Wharton professor says America should shorten the work day by 2 hours

Most of the devs with the luxury of moving and getting a different job started looking immediately. I changed jobs less than 6 months after the policy change. Productivity also went way down because morale was in the gutter.

To ensure something is to make sure it happens—to guarantee it.

To insure something or someone is to cover it with an insurance policy.

That was my last job, though. Now I work my own schedule and it's nice. WFH though so focus is even tougher. I find that if I start to tire in the afternooon a workout does wonders..

Even if you were only working one day a week, you wouldn't be able to do 8 hours of contiguous useful information-work.

That would equate to 18 hour days. Give yourself 2 hours of time spread across the morning and evening to wash, dress, eat etc. you'd be looking at 4 hours sleep a night for 4 nights and no relaxation time. That seems unsustainable.

I think the point of the linked article is that the same reason that makes you recoil at that, and the same reasons that would make these coming hell-days so dread-inducing- those same reasons apply to an 8-hour day, just to a lesser degree.

It's not about extending the weekend as much as possible, it's about shortening the part of each workday that you're "working", and reducing the mental burden of each individual workday.

That only works if you get 5 days pay for 4 days work and everyone else gets 4 days pay for 4 days work. Because where are you going to spend the money if everyone else is chillaxxing too?

And how long is elementary school? 8AM-3PM? If teachers weren't often required to do work outside of class, those hours sound pretty reasonable.

Mine already did. Early dismissal at around 12:30 every friday. Thank goodness I have a stay-at-home mom for a wife, because I don't know how you're supposed to deal with that and also have a job.

Actually I do know- they offer paid daycare on fridays. It's still a little silly.

"In the LinkedIn post, Grant was weighing in on an Atlantic article about the time gap between when school and work days end, a bane for many parents. But it's not the first time Grant has given his stamp of approval to less work with more productivity."

Source: R. Gordon, “Rise and fall of American growth.”

I don't recall a source, but I'm fairly sure that American school classes last longer than what data shows is effectual, i.e. teaching a class longer than X minutes (I think it's 30 or 40) has no demonstrable effect.

I still don't know why programmers think their profession is so fabulously unique that their office time scheduling can't even apply to any other industry.

Point is, it seems like I keep hearing about studies which tell me x,y,z etc; but if humans dropped into a zoo on another planet and a study was done to see how long humans could run, I'd bet you'd get some wild answers until you just let the people who like to run go out and run marathons, ultra marathons, etc.

Modern work has some aspect of captivity to it that we certainly subject ourselves to, when in reality we are all individuals with each our own strengths and struggles.

In other words, what a job is supposed to be for most people.

"Cheaper labor willing to work more" is how I read that, and the antithesis of efforts to reduce the work week.

I'd prefer US law be tailored to incentivize US companies to employ US sourced labor, where our labor law can further ratchet the work week down (we're already incredibly productive compared to 40 years ago, but wages have been stagnant [1]; we've already earned a reduction in the work week we haven't gotten). I wouldn't want our country to export environmental pollution or labor externalities like child sweatshops, and in the same way, I would want to prevent our multinationals subjugating employees outside of our country's internal labor regulatory framework.

[1] https://i.stack.imgur.com/iCTuo.jpg

I only have 2 super rich(1M+/yr) in my life, and they are always working. I only see them during holidays and the occasional grad party.

Their son told me that his dad worked so many hours that he totaled 2 cars in a week due to sleep deprivation.

Maybe second generation is lazy, but I'm not sure where this idea that 'super rich' dont work come from.

This also pisses me off. We can only have things to be "more productive." If we always had this attitude then we'd never have the weekend.

I imagine its the most politically acceptable way to sell this argument. "Sure, we're all going home at 3, but hey, the businesses still make money so why not?"

I suspect management's ancient ideas of "meetings" and "face time" are killing this little revolution. A lot of middle managers are little more than meetings bullshitters and cutting their main value is going to scare them.

The reality is that the work day is based on an arbitrary factory schedule. There's no reason to maintain it. Moving to 6 hours or 4 days absolutely works. Its just going to be less people padding their time on reddit and facebook.

Who are these 'I want free stuff' people? I keep hearing them mentioned as some sort of strawman, but no one can really find me any large groups of these people demanding free stuff. Most people realize taxes pay for welfare benefits.

It also appeals to people who want to eliminate 20 government and various state agencies for a single entity. We already have many convoluted forms of welfare, why not simplify it?

The whole point of a government is to benefit the welfare of its civilians.