Reasons the 9 to 5 Workday is Obsolete | Hacker News Reader

Reasons the 9 to 5 Workday is Obsolete

blog.30hourjobs.com

29 pointsjoeyespo15 comments

I went from a typical 9-5 job to working part time, about 16 hours, to focus on my studies. Doing this increased my overall happiness by a massive factor. Being able to spend the majority of my day on something I was actually interested in and passionate about pulled me out of a "life is meaningless, why bother" mentality that my former job had buried me in.

The pay cut was drastic, but I was lucky (in a way) that I had come from having nothing the majority of my life so going back to almost nothing was an easy transition because it was essentially my 'default mode'. And even when I was making a considerable amount of money, lifestyle creep never became an issue. I lived well within my means. This is important because this combination allowed me to actually quit my job and live off of savings for years while I went back and completed my undergraduate. I've had friends in similar situations who have had to go back to a job they hated because they couldn't adjust. But for me, it was worth cutting every single cent and I will never work a 9-5 ever again.

If only it was actually 9 - 5, seems that 7:30 - 6 is a lot more common

I focus to do always 8.00-16.00 or 7.30-15.30. doing more than 8 hours a days is bad for you and your employer anyway..

Actually I would prefer to work 6 hours a day for 5 days or 4 days for 8 hours, so I can have more time for me and my interests

Were both the job and degree in SWE/CS?

The job was, the degree is in finance.

I have noticed that 9 to 5 works best for most middle managers and other gossip oriented staff.

As for the productive workers; they should be allowed to work at the time of their own choosing.

It is interesting that we have largely the same group of people complaining at the same time, that:

1) They don't feel like working as hard as people in the past used to work, and

2) They feel they're being screwed by a "rigged system" because they're not as rich as people used to be.

That's the whole point of productivity gains... Either you're richer or you can work less or ideally both.

Sure.

But if you choose to work less, you probably shouldn't be surprised that you're not achieving as much.

I own a business. I invest in a garden hose so my gardener can water the plants more productively than refilling a watering can constantly. Why would you expect the financial savings of my investment to flow to the gardener rather than to me? If anything, the gardener is now exerting much less effort, and may accept the job for less pay (or be replaced by someone less skilled and cheaper).

Well, at least at a societal level because you want to live in a relatively equal society and have all of the benefits that come with that as opposed to a feudal dystopia.

Feudal dystopias, as you call them, were characterized by minimal capital creation and the lack of rights to exploit that capital leading to both poverty and inequality.

On the other hand, the sudden explosion of capital creation and exploitation that sparked the industrial revolution led to the creation of the first societies in which wealth and freedom were attainable by families not of noble birth.

And that happened after the period of horrific exploitation of people in factories, including children. Economic growth is good not in itself but only if it is widely shared. It will be better for economic growth in the long run anyway because inequality comes with its own set of problems.

A society where everyone is poor is worse than a society where some are rich but most are poor. It is worse that everyone be in crushing poverty forever, than to have unequal distribution of wealth.

“Growth is only good if widely shared” is a meme that has led to immiseration every time it is implemented. If capitalism has to own child labor, then redistributionists have to own the violent mass scale enslavement of the peasants under Mao/Stalin.

And what people forget in this metaphor - the company that innovated and manufactured the garden hose has just made money too. Their engineer is now employed.

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