How about a 3 day work week?

[Muzjhath]

this might be right for you fucking clean shirts but anyone with a physical job is at it for the full shift.

Hi, I work a physical job.
It very much depends. If we're fully staffed I've got quite a bit of "dead-time" every day but one of the week (because of bad planning from management). Ofc when people are ill that's not the case.

[Flarelaine]

I’m not much of a fan of Chick-fil-A but they’ve come up with an interesting idea here.



Three 12 to 14 hours days. I’ve been on salary for a long time but when I was younger I don’t know.

What do you think of a 3 day work week?

I had a job where I worked 3 or 4 days of 14 hours. Three was manageable, but not much money. Four paid better, but was way too taxing. Give me 5 days of 7 hours each with a salary, thank you very much.

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40 hour work weeks are too long for jobs involving physical work or where you have to be actually working for the entire shift (minus breaks)

I also did 12-hour shifts of literal heavy lifting. I was offered 5 successive days of those. I could barely handle even two in a row. Completely inhuman.

[SL1200]

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You rather the shorter ours and a longer week? I can understand that too especially if one doesn't like fast pace environments.

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Its hard to do anything after a 10 hour shift. I only end up with about 4 hours of free time after work.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I had a job where I worked 3 or 4 days of 14 hours. Three was manageable, but not much money. Four paid better, but was way too taxing. Give me 5 days of 7 hours each with a salary, thank you very much.

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I also did 12-hour shifts of literal heavy lifting. I was offered 5 successive days of those. I could barely handle even two in a row. Completely inhuman.

What about the days you had off didn't that help, or did the long days take up more days to recover?

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Its hard to do anything after a 10 hour shift. I only end up with about 4 hours of free time after work.

Understand but 4 days off seems like a a decent payoff, unless I am wrong in the way it eventually works out.

[molliewoof]

I do 35 in 4, i enjoy that and get a day in the middle to de stress.

id love to do it in 3 though

my dad used to work sun mon tue 12 hours for a month then weds thurs fri the next month, each month on changeover he either had a 7 on or 7 off, it worked out he got 6 weeks a year leave on top of his 30 odd day leave, all of our family hols were planned around that shift.

I think people would take the days off him during the seven on also so he could just drop the extra pay and not do his seven on (i may be making that bit up, i was a child but his shift structure is correct)

id love that now!

[lllll]

How many hours a week does the average worker spend doing nothing at work because they've already completed their assigned work

There's no such thing as "completed their assigned work" in a lot of jobs.

[The Stormbringer]

There's no such thing as "completed their assigned work" in a lot of jobs.

And there are loads of jobs where there absolutely is 'assigned work' that you can complete. An average is drawn from across the whole.

EDIT: Here, I'll give you an example. I work in IT. When all the tickets are updated, completed, or on hold, there is very often nothing to do. A lot of the time, you're waiting for people to call or email in with an issue for you to fix.

[Specialka]

I prefer to work 4 or 5 days per week with 6-7 hours each day. More free time and more family time. I currently do 35h a week with 5 days worked, at least in theory.

[LilSaihah]

I would probably seriously consider a 12-hour workday, 3 days a week, if it had good break periods and its the right kind of work. 10 hours is about the point in time that my performance starts waning.
Main reason I'd serious consider it is travel time. Travel 3 days for however long rather than 5. My commute is around 45 minutes each way. Not a big fan. I'd save 3 hours a day! Very good.

[Coolface330]

Such Boomer mindsets, man.

How about work like how you eat - you eat your fill, and then go about your day, live your life?

"If you don't put in 8 hours a day at the company, it's like you don't love the job!"

"If you're not standing around at the office, with your thumb up your ass doing nothing, it's like you don't love the job!"

A job is - you do the job, the job is done, the boss gets paid, passes it around, and you go home.

So many jobs abandon the job itself for politics, vanity, whatever. Literally forget they had one job to do the whole time.

But they'll never grow up out of it. If you finish a 10+ hour job in 2 hours, they don't even wanna pay you for 3 hours. So dumb*sses will always be created that milk the clock for 10+ hours, wasting everyone's time in terms of productive min/max.

Meh.

[Tojara]

It's why I always prefer salary, especially in a job where they know they're going to make 'x' amount of money when a contract or job is complete. You don't really fuck around and it's to your advantage to be as efficient as possible. We do work with equipment that charges minimum amounts of hours regardless of time spent, because with some heavy equipment (especially cranes) it's not worth moving them around for a 15 minute job, so people generally have to spend 4 hours minimum. Unfortunately a lot of work is hourly based with few incentives to actually be efficient. For me I just get salary and I work as fast/efficient as possible because it just means more time off.

Other people are in a circumstance where they have an 8-10 hour days, but the job is so inefficiently laid out that they could normally do it all in a few hours. Being efficient like this with hourly work usually doesn't pay off, as two things normally happen. Your employer will find you more stuff to do (busy work) but pay you the same, or you will just stretch things out or look busy because you know it's unlikely you would be getting a promotion or a pay wage for being a good employee. Lots of our workers get paid salary, and when a four hour minimum job involving equipment gets attached to them, they get 4 hours of labor even if the job often times takes <1 hour (which is common with crane work).

Personally though if I had to answer the question of the thread I'd rather work 12-14 hour shifts 3 days a week and have the other 4 off. Long days don't bother me though, even physical ones. Before they changed regulations I use to work nearly 135 hours a bi-weekly at a salmon farm back in the late 2000s early 2010s. Worked upwards of 16 to 17 hours a day in the summer, where one week I'd work 2 days and have 5 off, and the other week would be the complete opposite. Eventually they had to change it because they could only get away with that using the excuse you were out at sea (we were in a harbor). This allowed them to skirt OT laws. Since I left to work with my family (only did this as a summer job), standard hours apply to that place.

The physicality of that job and long hours didn't bother me. All it meant was my first night off was an early rest with the following day being a 'relax' day. People do giant shifts of work in Canada at least (especially fishing or oil) where you work a few weeks straight, then get 2-3 full weeks off. The only bad thing about this (and this relates to the oil industry) is that these camps you stay in are super isolated, and most people move their entire families to a less than ideal place to live. Whereas with commercial fishing at least on the east coast, you do your two to three weeks and come back into a port where you aren't that far from home. Lots of my friends who work the oil sands got the same amount of time off, but then had to fly out of camp, then make arrangements to fly all the way back home which would be draining to me. Most of them just opt to move their families to communities closer to where they work instead.

[Zan15]

LOL I'd take anything but the 7/365 schedule i've been on for the past 10 years. Yes i even worked every single christmas for the past 10 years

please....ummm....anything...

[Cosmic Janitor]

Fucking moronic idea. Certainly if that means you need to cram in the last 2 days into the previous 3. Everyone who does some reasonably engaging work can probably attest that after 8 hours their performance starts to dip. Going for 12+ means you just get alot of lousy work.

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this might be right for you fucking clean shirts but anyone with a physical job is at it for the full shift.

Rubbish, in general this is only true for people that have a fixed contingent of work. There are also plenty of "dirty shirts" out there that barely have enough work to fill their hours depending on the current order situation. Even with a "clean shirt" I have a virtual filing cabinet of possible projects to work on, should I finish another one early. Frankly, I wonder how many jobs actually have entirely fixed contingents of work with the exception of lulls due to lacking customers..?

[Nymrohd]

Here, I'll give you an example. I work in IT. When all the tickets are updated, completed, or on hold, there is very often nothing to do. A lot of the time, you're waiting for people to call or email in with an issue for you to fix.

But that's a job. Being available for customers over a shift is the majority of the job in some sectors like retail. As long as your employer requires you to stay in position, you are working. You may not be productive, but that downtime is part of the job.

So many people are employed in jobs of this kind and as you move to less developed (still developed, not even talking about developing) economies, these jobs become a majority of employment.

The idea of a 12-14 hour day has nothing to do with what is good for the employee and entirely with making shift planning easier. Shift planning is a nightmare and combined with illness, paid leave etc it creates the need for significant redundancies in the workforce. A 3 day full shift schedule is a dream for lower/middle management for that reason.

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Fucking moronic idea. Certainly if that means you need to cram in the last 2 days into the previous 3. Everyone who does some reasonably engaging work can probably attest that after 8 hours their performance starts to dip. Going for 12+ means you just get alot of lousy work.

THere are a lot of jobs were the standard is just low enough to allow a lot of lousy work.

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Physical jobs also have a limited lifespan. Or rather, careers that involve physical jobs. Because physical jobs wear out and break your body down. I had an uncle, he worked roofs for twenty years, it absolutely fucked him up for the rest of his life.

Not everyone gets a chance or opportunity to transition though. In countries with low growth, high unemployment, you get what you find to survive.

[Flarelaine]

What about the days you had off didn't that help, or did the long days take up more days to recover?

Five successive days means no days off between them. As a "normal" working week but with 12-hour shifts.

[Mhyroth]

Night-shifts are an adjustment, but the money is definitely worth it.

Might want to look into Matthew Walker's book called Why we Sleep. You will never want to do nightshifts ever again.

People rather have some extra cash instead of a healthy long life.

[XDurionX]

12-14 hour shifts are illegal here, we don't live in the 19th century anymore.

[Muzjhath]

Unfortunately, it’s the only shift available until a day shift employee that has seniority leaves or chooses to switch.

Any reasonable schedule with shift work has every employee on the shift work each individual one at different times.
We've got people working 24/7, 365/year. Those who do work all timeslots in a rotating schedule and have 5 days of work in a row off between the night shifts

[PACOX]

Ive done 20+ hour shifts. Still have one 12+ hour shift. Of course the entire time isn't spent working but 'on the clock' and retail or factory work. It actually works out fine if it's consistent and you have a home life that can support it. It doesn't work if you schedule is always changing, too much stress on your sleep schedule. I would do it again in the right setting and I was still working the job. Doesn't really apply to desk/customer or client facing jobs.


The end of the shifts sucked ass but having the rest of week free is great. One of the biggest hurdles, that I shrugged off anyway, was others acting like you didn't work because you have 4/5 periods between you work days while they have to go in every day for the same amount of hours.

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And there are loads of jobs where there absolutely is 'assigned work' that you can complete. An average is drawn from across the whole.

EDIT: Here, I'll give you an example. I work in IT. When all the tickets are updated, completed, or on hold, there is very often nothing to do. A lot of the time, you're waiting for people to call or email in with an issue for you to fix.

So places fill 'downtime' with study/practice. So say you are on for 8 hours, get your tickets done in 4, the rest of the day is spent reading up on various IT related topics. Maybe becoming a pro on the systems you're supporting or developing soft skills.

[The Stormbringer]

So places fill 'downtime' with study/practice. So say you are on for 8 hours, get your tickets done in 4, the rest of the day is spent reading up on various IT related topics. Maybe becoming a pro on the systems you're supporting or developing soft skills.

Lol. I see you have, at best, heard what's supposed to happen. But in reality, that shit doesn't happen. You might have a database of documentation made in-client that you can read through, but usually that's a waste of time since you can just look it up when needed. Trying to memorize that shit is an effort in boredom and frustration.

If you're really lucky, then your employer might set you up with the ability to study for an actual certification, but that's definitely not a guarantee.