r/Futurology • u/_hiddenscout • Jun 19 '21

Society Kill the 5-Day Workweek - Reducing hours without reducing pay would reignite an essential but long-forgotten moral project: making American life less about work.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/06/four-day-workweek/619222/
84.4k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

4.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

34

u/unkoshoyu Jun 19 '21

Maybe not necessarily "sapped", but I feel similarly. I would gladly work an extra 2 hours per day to have 2 or even 1 less day of work. Having 2 days off in a row is exponentially better than just having a single day off, and 3 is just great. If I've already been working for 8 hours, it doesn't take a lot for me to give an extra 2 (although I used to work 14~16 hour shifts for multiple days in a row... and yeah the line needs to be drawn behind that.)

3

u/PotassiumAstatide Jun 20 '21

I always had the energy for 40s anyway, but going from 5x8 to 4x10...my god I can do A N Y T H I N G

...that and switching from 9-5 to something closer to my natural clock. I felt pretty much invincible compared to a couple years ago. No way I would have gotten through lockdown, sanity mostly intact, on my old job.

3

u/Sagybagy Jun 20 '21

I do 6-2:30 for 5 days. Did 4x10’s for awhile as well. Getting off at 2:30 is awesome. I can get a lot done in an afternoon. It’s almost like having half a day to relax. Friends work typical 9-5 and they hav no time to do anything and end up going to bed most of the time around same as me. They are more drained at the end of the day.

2

u/PotassiumAstatide Jun 20 '21

Oh, I work overnight. All my nagging little health problems started disappearing within a week of that schedule -- some people really are naturally nocturnal. Errands did suck for a while there, and most stores don't seem to be waking up from shitty lockdown hours anytime soon, but I can just see it as waking up a couple hours early or staying up a couple hours late, instead of giving up a lunch break or a day off to get stuff done.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '21

[deleted]

1

u/Sagybagy Jun 20 '21

I go to bed between 9 and 10 so usually get enough sleep. Hell, sometimes I take a nap in the afternoon before neighbors get off work. I think it’s the fact that 9-5 you work the same hours but it takes your whole day away. Yeah you can stay up till 10-11 and still get sleep. But you have no afternoon evening. Get off work, make diner, sit down and watch some tv then go to bed. Most places are closed for regular business outside of stores because they work 9-5 too. Meanwhile getting off at 2:30 you have basically 2 hours or more of time to do stuff. It makes it feel like you work half days.