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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

Because nobody's TODO list is empty. Just because you can "accomplish" tasks in less time does not mean that the next task doesn't need to be started until next week. It just means you can close your tickets faster, not that there's nothing left to do.

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Work fills the time you allow it to (Parkinson's law). We could all work 7 days a week. Should we? Why? You get one life. Work is like oxygen; you need it to survive, but it isn’t the point of living.

Obligatory: username checks out.

You'd need regulation to prevent people from working more.

If I want to live in a particularly desirable house, I have to earn more money than the other people who want to live there too, so I can outbid them. So I'll work harder than them to do so.

(Trivial concocted example for illustration purposes, not meant to be nitpicked)

The Chinese "996" work system refers to a schedule where employees work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week, totaling 72 hours per week. This system is common in some Chinese tech companies and startups. While not officially mandated, it is often encouraged or expected...

Not really sure what this has to do with the price of tea in China, but okay, now I know a new term. When you accepted a job at a company, there was an agreement on wages earned for work performed. If there was a definition of the hours to be worked that you agreed to, then you should not be shocked when you realize the company expects that many hours from you. Just because you have become more efficient does not mean you owe less hours than what was agreed upon when accepting the position. If you want to renegotiate your position, that’s between you and the employer. Do not be surprised if your desire for fewer hours is followed by a lower wages as a response.

Such a 2025 response.

I really have no idea what your point is with that

it might mean that you are obtusely defending a point of view that ultimately, rationalizes any amount of work for any amount of hours assigned to a helpless cog knowledge worker. "We pay you for that" turns into "you are responsible for that" turns into "do it or you are fired" and "its not done you cant leave until it is done and why did you waste time and why are you failing at this task I gave you" etc..

Some countries have labour laws you know. Where I'm from, if I start a new job that bait-and-switched me into working one hour more than 40/week they will get into a lot of trouble.

I'm not saying overtime is not allowed, but if it's expected to be the norm then it very much must be in the contract. If the overtime is not a regular expectation then it must be compensated appropriately, and even then there are upper limits to the amount of overtime.

I'm from the US. People didn't used to be 'work units'. Even the most coked out 1980s corporate raider would not talk the way the average pro-capitalist does today. And the 1980s was considered the era of exploitive greed. It is wild to see the shift where all human dignity/consideration has been removed by businesses/managers as if that's acceptable/the reasonable position. You're comment is very 2025. It would have made you an outcast in the semi-recent past and seen as a sociopath if used outside of very academic economics discussion, not entertainment discussion forums.

People used to be able to sell themselves/their children into slavery and business people were just fine with it. Then we made them feel shame to treat humans that way. Then we made them feel shame for employing little kids. Them we made them feel shame for threatening a person's ability to provide for their family as leverage to dictate. As soon as they could, they backslid on the last one. Certain states are repealing their child work laws.

This is not normal. This is not how the US was the majority of my life.

Do you come in on Saturdays, since your TODO list is still not empty?

When I was an hourly employee, I used to come in on Saturdays and earn 1.5x and then on Sunday to earn 2x. That was when I was young and dumb with nothing else to do to fill those hours so why not make some extra money? Now that I’m no longer hourly, I work for as long as necessary to accomplish task by deadline. It is none of my employer’s, nor yours, business how I spend that time as long as deadlines are being met

> It is none of my employer’s business how I spend that time as long as deadlines are being met

This contradicts what you already said ("there are always more TODOs"). Which one should I reply to?

If your employment has fixed deadlines, and your employer does not react to efficiency increases by setting earlier deadlines, then you should expect the headline effect (efficiency increases mean your weekly hours decrease).

Again though, how I manage my time is my business. If I'm assigned a task on Monday with a deadline for Friday, I can finish it on Monday and have it ready for the Friday deadline and then spend my time how I wish OR I can report the task completed and then expect to have more tasks assigned. There's no need to have a negotiation with how any tools that I use makes me more efficient. You seem to be unable to manage your own time and need to be told by employer when to have time off. That's something you should try changing rather than expecting the world to change to how you want to spend time.

If how you manage your time is your business, why are you replying to an article about changing the length of the work week? You are telling us that nobody mandates your work week. Most employees are not in that situation.

> I can finish it on Monday and have it ready for the Friday deadline and then spend my time how I wish OR I can report the task completed and then expect to have more tasks assigned

Are you serious? Do you think you just have free choice of whether to do more work or not? If you completed a task in 15 minutes and spent the rest of the week surfing do you think that would be allowed by your employer? Most employee contracts would forbid it.

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