normal 40 hours a week.

Freelance. I do 4 days a week, or rather I will after spending a year at home with my family, whilst doing odds and sods to keep me ticking over.

Become an independent consultant/contractor.

Does that come with health insurance and a 401k? I'm very risk averse.

No, you can usually increase your billable rate to make up for that difference. If for example your current salary would be $100k/2080 (work hours in a year) you'd be getting paid $48/hr. You'd likely set your contracting rate at at least $60/hr to make up for the difference or no PTO, insurance, 401k, etc.

Also in the US, tack on an additional 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare taxes that would normally be paid by the employer, which is now technically yourself.

> Social Security and Medicare taxes

Why do they show up as being deducted from your salary in your statements then?

Because as a W2 employee you pay half and your employer pays half. As a W9 employee (contractor), you pay both.

It does come with a 401k, and you buy your own health insurance.

Which isn't terribly different than being employed. Your employer probably pays 80% of your health insurance premium and you pay the rest. It's all just part of your comp package that you need to sort out if you decide to start a consulting business.

In my experience I have found it more difficult to work less days and take holidays as a contractor. The company that is paying for your services expects complete short term dedication on delivering the project, and that is what you should provide. You can take longer breaks between contracts but again I have found that not to be the case as you always want to have more work lined up for a steady income stream.

I can understand that. You do need leverage to negotiate such a deal - a niche skill, or familiarity with an existing codebase.

Same here. I would gladly trade some of my income for more free time, but I was immediately shut down when I tried to discuss it with my employer. It would be great if companies started opening up to this idea.

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