“The Company has also determined that weekends / vacations are time theft. The Company would like to reiterate the ownership dynamic between The Company and the employee. The Company takes this crime verily seriously.”
If you don't specifically force companies to comply with compensatory wage boosts within the law, it's all but guaranteed a 32 hour work week will lead to pretty much every making 20% less money overall.
This is literally what happened with work from home. Productivity went up, job satisfaction went up, worker turn over went down.
But middle managers hated it because their entire job became redundant. "what am I going to do, if im not wandering around the office checking in on people and filling out reports on how busy people look"
Last place I worked did this. Productivity went up. Leadership was asked if it could be made permanent. They said that it wouldn't work for everyone and therefore wouldn't be fair. Wut
They tried the same thing with us because production was on 4 10s and engineering was on 8s but middle management threw a huge fit because they wanted their 3 day weekends too. It's the only time I've seen them stand up for something 😅
My old job 12 years ago liked to do 3 day weeks.... 13 hour days + lunch. 7am to 8pm. Always involving at least 1 weekend day. By 8pm on that 3rd day, I was ready to kill myself, and this was an IT desk job. You end up losing an entire day to sleep and recovery. If that had been physical labor, I wouldn't have made it.
As an HR Professional, I'll tell you that this doesn't exclude HR either. I started at a biomedical research company and had around 200 employees I supported. Then a RIF happened and I lost two coworkers so I had 900 employees and even more admin work on top of everything. After two more years of hell trying to support my employees, I was laid off. It hurts my soul that all of this happens while all the executives make 40% bonuses on an already absurd salary. The disparity is real.
We have so much evidence that treating people with decency and respect would improve the world for all of us by every metric. And then we implement none of it. Because it all flies in the face of our most sacred values: the myth of "salvation through hard work." You'd think when Nazis pointed the idea at their death camps we'd start to get the idea, but it turns out that the only dispute the world really had with them and their ideals was about land ownership...
It isn't just in jobs where your pay is based on how many hours you work. When I was in the Navy my ship decided to try out 'Tropical Hours' when we were in our home port. Instead of working 8-4 with lunch in the middle, they decided to have us work 6-12, but meals were to be taken before and after those hours. In San Diego, this allowed you to avoid high traffic times. All the work still got done and people were happy to be off at noon. Of course, after the next deployment they didn't do it.
In my industry a position like mine is required 50 hours minimum a week. No lunch break and never ever home for dinner. I would kill for 8 hour work days.
BIG mistake. You tried something, not only was it popular, AND requested, it also improved productivity -- and then you took it away again? -- That's like offering your sales force a respectable commission plan and then after seeing the payouts not realizing that a happy sales force means more sales because they earn that money for you.. and didn't realize how much negative impact taking it away afterwards was going to have on your entire sales force. (been there done that. Hi Tegra/Varityper.)
lol, my company, the week before official Covid lockdown started, when many other companies began wfh policies voluntarily:
Due to fewer cars on the road in the mornings, everyone’s start time is moved back by 30 minutes. Please be at your desk half an hour sooner than you were last week. Attendance discipline policies remain in effect.
How do you measure productivity in an office environment? Honest to god question. I worked in construction since i was 15 years old, i dont know anything else, never had any other type of job. For me its easy to see the progress on a job site im on. And its easy to see whos ahead of schedule or behind their workload. But how does an insurance company measures productivity for example?
Really depends on the role. Some roles have to produce standardized products. So they can be measured in calls completed, charts reviewed, packets sent, etc. Other desk jobs are trickier. In my job, I have some routine expectations (update the dashboard every X) but others are project based. Design and rollout a new dashboard. Design and implement a workforce development program. Etc. I have NO idea how they decide if I'm doing it fast enough.
It is amazing how often this happens and it is mind boggling. These companies repeatedly and actively shoot themselves in the feetses in spite of the evidence and the bottom line.
The leadership aren't dumb, so why do they keep doing this? The biggest reason is these leaders aren't following capitalism, but feudalism. A workforce with excess time and money is good for the economy and society, but it also closes the gap between the powerful and powerless.
But Mr. Pot, what if that 10 year old was wearing glasses because he needed to see and not because he was lording his intellectualism over us? Why do I have to smash his skull into a tree with my bare hands?
Too generous. Gutspill them. Horizontal slice to the front, so they can watch their dishonor spill out onto the floor. Televise it. Let them see what the masses think of people like this.
It's impossible to give back to them all the pain and suffering they've caused, for multiple reasons. For one, it'd kill them millions of times over, and we can't reanimate people. For another, hurting them wouldn't take the hurt *away* from anybody else.
Fortunately, we're not in the business of giving them what *they* deserve, but creating for ourselves the world *we* deserve. And we deserve a world without them.
Spouse's last job did a workforce reduction & productivity stayed the same. People were suddenly doing more work, but wanted the company to succeed, and so worked harder. RIF again a year later. Everyone is chugging along, but stress and burnout are happening more often. RIF again a year ago, realized they reduced too much, hired outside leadership without giving anyone raises or promotions. Spouse had enough and left. Making almost double the money and fewer hours now.
My wife’s work keeps laying off entire departments thanks to a buyout, but they also keep assuring the departments that remain that their jobs are safe.
Bonus points: It’s one of those “big shitty companies buys a prestige brand so they can scrap the parts and keep the label” situations
Current job, I've been there for 7 years they have done 8 "restructures" letting people go each time. We are less than half the size of when I started. They get the bare minimum from me, I know there is no loyalty, skills or work ethic that will save me. They just cut staff that were the only ones who knew how to complete some contracts with no plan on how to deploy them now.
yeah my last job went through SO MANY rounds of RIFs and I survived so many of them to see all the people I had known and worked with over a decade slowly dwindle to none, while we inherited all the extra workload. Eventually they just canned the whole dept anyway, managers and all... outsourced it all to India. The managers were shocked, I guess they thought they were untouchable. Suddenly bossy assholes became "best friends" BC they wanted to use us as references. Uh... about that...
When my spouse started telling everyone they were leaving, there were several who were like, "You know what? I'm a little pissed off about this too." or "I have been looking to leave already." So, hopefully more! The C-Suite suits gotta learn.
Never do this. If they RIF 20% you get 20% less output. I have watched people try to "save" their company and the only thing they get is nothing when the company finally folds.
This is my policy these days. Makes me look like a gd superhero when shit hits the fan, lol. The faker my busy-ness is, the more my boss approves of my performance because it keeps me available to fix stuff when it breaks.
Now that the years are proving that increased productivity never leads to rewards to the employees. Often enough they just burn out a significant portion of the people who helped them achieve said increases and once the workforce has no memory of how it used ro be , they do it again
As I had discussed in many a performance review. "All your marks are satisfactory, not excellent. We need you to try harder." "Did I not do something that was assigned to me?" "No." "Did I work less than the hours stated in my job description?" "No." "Did I in anyway not fulfill all the duties as described in my job description." "No, but..." "Then I did what you are paying me to do. If you want me to do more than that we can renegotiate my salary. Otherwise 'Satisfactory' works fine for me
That's always been my problem. I have a hard time regulating how hard I work. It gets me a lot of praise and awards, but burns me out very fast. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to do it, I hope.
I worked mandatory 10 hours 6 days a week from March through November in a union shop no less. Paychecks were great, dead tired all the time not so much.....
The idea behind the 4 day work week is not to cram 40 hours into fewer days, it's to work 32 hours as the new full time. Nobody is more productive cramming 2 extra hours on at the end of the day.
Source: I had to do a passdown mail at the end of each shift detailing what was done during the shift, so I saw exactly what areas were doing per hour.
I mean if the deal is something like you work 10 hour on clock but you have stuff like a train ride thats part of the 10 hour shift then its probebly preferable. like you work as a tech at 3 sites whit good public transport you go to site A at start work around for X hour. Jump on a bus for 30 ish min arrive at site B work there for X hour. Jump on bus to site C another 40 min or so work there for a few hour. ether bus back to site A to work there a bit and then clock out and go home. or C.
I've done the 4/10s before. It really depends on the job itself if it's ultimately a hindrance of not. If it's heavy or monotonous or continuous labor, fatigue is really going both hurt productivity and lead to more mistakes and accidents. If it's lighter labor where you end up doing different things during the course of your shift and have downtime to relax a few minutes while something is in process, productivity can stay steady to 10 hours. Nothing is going to stay steady on 12 hr shifts tho.
I was just talking about how things currently are as is and not advocating for 4/10s. Having Fridays off is nice, but working 10 hours a day does really limit what you can do on Monday through Thursday. Different people are different. I mean at most work places, there's people who will grab all the voluntary overtime they can, and there's people you don't bother asking because you know they'll never work over 40 voluntarily.
Aimlockbelch
At the same time is a growing 4-day workweek movement
EroticZombiePants
If you don't specifically force companies to comply with compensatory wage boosts within the law, it's all but guaranteed a 32 hour work week will lead to pretty much every making 20% less money overall.
Colopty
Not really, the bosses would probably start earning more money from both the increased productivity and their opportunistic wage theft.
LordHosk
This is literally what happened with work from home. Productivity went up, job satisfaction went up, worker turn over went down.
But middle managers hated it because their entire job became redundant. "what am I going to do, if im not wandering around the office checking in on people and filling out reports on how busy people look"
crossingdynasty
I used to have three day work weeks, even then they were 12 hour days.
I had to leave them behind to advance and I miss them terribly. Having a four day weekend was incredibly refreshing.
azimir
That's the story of why you unionize and strike. Unions are the *ONLY* reason we have weekends to begin with.
BreakerSwitch
Last place I worked did this. Productivity went up. Leadership was asked if it could be made permanent. They said that it wouldn't work for everyone and therefore wouldn't be fair. Wut
Camelspotting
They tried the same thing with us because production was on 4 10s and engineering was on 8s but middle management threw a huge fit because they wanted their 3 day weekends too. It's the only time I've seen them stand up for something 😅
JohnWickdidnothingwrong
Their self-image is wrapped up in being the BigBossMan 5 days a week, not 4! Won't someone think of the executives?
WhiskyBravo
My old job 12 years ago liked to do 3 day weeks.... 13 hour days + lunch. 7am to 8pm. Always involving at least 1 weekend day. By 8pm on that 3rd day, I was ready to kill myself, and this was an IT desk job. You end up losing an entire day to sleep and recovery. If that had been physical labor, I wouldn't have made it.
CaptainBruckner
As an HR Professional, I'll tell you that this doesn't exclude HR either. I started at a biomedical research company and had around 200 employees I supported. Then a RIF happened and I lost two coworkers so I had 900 employees and even more admin work on top of everything. After two more years of hell trying to support my employees, I was laid off. It hurts my soul that all of this happens while all the executives make 40% bonuses on an already absurd salary. The disparity is real.
Navrodel
We have so much evidence that treating people with decency and respect would improve the world for all of us by every metric.
And then we implement none of it. Because it all flies in the face of our most sacred values: the myth of "salvation through hard work."
You'd think when Nazis pointed the idea at their death camps we'd start to get the idea, but it turns out that the only dispute the world really had with them and their ideals was about land ownership...
makesense
It isn't just in jobs where your pay is based on how many hours you work. When I was in the Navy my ship decided to try out 'Tropical Hours' when we were in our home port. Instead of working 8-4 with lunch in the middle, they decided to have us work 6-12, but meals were to be taken before and after those hours. In San Diego, this allowed you to avoid high traffic times. All the work still got done and people were happy to be off at noon. Of course, after the next deployment they didn't do it.
friendsofsandwiches
jesus fuck these greedy ass motherfuckers.
and I don't mean any comma in that.
khaoselement
Dude...c'mon. It is very clearly satire.
illegalacorn
More like allegory.
Nengex
It's a satire acc.
However, I could see someone legitimately trying this line of thinking.
oprahslovechild
In my industry a position like mine is required 50 hours minimum a week. No lunch break and never ever home for dinner. I would kill for 8 hour work days.
NaughtButOne
(This is a satirical post.)
RuthlessRuben
The name "inhumandept_vp" should have been a dead giveaway. But it seems awfully plausible, doesn't it?
10MinutesSoberAndCounting
closer to allegorical
WebDragonG3
BIG mistake. You tried something, not only was it popular, AND requested, it also improved productivity -- and then you took it away again? -- That's like offering your sales force a respectable commission plan and then after seeing the payouts not realizing that a happy sales force means more sales because they earn that money for you.. and didn't realize how much negative impact taking it away afterwards was going to have on your entire sales force. (been there done that. Hi Tegra/Varityper.)
Mgxr44
✨capitalism✨it’s a scam and it only gets worse
Retrogames
Had a job with a 4d-10h week and having a day to Recover, a day for myself, and a day to prepare for the next week was incredible.
GrimleyGraves
Ah yes, the "mythical man-month" rises from the grave.
Xalten2
Student days - I had a summer job in a machine shop and they just lengthened the day by an hour Monday to Thursday and we got off at noon on a Friday.
thelatebillstickers
lol, my company, the week before official Covid lockdown started, when many other companies began wfh policies voluntarily:
Due to fewer cars on the road in the mornings, everyone’s start time is moved back by 30 minutes. Please be at your desk half an hour sooner than you were last week. Attendance discipline policies remain in effect.
19marcurious57
L0rdFabcypants
How do you measure productivity in an office environment? Honest to god question. I worked in construction since i was 15 years old, i dont know anything else, never had any other type of job. For me its easy to see the progress on a job site im on. And its easy to see whos ahead of schedule or behind their workload. But how does an insurance company measures productivity for example?
starkeclipse
Really depends on the role. Some roles have to produce standardized products. So they can be measured in calls completed, charts reviewed, packets sent, etc. Other desk jobs are trickier. In my job, I have some routine expectations (update the dashboard every X) but others are project based. Design and rollout a new dashboard. Design and implement a workforce development program. Etc. I have NO idea how they decide if I'm doing it fast enough.
zechor
It is amazing how often this happens and it is mind boggling. These companies repeatedly and actively shoot themselves in the feetses in spite of the evidence and the bottom line.
The leadership aren't dumb, so why do they keep doing this? The biggest reason is these leaders aren't following capitalism, but feudalism. A workforce with excess time and money is good for the economy and society, but it also closes the gap between the powerful and powerless.
PennysWorthOfTea
[sounds of sharpening guillotine blade increases]
IrrationalNumber
This is why we have to use regulations to make companies do things that will benefit them as well.
PaleChapter
As long as the companies exist, they'll just buy new regulations the minute our guard lowers. The only cure for gold fever is lead.
Camelspotting
Humans have been shooting each other for 700 years but I'm sure this time it will cure our problems!
PaleChapter
We've never gotten rid of all the rich fuckers--just switched them around a bit.
Camelspotting
But Mr. Pot, what if that 10 year old was wearing glasses because he needed to see and not because he was lording his intellectualism over us? Why do I have to smash his skull into a tree with my bare hands?
Camelspotting
Oops I said mister instead of comrade. Off to the killing fields for me too.
illegalacorn
¿plata o pluma?
PaleChapter
Different kind of political change.
SolarJoel
Guillotine time.
khaoselement
...you know it's satire right?
daemonicapathy
Just because it's satire doesn't mean it doesn't reflect reality.
Pear120
Too generous. Gutspill them. Horizontal slice to the front, so they can watch their dishonor spill out onto the floor. Televise it. Let them see what the masses think of people like this.
SolarJoel
It's impossible to give back to them all the pain and suffering they've caused, for multiple reasons. For one, it'd kill them millions of times over, and we can't reanimate people. For another, hurting them wouldn't take the hurt *away* from anybody else.
Fortunately, we're not in the business of giving them what *they* deserve, but creating for ourselves the world *we* deserve. And we deserve a world without them.
VindictiveBathToaster
Wood chipper. Feet first. Slow intake.
FormerGloriousGuyWhoCameBack
Spouse's last job did a workforce reduction & productivity stayed the same. People were suddenly doing more work, but wanted the company to succeed, and so worked harder. RIF again a year later. Everyone is chugging along, but stress and burnout are happening more often. RIF again a year ago, realized they reduced too much, hired outside leadership without giving anyone raises or promotions. Spouse had enough and left. Making almost double the money and fewer hours now.
kaoticgirl
FYI the official motto in the feds is "We do C work now". This comes from high ups.
wadatahmydamie
My wife’s work keeps laying off entire departments thanks to a buyout, but they also keep assuring the departments that remain that their jobs are safe.
Bonus points: It’s one of those “big shitty companies buys a prestige brand so they can scrap the parts and keep the label” situations
FlippedOut
Current job, I've been there for 7 years they have done 8 "restructures" letting people go each time. We are less than half the size of when I started. They get the bare minimum from me, I know there is no loyalty, skills or work ethic that will save me. They just cut staff that were the only ones who knew how to complete some contracts with no plan on how to deploy them now.
friendsofsandwiches
I hope spouse burned some shit and took some staplers on the way out.
10MinutesSoberAndCounting
This chain of events happens so often that there must be an MBA class specifically walking them through it.
WhiskyBravo
yeah my last job went through SO MANY rounds of RIFs and I survived so many of them to see all the people I had known and worked with over a decade slowly dwindle to none, while we inherited all the extra workload. Eventually they just canned the whole dept anyway, managers and all... outsourced it all to India. The managers were shocked, I guess they thought they were untouchable. Suddenly bossy assholes became "best friends" BC they wanted to use us as references. Uh... about that...
urusername2
How many others left, too?
FormerGloriousGuyWhoCameBack
When my spouse started telling everyone they were leaving, there were several who were like, "You know what? I'm a little pissed off about this too." or "I have been looking to leave already." So, hopefully more! The C-Suite suits gotta learn.
lightfoot2
Never do this. If they RIF 20% you get 20% less output. I have watched people try to "save" their company and the only thing they get is nothing when the company finally folds.
Apes together strong.
somuchproblemo
Apes together strong. 💪🏼
lightfoot2
Flew back from a trip on Delta, saw one of the pilots had a stand strong union lanyard. Told him SEIU supports him and apes together strong. :-)
ManByTechnicality
Always give 50%. 100% is for emergencies. Something caused by poor planning is not an emergency.
tallquasi
The Scotty policy
AllTheKitties
This is my policy these days. Makes me look like a gd superhero when shit hits the fan, lol. The faker my busy-ness is, the more my boss approves of my performance because it keeps me available to fix stuff when it breaks.
manbearpigatemybaby
Now that the years are proving that increased productivity never leads to rewards to the employees. Often enough they just burn out a significant portion of the people who helped them achieve said increases and once the workforce has no memory of how it used ro be , they do it again
ManByTechnicality
As I had discussed in many a performance review. "All your marks are satisfactory, not excellent. We need you to try harder." "Did I not do something that was assigned to me?" "No." "Did I work less than the hours stated in my job description?" "No." "Did I in anyway not fulfill all the duties as described in my job description." "No, but..." "Then I did what you are paying me to do. If you want me to do more than that we can renegotiate my salary. Otherwise 'Satisfactory' works fine for me
brandsilven
That's always been my problem. I have a hard time regulating how hard I work. It gets me a lot of praise and awards, but burns me out very fast. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to do it, I hope.
ScottPaul57
When you work 4 ten hour days, it's the same as 5 eight hour days.....duh.
HPCmonkey
So imagine 5 10 hour days! /s
ScottPaul57
I worked mandatory 10 hours 6 days a week from March through November in a union shop no less. Paychecks were great, dead tired all the time not so much.....
SubTrout
The idea behind the 4 day work week is not to cram 40 hours into fewer days, it's to work 32 hours as the new full time. Nobody is more productive cramming 2 extra hours on at the end of the day.
EroticZombiePants
Source: I had to do a passdown mail at the end of each shift detailing what was done during the shift, so I saw exactly what areas were doing per hour.
ZackWester
I mean if the deal is something like you work 10 hour on clock but you have stuff like a train ride thats part of the 10 hour shift then its probebly preferable. like you work as a tech at 3 sites whit good public transport you go to site A at start work around for X hour. Jump on a bus for 30 ish min arrive at site B work there for X hour. Jump on bus to site C another 40 min or so work there for a few hour. ether bus back to site A to work there a bit and then clock out and go home. or C.
EroticZombiePants
I've done the 4/10s before. It really depends on the job itself if it's ultimately a hindrance of not. If it's heavy or monotonous or continuous labor, fatigue is really going both hurt productivity and lead to more mistakes and accidents. If it's lighter labor where you end up doing different things during the course of your shift and have downtime to relax a few minutes while something is in process, productivity can stay steady to 10 hours. Nothing is going to stay steady on 12 hr shifts tho.
Colopty
Bears repeating, the goal isn't 4/10, it's 4/8 or equivalent.
EroticZombiePants
I was just talking about how things currently are as is and not advocating for 4/10s. Having Fridays off is nice, but working 10 hours a day does really limit what you can do on Monday through Thursday. Different people are different. I mean at most work places, there's people who will grab all the voluntary overtime they can, and there's people you don't bother asking because you know they'll never work over 40 voluntarily.