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Comment by tokenizer | Hacker News Reader

One argument for the 40 hour work week is that we've simply built a complex global society around it. Almost every country in the world adheres to it more or less. We have set store hours at either 8 or 16 or 24 hours, again based on shifts of workers, and we have a complex economy that I'm sure our leaders would argue depends on it.

Not saying I agree with that argument, or that something better isn't possible, just stating a potential defense to the "tradition" of our 40 hour work week.

Any solution would take a ton of logistics and considerations in terms of wage parity during any transition period, less you want people starving because of bad policy. OR it would take one class of people, those who own the means of production, to create this policy on their own. I see no reason why they would.

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> One argument for the 40 hour work week is that we've simply built a complex global society around it.

Which I passionately hate. Banks around here strictly adhere to the 40-hour work week, which obviously results in banks only being open when, you know, everyone is at work. Consequently, if you need to interact with a human at the bank, the only option you have is to skip lunch break.

Exactly; I need to take half a day off at work whenever I need to go to a bank. Or a barber. I don't understand why so many services have opening hours when most of the people are at work. Where do they get their clients from?

It works because then it gives people an excuse to leave work lol!

Banks don’t exist to serve personal customers, they exist for business (the overwhelming majority of their profit comes from business accounts). To that end, they have no reason to be open outside of normal business hours.

The solution to that where I live(Lebanon), is that banks have 40hr weeks but instead of 8x5 they are 7x5 + 1*5. That is, they work 8am=>3pm on weekdays and 8am=>1pm on Saturdays. It's definitely less than ideal but at least if you need to interact with an actual human at a bank and it's not extremely urgent, you just go there on Saturday.

In lots of poorer economies people are asked to work more than 8 hours.

In which countries are store hours are usually set at multiples of 8 hours? (I have never see that being usual. But then, I grew up in Europe.)

My Dad is a cab driver. He was, when he was young a Bus driver. He used to routinely put in over time 12-13+ hours scale and generally used to report to the Bus Depot around 3 AM in the morning.

I'm not sure if that counts as creative work, but its very stressful though.

Note, this is in India.

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