The 40 hour work week - Society is changing. Should our work schedules change too?

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I don't think the forty or fifty or thirty or whatever people work is really the problem. Its that you're doing it for nothing. You get paid so you can pay your rent and feed yourself so you're healthy to go back to work.

I currently work at a minimum 70 hours a week but that's on my own businesses. So it doesn't feel as soul crushing as when I would work 40 hours to make somebody else's company more money.

I am kneecapping myself a bit with my employees because I don't run them like dogs. I don't give them busy work if there is nothing on. As long as they're not in a role where they're needed to be available during their shift I just tell them to go home or sign off.

It makes things much harder because every other company you're going up against is squeezing every ounce of productivity out of their employees and paying them as little as possible.
 
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ToroidalBoat said:
What makes jobs more bearable is working towards a goal, rather than small tasks over and over for a quota or a predetermined shift.
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Agreed. Point I’m trying to make is that I’ve been working in factories for around 20 years so far, and on average it’s less repetitive than accounts receivable.

You just have to get the type of job where you do machine changeovers and work off a schedule, then it’s nothing like “I love Lucy” and your boss only kind of glances over your shoulder once or twice a day, as long as nothing catastrophic goes down. Then it’s more about slinging wrenches and troubleshooting things that pertain to physical reality rather than abstracts
 
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Find a job you can stomach for 40 hours every week and have a fulfilling life outside of it. Start a family, have friends, have hobbies. Don't let your work define you, especially not today when most jobs are just meaningless timesinks you go to so you can maintain a living. We don't live in the same time our forefathers did, where working as a cobbler or blacksmith defined who you were. So we have to adapt.
 
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So if you guys didn't know. The need to work more than 40 hours a week isn't new. It's more common now because of capitalism. But it's not new. Before it was more seasonal during harvests or depending on commission's like sea voyage and grand constructions. But now it's more of a human cog wheel to help richer ppl print out more money out of you.

And I suppose the reality is that most ppl just didn't care that they were slaves till now. It was so common and as long as you could kinda live a life it was fine.


But you don't now.


You have never lived. You can never live. And now you think oh if I had this or that I would be happy. But not only would you not. There's no way for you to find out.


You will NEVER be free.

You will NEVER be happy.


No one loves you. No one cares. You are a cog for some worthless fat piece of shit. You exist as a stepping stone for a real man to walk on. You have no power. You have no voice. You have no life. You do not exist.



Just let them fuck you, gut you, and eat you.

You are a stupid little pig oink oink. Eat the slop, take it up the ass, do as I say oink oink.
 
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Astro Loafo said:
So if you guys didn't know. The need to work more than 40 hours a week isn't new. It's more common now because of capitalism. But it's not new. Before it was more seasonal during harvests or depending on commission's like sea voyage and grand constructions. But now it's more of a human cog wheel to help richer ppl print out more money out of you.

And I suppose the reality is that most ppl just didn't care that they were slaves till now. It was so common and as long as you could kinda live a life it was fine.


But you don't now.


You have never lived. You can never live. And now you think oh if I had this or that I would be happy. But not only would you not. There's no way for you to find out.


You will NEVER be free.

You will NEVER be happy.


No one loves you. No one cares. You are a cog for some worthless fat piece of shit. You exist as a stepping stone for a real man to walk on. You have no power. You have no voice. You have no life. You do not exist.



Just let them fuck you, gut you, and eat you.

You are a stupid little pig oink oink. Eat the slop, take it up the ass, do as I say oink oink.
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Translation: “wah I wanna play league of legends all day but my single mom says she can’t afford to feed me and pay my bills”

But for real, work isn’t even that bad and you’d die quicker and fatter if you found a perma-mom to pay your way so you could do whatever you want
 
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SpergioLeonne said:
Translation: “wah I wanna play league of legends all day but my single mom says she can’t afford to feed me and pay my bills”

But for real, work isn’t even that bad and you’d die quicker and fatter if you found a perma-mom to pay your way so you could do whatever you want
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I haven't seen my mom in over a decade. I think what makes it funnier is I've worked since I was 5. Unlike most ppl I had to earn the money to play league of legends.

But way to prove my point oink oink.
 
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The productivity myth was always a bood face lie.

If now 2x the work can be done in the same time it doesn't mean that workers will work half the time, it means companies will push workers to work twice the hours so they can get 4x the output, they will also use the excuse that work requires less skill now to reduce salaries.
 
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AskeDead said:
Find a job you can stomach for 40 hours every week and have a fulfilling life outside of it. Start a family, have friends, have hobbies. Don't let your work define you, especially not today when most jobs are just meaningless timesinks you go to so you can maintain a living. We don't live in the same time our forefathers did, where working as a cobbler or blacksmith defined who you were. So we have to adapt.
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I get what you're saying, but that's exactly the problem. The 40 hour work week doesn't allow for any of that with how unattainable everything is now. All those things are hard to get a hold of because they're all so expensive and we have to dedicate all our hours to staying afloat while things only get more and more unreachable. Not to mention how I'm gonna find the time. One day of my weekend is dedicated to all the obligations I can't fulfill during the week so I have to fit all my time for friends, family and hobbies into a single day.
 
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Dr. Ricearoni said:
I get what you're saying, but that's exactly the problem. The 40 hour work week doesn't allow for any of that with how unattainable everything is now. All those things are hard to get a hold of because they're all so expensive and we have to dedicate all our hours to staying afloat while things only get more and more unreachable. Not to mention how I'm gonna find the time. One day of my weekend is dedicated to all the obligations I can't fulfill during the week so I have to fit all my time for friends, family and hobbies into a single day.
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Instead of whining like this you should learn to be better with your money and time. House ownership, starting a family, hobbies, all of these things are still attainable. Stop bitching and get to work.
 
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LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV] said:
The productivity myth was always a bood face lie.

If now 2x the work can be done in the same time it doesn't mean that workers will work half the time, it means companies will push workers to work twice the hours so they can get 4x the output, they will also use the excuse that work requires less skill now to reduce salaries.
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That doesn’t work out in real life. If a company has extra money sitting around, they’ll lose a large portion of it to taxes.

My factory had a big year while some competitors had Covid shutdowns, so at the end of it, the owner cut everyone bonus checks instead of giving it to the government.

So sure, if you work in retail, they’ll just use the money to open a new location and you won’t see a cent, but you ought to know that about retail going in.
Astro Loafo said:
I haven't seen my mom in over a decade
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Maybe she’s sick of your bitching
 
Something that people seem to have overlooked. Some of the reasons we are stuck on 40h week is because of state and federal regulations that may not allow for flexibility in this.
 
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One of the big sins is that "six figure salary" has none of the real life class benefits it used to carry but the """prestige"""" still sticks. Omitted from how little a "140k salary" buys now vs the mandatory summer home and weekend fun car it could warrant in the 80s is how the lifestyle creep WILL burn anyone lucky to rise through the ranks. Services get outsourced to minimum wage workers and subscription services. Having family or a spouse at home alleviates some of these services but to get said wage increases it usually involves moving away or taking on ownership/responsibility that makes work/life balance painful.

Codemonkeys found a loop hole but that's quickly getting filled with h1-b pajeets, increased automation and a workplace culture that promotes trooning out for promotion. I don't want to seethe too much (knowing the occupational demographics of this site) but the lrn2code gravy train is long over. I think anyone with the privilege to work remotely should stick it out for as long as they can, its the best disruption of the zeitgeist and I applaud everyone's efforts.
 
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