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Comment by AltruisticGap | Hacker News Reader

Monday morning off sounds like an awful idea.

First off, even when I lack sleep, I'll function better in the morning if I force myself out of bed, and I'll have a big slump in the afternoon.

If I sleep in instead to supposedly catch up sleep, I'll do OK.. but I won't feel any better in the afternoon.. I'll be a little off because of getting up late.

Secondly, afternoons are more depressing. I'd rather get out of bed, do a monday morning and then go home. It's really depressing in the winter, to leave work when it's already night outside. :/

But really screw "monday mornings" off, give me a monday off or nothing.

edit: not to mention the most obvious... people with long commutes coming to work for a few hours... really dumb.

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>Monday morning off sounds like an awful idea. > First off, even when I lack sleep, I'll function better in the morning if I force myself out of bed, and I'll have a big slump in the afternoon.

On the other hand, i work better in afternoon no matter what. 2-5 are my most productive hours. Maybe how you feel isn't how everyone feels. A better solution would be to allow employees to choose their half a day/ a day off.

We used to have 9-6 working hours, but +- 2 each way, it was funny, almost everyone chose to come in early, and do 7 to 3, except the programmers who all decided to do 10 to 7 or 11 to 8,

It worked well though

Yeah, you will obviously need a day or some hours where there is an overlap. So for a 4 day work week, maybe you have 2 days where you have to work. But that will still be a much better and a flexible solution.

Yep. I’ll spend most of the morning waking up anyway. I can do it at work or I can do it at home, either way I’m not going to be very productive before afternoon.

I function by trying to work 7 days a week, without taking time off for vacation. What I've found is that I'm in general much happier having to wake up at a specific time every day with specific work goals.

I feel like I'm in a sweet equilibrium with fewer disruptions from going on and off vacation. I make more money, I'm happier at home and work, and I feel better all around.

That probably makes you quite an outlier.

The question I have is... Why am I an outlier? What if this could work at a corporate level where employees are happier because they can work more hours some days and fewer hours on other days?

Instead of 8 hour work days each week with 6 weeks of vacation, wouldn't it be nicer to work just 5 hours a day for 365? Or maybe a few days with 3 hour days and a few days with 8 hours? This seems so much more relaxing than crunching 8 hour days every work day.

If I'm hiring super creative or deep planning or design roles i want "bursty" people who can do super intense periods, more common lower intensity cycles and then recharge for a planned period of time.

If the workload dictates requirements I'd love to find anyone who wanted a constant queue of variable days but I've never met them aside from contractors who want a minimum and will bill extra, but they still seem term-based and want vacation.

At a managerial level i can plan around predictable days off, but not variable days when i need to coordinate more than a few people.

When you factor in the commute many of us have, 7 days a week would be horrible. Of the many refliefs the weekend brings, one of them is not having to waste 1.5+ hours in a car.

Don't take this the wrong way, but do you have like doing other things apart from programming? I couldn't imagine going in to work 7 days a week for the entire year which would mean i won't be able to go ski, travel, play soccer league, go camping, hiking etc..

I'm not a programmer. My job has different hour requirements than a typical salaried position.. Sometimes I work 4 hours one day, sometimes 20+ hours. The variability is exciting, almost like a slot machine, some days I get lucky and have a lot of work all day which means more money to spend, other days the work isn't there and I go home by noon (which I consider also being lucky) to play with the kids, work on home projects, go shopping, hang out with wife, watch Netflix/YouTube.

I have gotten so much enjoyment from work and the income it generates that I have decided to put my major hobbies/travel on hold. Maybe if tax law changes in the future punish me for high productivity, then I might cut back and do more non job activities.

I would imagine it is hard for a programmer to maintain this schedule because the pay isn't on the same basis as mine (eat what you kill versus salary). However, certain other aspects of a 7 day workweek apply to being a programmer: if you get tired and don't want to continue working, you can just go home and work on it the next day. No Friday crunch time. No pre vacation crunch time. Every day is more relaxed because you just took two major deadlines off your schedule: Fridays and vacations.

I'm sorry what? To me, and probably most people, that sounds like workaholism. No vacation? How do you maintain your sanity? Don't you feel the need to disconnect every once in a while?

Don't you get the feeling on vacation that you dread coming back to work? Do you dread the time you're on vacation that you know you're losing on potential income (or not taking care of chores at home)?

I used to take 8+ weeks of vacation, and honestly those years dragged on and on, and my time on vacation was less and less enjoyable because of the dread of coming back to work and the lost income. Now? I'm happy, every single day. I find much more enjoyment every night when I'm home from work because I'm earning good money and I can cherish the respite from the daily work.

1-2 weeks off at a time is just too much time away from work. I think the desire to get away from work is there only because the 5 day on, 2 day off weekly grind is so jarring to the psyche that you absolutely need the extra week off to recover. I'm copacetic working 7/365.

Weirdly enough, I prefer the same (as a freelancer). 6 or 7 days a week with gently sloping down hours each day (long Monday, shorter Tuesday, even shorter Wednesday, etc) feels awesome. I get the hard work out of the way early in the week and arrive into the weekend relaxed, while still staying disciplined with my sleep schedule over the weekend (get up, do a couple hours of work, then go have fun).

Plus, vacations feel less necessary.

cool anecdotal evidence. that doesn't necessarily mean we should completely dismiss the concept entirely.

Feeling a slump early afternoon after midday meal is not anecdotal evidence, it's biology.

edit: At least, it's a common issue that people have . A simple google search for "afternoon slump" reveals tons of related articles and suggestions to address it.

Besides, those who feel otherwise likely don't give sufficient context. Such as, likely that they work from home. Or that they run their business so they can work afternoons and like to get up at 11 AM everyday. The article is talking about "staff" at "companies".

Note for later, "evidence" for the afternoon slump:

> "The so-called “window of circadian low” — the hours when the body is least adapted for wakefulness — typically occurs between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. There’s another, smaller dip 12 hours later, in the midafternoon."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/well/mind/work-schedule-h...

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