s/o Why is the 40 hour work week the full time standard?

[wildrice]

I would love if all this working from home changed our views of what work looks like. While there are certainly jobs that require more than 40 hours of actual work each week, I think there are also a lot of jobs that don't take all those hours to complete and could get by with less. It is silly to me that we all try to cram every job in the world into some arbitrary number of hours.

Frankly, I would guess I have never truly worked 40 hours in a week. Maybe a handful of busy weeks here and there. When I'm in the office I spend a lot of those hours talking to people, walking back and forth to the bathroom/water fountain, running to different places on campus, etc. I also screw around online several times a day. Now that I'm working from home, a lot of that crap is eliminated (although I still screw around online!) and don't generally sit at my desk working for 8 hours a day. I get my work done, although there is of course always MORE I could do, I don't think chaining me to my desk a few more hours a week would actually make a difference.

Perhaps if we made the standard work week 30 hours, we'd still screw around and waste time, but I also wonder if we'd find ways to be more efficient and still get the work done. I feel like there was a study on this once that found people were just as productive with fewer hours, but I can't recall where or when I read it. Personally, I think if it takes 50-60 hours of actual work to get your job done, your job should really be 2 jobs for 2 people.

[isabel]

Jan 24, 2021 10:15:56 GMT -5 oswin said:

I work in tech but at a company that actually values people and recognizes that we have lives. Also I have been working remotely for three years. I routinely work 6-7 hour days, with occasional longer days. I find that 4-5 hours of focused work is about all my brain can handle, meetings take up the rest or taking breaks for tea, snacks, etc. Attempting to work longer doesn't usually mean I get more done, or it only works for a couple of days. No one at my company has ever given me crap for not working enough or not getting my work done. It makes me sad how many companies value facetime over actual productivity or who simply give their employees unsustainable workloads.

It’s interesting to hear someone else say this. I have finally had the realization after working from home since March that all the screwing around I did in the office and all the distractions at home are basically because I can’t make my brain actually focus for 8 hours a day.

I can do a solid 5 hours and feel really good about the progress I made on something, but ask me to switch gears when I’m done with a task or at that 5 hour limit? There’s no way.

I’m really struggling with the fact that I can’t seem to be productive for an additional three hours a day, but I just can’t.

And this, of course, begs the question... if I can get my work done in roughly 30 hours a week, which is the time that I think I legitimately spend focused on work, why am I expected to work 40 hours?

That’s not to say there aren’t weeks where I have to force my brain to focus because of a deadline, but for the most part, I’m guessing I would be way better off as an employee if I could work 9-3 and not take a lunch break.

[StrawberryBlondie]

I'm salaried, and the expectation is that we get our shit done. If I was consistently getting everything done at 25 hrs, the expectation would be that we would reach out to our boss and tell him we can handle more, but the off week of putting in, say, 30 hrs vs 40 wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

I had a job a few years back where mid-way through me having that job, we were reclassified to hourly and it made sense given the language of the FLSA, but in practice, made no sense for my specific team, as our workload varied dramatically by week and there wasn't a good way to predict what would be a light week or a heavy week ahead of time. It certainly evened out to 80hrs every 2 weeks but we weren't allowed to clock, say 60 hrs in one week and 20 in the next.

[eddy]

WFH has absolutely made it obvious that sitting in an office each week for 40+ hours is a waste of my time. There are weeks I work less than 40 and there are weeks I work more. Even WFH part time has allowed me to take advantage of that. I get my shit done. And when my tasks are low I can use my time to do things like catch up on laundry.

Also taking out the bullshit of people wasting your time in office really does make a huge difference. It is astounding how much time is spent in pointless meetings and spoon feeding things to people who can’t be bothered to put any work in themselves.

[dancingirl21]

@@i’m a SAHM but my DH works a lot. He’s a Construction Superintendent and is salaried but he’s expected on site by 6am most mornings and rarely leaves before 5pm. However, this is when he’s on a major project and it’s busy. There are times when he’s in between projects and is able to take advantage of slower days. He’s still at work by 7 those days and leaves around 3 or 3:30. It’s just the norm of his industry and position.

[foundmylazybum]

I'm just going to say that 37. 5 hours a week isn't..like a mind blowing adjustment on the 40 hour work week. Its barely worth mentioning and im imagining that it took at least 1,000 hours of meetings to adjust that cog and take that "risk" 🙄

[lynn07]

Jan 23, 2021 22:12:16 GMT -5 Saudade said:

36 hour weeks (3-12s) are common in healthcare (at least for nurses and techs, obviously this can vary widely). This is a 0.9 FTE. We get a lot of push-back from non-healthcare people because "it's only 3 days" but they don't understand it. You're worthless when you get home (if on a day shift) and no one is every staffed appropriately so it leads to a lot of texts and phone calls on off days.

My unit doesn't have anyone that works 40 hours, which would be 5-8s. It's possible to do that with a doctor's note but most people really don't like having to work 5 days after being used to the 3 days. For most people, the physical and emotional toll of the unit make it difficult to want to be there more than the required time.

@ This is why I made the break to periop. I was so exhausted after doing 12’s for 14 years. I could barely handle my kids talking to me when I got home. I love, love, love 8 hr shifts (I am part time, however, so it’s not 5 days a week). My main shift is 0530-1400. It’s such a nice change to be able to come home, help with homework, make dinner, etc.

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2021 13:43:45 GMT -5 eddy said:

WFH has absolutely made it obvious that sitting in an office each week for 40+ hours is a waste of my time. There are weeks I work less than 40 and there are weeks I work more. Even WFH part time has allowed me to take advantage of that. I get my shit done. And when my tasks are low I can use my time to do things like catch up on laundry.

Also taking out the bullshit of people wasting your time in office really does make a huge difference. It is astounding how much time is spent in pointless meetings and spoon feeding things to people who can’t be bothered to put any work in themselves.

Agree on all counts.  I am extremely efficient and very good at my job.  I'm an accountant so certain times of the year require far more than 40 hours/week.  Other times, I can get it all done in 30-32.  What does it matter how many hours it takes me, so long as I get it done?  I have a co-worker who is one of *those* people who can't seem to work less than 60 hours/week and has to make sure everyone knows about it.  One of the best things about working from home is being free to work the hours I need to work to get my job done without playing stupid office politic games with my martyr co-worker.

I get 1.5 hours of my life back every day from working at home just from not having to commute or get "dressed" for work.  Not to mention all of the in-office time I get back from not being dragged into calls and meetings and stupid conversations with co-workers.  I certainly hope this pandemic results in employers re-assessing the 40 hour/week requirement and shifting focus to results, which is where they ought to be.  I have struggled with this my entire career--why should I be penalized with a heavier work load for no additional compensation just because I can do the same work in less time than a co-worker? 

[SusanBAnthony]

Honestly 40 hours of work a week feels pretty reasonable to me. It gives you lots of time for leisure given that modern (American) living doesn't require you to additionally grow your own food, sew your own clothes, clean everything by hand, cook everything from scratch, etc. If you have one job and ignoring edge cases, this is now making me wonder how many edge cases there are. I can't think of a ton of scenarios where if you have a 40 hour a week job at a livable wage you DON'T have quite a bit of leisure time.

Not that I am in favor of butts-in-seats rules, and no I can't do 8 hours straight of serious mental work but most jobs aren't 100% deep thought. Even 2 adults in a household each working 40 hours a week doesn't feel onerous to me in the context of the history of humans. For most of our history you worked basically all the time, at all ages, until you were dead. And even if both partners didn't have an outside of the home job, the at home job was a huge job when your starting ingredients for food were like a live chicken and corn and some seeds for a garden. So working 40 hours a week from 18-65 seems like a reasonable expectation, with an additional social safety net* for those who are not able to.

*I don't actually think we have this.

If the argument is: forget human history, lets look at the here and now, with modern advancements 40 hours is now unreasonable, I would be interested in hearing more.

[VillainV]

Jan 24, 2021 16:13:05 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Honestly 40 hours of work a week feels pretty reasonable to me. It gives you lots of time for leisure given that modern (American) living doesn't require you to additionally grow your own food, sew your own clothes, clean everything by hand, cook everything from scratch, etc. If you have one job and ignoring edge cases, this is now making me wonder how many edge cases there are. I can't think of a ton of scenarios where if you have a 40 hour a week job at a livable wage you DON'T have quite a bit of leisure time.

Not that I am in favor of butts-in-seats rules, and no I can't do 8 hours straight of serious mental work but most jobs aren't 100% deep thought. Even 2 adults in a household each working 40 hours a week doesn't feel onerous to me in the context of the history of humans. For most of our history you worked basically all the time, at all ages, until you were dead. And even if both partners didn't have an outside of the home job, the at home job was a huge job when your starting ingredients for food were like a live chicken and corn and some seeds for a garden. So working 40 hours a week from 18-65 seems like a reasonable expectation, with an additional social safety net* for those who are not able to.

*I don't actually think we have this.

If the argument is: forget human history, lets look at the here and now, with modern advancements 40 hours is now unreasonable, I would be interested in hearing more.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@


I don’t think 40 hours is unreasonable. But let’s say you work 8-5 with an unpaid one-hour lunch break. Your day might look something like this:

5:30 wake up, shower, dress
6:15 make sure kids are up and eating something
7:00 leave to drop kids off at school/bus stop/before care
8:00-5:00 work
5:00 leave work to get kids
5:45 home, unpack, get kids started on homework
6:00 fix dinner
6:30 eat dinner
7:00 clean up from dinner, help kids finish homework
7:30 Pack work bag and lunches for the next day
8:30 put kids to bed
9:30 put yourself to bed (if you want to get the recommended 8 hours of sleep)

So....if you want to do anything not on this list, like exercise, meditate, craft, do laundry, etc it has to happen on the weekends, before 5:30am or after 8:30pm. And if your kids have any kind of after school club/sport/lesson it will eat up even more time.

So while you may only be working 40 hours a week, you have another 2-3 hours a day of dressing/hair/makeup, prepping for work, and commuting.

[oswin]

Jan 24, 2021 16:28:42 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Jan 24, 2021 16:13:05 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Honestly 40 hours of work a week feels pretty reasonable to me. It gives you lots of time for leisure given that modern (American) living doesn't require you to additionally grow your own food, sew your own clothes, clean everything by hand, cook everything from scratch, etc. If you have one job and ignoring edge cases, this is now making me wonder how many edge cases there are. I can't think of a ton of scenarios where if you have a 40 hour a week job at a livable wage you DON'T have quite a bit of leisure time.

Not that I am in favor of butts-in-seats rules, and no I can't do 8 hours straight of serious mental work but most jobs aren't 100% deep thought. Even 2 adults in a household each working 40 hours a week doesn't feel onerous to me in the context of the history of humans. For most of our history you worked basically all the time, at all ages, until you were dead. And even if both partners didn't have an outside of the home job, the at home job was a huge job when your starting ingredients for food were like a live chicken and corn and some seeds for a garden. So working 40 hours a week from 18-65 seems like a reasonable expectation, with an additional social safety net* for those who are not able to.

*I don't actually think we have this.

If the argument is: forget human history, lets look at the here and now, with modern advancements 40 hours is now unreasonable, I would be interested in hearing more.

I don’t think 40 hours is unreasonable. But let’s say you work 8-5 with an unpaid one-hour lunch break. Your day might look something like this:

5:30 wake up, shower, dress
6:15 make sure kids are up and eating something
7:00 leave to drop kids off at school/bus stop/before care
8:00-5:00 work
5:00 leave work to get kids
5:45 home, unpack, get kids started on homework
6:00 fix dinner
6:30 eat dinner
7:00 clean up from dinner, help kids finish homework
7:30 Pack work bag and lunches for the next day
8:30 put kids to bed
9:30 put yourself to bed (if you want to get the recommended 8 hours of sleep)

So....if you want to do anything not on this list, like exercise, meditate, craft, do laundry, etc it has to happen on the weekends, before 5:30am or after 8:30pm. And if your kids have any kind of after school club/sport/lesson it will eat up even more time.

So while you may only be working 40 hours a week, you have another 2-3 hours a day of dressing/hair/makeup, prepping for work, and commuting.

@@@ so much this
You didn't even put cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, house maintenance, yard maintenance (if you have the American dream of living with a yard), car maintenance, etc. 

And THEN, society will judge you if you don't put energy into staying fit and eating healthy (which, well, we'd all be better off if we had enough time to prepare healthy meals and do the exercise of our choice).

So yeah, compared to the dark ages, we're doing great. But compared to the "American Dream"? Nope, still only achievable for certain people. Our society is designed to make people work because we can't stand the idea of people being lazy and not working (and because the rich can get even richer if they squeeze labor out of people), not because we actually need every single human to produce food and clothing for us to survive.

[eddy]

VillainV, you will want to @@@ your post.

[VillainV]

Jan 24, 2021 16:44:54 GMT -5 eddy said:

VillainV, you will want to @@@ your post.

So sorry, fixed now!

[fumbalina]

I always wonder what unemployment would look like if we actually had a 40 hr work week. Two people needing to work 60 hot weeks means that there is s third position that should be filled.

Of course, the unpaid lunch and uncredited work time are a separate issue that should be addressed. The working 9-5 confused me forever because i worked retail and that was not a full shift.

Research had also shown diminishing returns on quality work but of course the business will expect perfect work constantly.

We need a ton of regulations on work but I don't expect it to happen.

[mrsukyankee]

My working week is 37 hours. My boss actually 'yells' at me if I work outside that and that I need to take time off. England isn't as good as many other European countries, but we still typically work less than the US and have more vacation time (that is not only encouraged but has to happen).

[krystee]

My small employer could easily employ a dozen extra people if everyone actually worked just 40 hours. I remember when my H graduated law school when it was such a bad time for legal employment, and I remember thinking if they just paid less (which would be fair if you are working 40 hours vs 80) and capped everyone at 40 hours, they could solve the glut of people looking for a job!

This is yet another reason health insurance shouldn’t be tied to work. Companies would probably be willing to hire more people if they didn’t have to worry about health insurance costs. AND more people would want to/be able to work part time if they didn’t need to worry about benefits through work, so you could get two people working 30 hours a week instead of one working 60.

[basilosaurus]

As someone used to 12 hr shifts I laugh at 9-5. Even when I worked corporate, hours were 8-5 plus many hours driving. Years ago I was in Belgium, and some very kind shop owner was talking to me about working hours. Nurses there don't do 12s. They're limited to about 35hr/wk.

And, yeah, salaried work more than that. My spouse worked 14 hrs/day regularly as a military person. Partly his fault. Partly because the job required it.

[seeyalater52]

Jan 24, 2021 12:39:07 GMT -5 isabel said:

Jan 24, 2021 10:15:56 GMT -5 oswin said:

I work in tech but at a company that actually values people and recognizes that we have lives. Also I have been working remotely for three years. I routinely work 6-7 hour days, with occasional longer days. I find that 4-5 hours of focused work is about all my brain can handle, meetings take up the rest or taking breaks for tea, snacks, etc. Attempting to work longer doesn't usually mean I get more done, or it only works for a couple of days. No one at my company has ever given me crap for not working enough or not getting my work done. It makes me sad how many companies value facetime over actual productivity or who simply give their employees unsustainable workloads.

It’s interesting to hear someone else say this. I have finally had the realization after working from home since March that all the screwing around I did in the office and all the distractions at home are basically because I can’t make my brain actually focus for 8 hours a day.

I can do a solid 5 hours and feel really good about the progress I made on something, but ask me to switch gears when I’m done with a task or at that 5 hour limit? There’s no way.

I’m really struggling with the fact that I can’t seem to be productive for an additional three hours a day, but I just can’t.

And this, of course, begs the question... if I can get my work done in roughly 30 hours a week, which is the time that I think I legitimately spend focused on work, why am I expected to work 40 hours?

That’s not to say there aren’t weeks where I have to force my brain to focus because of a deadline, but for the most part, I’m guessing I would be way better off as an employee if I could work 9-3 and not take a lunch break.

This is also me. I absolutely cannot focus for 8 hours straight a day. And I can get my responsibilities and deliverables completed in far less time the vast majority of the time with the exception of a few busy times of the year or when something huge is happening legislatively/politically. I have coworkers who have roughly the same amount of responsibility who never complete their stuff on time so based on my knowledge of my workplace Im capable of doing more in less time with better results. I’ve liked that aspect of WFH a lot, especially since my boss is very much not a “butts in seats” kind of manager. She doesn’t care what I do as long as my stuff gets done and she’s not interested in assigning me more than peers just because I’m efficient. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[seeyalater52]

Jan 24, 2021 16:28:42 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Jan 24, 2021 16:13:05 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

Honestly 40 hours of work a week feels pretty reasonable to me. It gives you lots of time for leisure given that modern (American) living doesn't require you to additionally grow your own food, sew your own clothes, clean everything by hand, cook everything from scratch, etc. If you have one job and ignoring edge cases, this is now making me wonder how many edge cases there are. I can't think of a ton of scenarios where if you have a 40 hour a week job at a livable wage you DON'T have quite a bit of leisure time.

Not that I am in favor of butts-in-seats rules, and no I can't do 8 hours straight of serious mental work but most jobs aren't 100% deep thought. Even 2 adults in a household each working 40 hours a week doesn't feel onerous to me in the context of the history of humans. For most of our history you worked basically all the time, at all ages, until you were dead. And even if both partners didn't have an outside of the home job, the at home job was a huge job when your starting ingredients for food were like a live chicken and corn and some seeds for a garden. So working 40 hours a week from 18-65 seems like a reasonable expectation, with an additional social safety net* for those who are not able to.

*I don't actually think we have this.

If the argument is: forget human history, lets look at the here and now, with modern advancements 40 hours is now unreasonable, I would be interested in hearing more.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@


I don’t think 40 hours is unreasonable. But let’s say you work 8-5 with an unpaid one-hour lunch break. Your day might look something like this:

5:30 wake up, shower, dress
6:15 make sure kids are up and eating something
7:00 leave to drop kids off at school/bus stop/before care
8:00-5:00 work
5:00 leave work to get kids
5:45 home, unpack, get kids started on homework
6:00 fix dinner
6:30 eat dinner
7:00 clean up from dinner, help kids finish homework
7:30 Pack work bag and lunches for the next day
8:30 put kids to bed
9:30 put yourself to bed (if you want to get the recommended 8 hours of sleep)

So....if you want to do anything not on this list, like exercise, meditate, craft, do laundry, etc it has to happen on the weekends, before 5:30am or after 8:30pm. And if your kids have any kind of after school club/sport/lesson it will eat up even more time.

So while you may only be working 40 hours a week, you have another 2-3 hours a day of dressing/hair/makeup, prepping for work, and commuting.

And that’s not even factoring in a longer commute time! I have no idea how people have time in their day. I’m very glad I’m going to be WFH permanently because even though I hate not being in the office there are quite literally not enough hours in the day.

[basilosaurus]

VillainV, that list makes me want to take a nap! I used to regularly have 90min commute on certain days. Some days it was 10m. Sometimes a client wanted a 6am start. I was a single woman who's lazy about housework, and it still made me exhausted. Company didn't pay if less than 90 min estimated on mapquest. Then again, CO means your mapquest estimated commute might be really off. 3 hour drives, each way, were frequent. So, I think commute time should absolutely factor into work-day.

At least my shower and get ready is only about 10 minutes.

[smock]

The campaigns to create the 40 hour work week pushed the idea of 1/3 of your time for work, 1/3 for sleep, and 1/3 for leisure.

But add in unpaid lunches, commuting, and preparing for work, plus work tasks outside of those 40 hours, and it quickly becomes a lot more than 1/3. And then add in chores, cooking, errands, and all the other stuff it takes to function and run a house. I definitely don't feel like we're actually getting 1/3 leisure!

The massive increase in productivity since the 1960s means we absolutely could do a healthy economy's amount of work in under 40 hours a week per worker. But that would either require massive legislation, a huge culture shift, or an unimaginable amount of corporate kindness towards workers. Of course, maybe in 10 years we'll all be freelancers setting our own hours without any of the legal protections of employment. Which seems a lot more likely.

[boiler717]

My boss has always had a “work when you need to in order to do your job” mentality. It’s so helpful and I know my team works even harder because we appreciate it. That means some days I take late or early calls (teammates overseas), but some days I’m at my desk for 2 hours and check in from my phone as needed. We get a ton of work done and everyone is happy.

[VillainV]

Jan 24, 2021 19:53:25 GMT -5 boiler717 said:

My boss has always had a “work when you need to in order to do your job” mentality. It’s so helpful and I know my team works even harder because we appreciate it. That means some days I take late or early calls (teammates overseas), but some days I’m at my desk for 2 hours and check in from my phone as needed. We get a ton of work done and everyone is happy.

My job is the same. Get your work done, be there when you need to, don’t stay any later than you have to.

COVID has actually improved this even more because we have more ability to telework now. While we are mostly in person, we are aiming for 60/40 in person/telework, with a lot of personal flexibility in how we choose to do that. Some people with longer commutes do two days a week telework, some people prefer to come in late and leave early every day. There are some days where I am legitimately at work and busy for 11 hours, and some days where I roll in at 9 after a morning workout, knock out a few smaller tasks, then leave at 3:00. All of our meetings are over Teams, so it’s very easy to attend the staff meeting from home and come in later (or not, if we’re making it a telework day).

[pinkplasticdoll]

Jan 24, 2021 19:53:25 GMT -5 boiler717 said:

My boss has always had a “work when you need to in order to do your job” mentality. It’s so helpful and I know my team works even harder because we appreciate it. That means some days I take late or early calls (teammates overseas), but some days I’m at my desk for 2 hours and check in from my phone as needed. We get a ton of work done and everyone is happy.

this is the attitude my boss has and it's helpful to me because it allows me to balance my life better.

[irishbride2]

@@ Students mentioned

This past year has been great for my husband in terms of work-life balance. So much of his job is networking and that is basically gone. His firm is still doing well, but without all the glad-handing and long nights. He's realized how much he was missing at home, and I doubt it ever goes back to how it used to be.

I on the other hand, as a teacher, have had workload increase greatly. I wish I had 40 hour weeks.

So theoretically, my required hours are from 8 am to 4:15, with a lunch break that most of us work through.

In reality, I arrive around 7:15 and leave between 5-5:30 depending on the day. Then I work late at night for a few hours. Then I tend to come in every Sunday morning for about 3-4 hours. On top of that, I try to come to events at school to support students. Although not technically work, it somewhat is.

Then last summer I spent most of it trying to redesign everything I do to work digitally. IN a normal summer, I spend about 12 hours of work grading placement exams and placing new students, and about 12 hours of professional development and probably another 12 in random curriculum things.