Thread: 10 Day Week

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  1. #21
    Bloodsail Admiral sscavenger's Avatar
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    This is one of those ideas that looks great on paper but would probably fail in real life. Plus big business wouldn't go for the whole working less thing, they have employees taking work home to do it for free. They even work on vacation, it does nothing for the employee but makes the higher ups money.

  2. #22
    The previous calendar changes were done out of necessity. We moved away from the lunar calendar because it ended up making summer be in Winter, harvest in Spring (see the whole mess with Ramadan coinciding with the Olympic Games in 2012 and the question of whether the Muslim athletes should fast or not which would ruin their chances of winning anything). We moved away from the Julian calendar because, while it did away with the whole "reap the harvest in Winter this year, reap it in Spring next year" thing, it still couldn't handle leap-years properly. Indeed, the Julian calendar is nearly a fortnight out of sync right now.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by sscavenger View Post
    This is one of those ideas that looks great on paper but would probably fail in real life. Plus big business wouldn't go for the whole working less thing, they have employees taking work home to do it for free. They even work on vacation, it does nothing for the employee but makes the higher ups money.
    It's really not a significant amount less work, honestly, especially if the extra "leap week" days are used for the national holidays, in which case we'd be talking about a grand total of 3 less work days per year under the 10 day week calendar. Meanwhile, productivity would likely improve, since people would have shorter periods between the times they could take care of their personal obligations, and there would be less variation in the work year in terms of when particular holidays and festivals were held, since it would always be on the same day of the week every year.
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  4. #24
    5 day week seems more simple. 365/5... no leap weeks. Lose about 16% productive time of the 7 day week but you might very well gain that back through more rest and therefore less work related accidents and whatnot.

  5. #25
    An interesting concept but most people don't like change so I doubt it will fly. I do like the more days off part though.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Afrospinach View Post
    5 day week seems more simple. 365/5... no leap weeks. Lose about 16% productive time of the 7 day week but you might very well gain that back through more rest and therefore less work related accidents and whatnot.
    Yeah, the problem with the 5 day week is either you have a 2 day weekend, in which case you lose a ton of productive time, or you have a 1 day weekend, in which case you lose a ton of downtime. You could alternate and have A/B weeks, I suppose. But I think leap weeks are better than 73 5 day weeks, because you'd have to have a mini-month one week long at some point in the year, which would just be weird.
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  7. #27
    Pit Lord Doktor Faustus's Avatar
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    The French tried this with their Republican Calendar:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar

    'The new system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and was part of a larger attempt at decimalisation in France.'

    If it ain't broke, don't try and fix it!

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    It might be easier to adapt when the difference is so much smaller. You'd have 4 days in a row of work instead of 5, which you already do on holiday weeks anyway, followed by 1 day of rest, then 3 days of work followed by 2 days of rest. That seems like it would feel like less hardship to recover from, not more.
    The 5 days work 2 days off cycle is the one I'm most unwilling to renounce. Most 10 day cylces would need wierd work shifts adjustments like the one you described.

    If your work is as mentally taxing as mine you literally need 2 days off every week to be able to pick yourself up again.

    And altought as you said it "seems" you have more recovery time, 1 day off is not as having 2. For exemple my routine is going out on a Friday night and then I spend the Saturday recovering and then Sunday doing some outdoor activity, other alternative being resting on Friday and then doing some outdoor activity Saturday maybe go out at night and then rest on Sunday. You just can't do this if you only have 1 day off.

    The 10 day system has been tried by the French revolution, it didn't stick. Later the Soviet Union tried it too, but by 1940 they also switched back to the 7 day system.
    Last edited by Mihalik; 2013-02-04 at 03:32 PM.

  9. #29
    I like the idea but I doubt getting the whole world to change at this point would be near impossible.

  10. #30
    Light comes from darkness shise's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    Most of our calendaric time frames have some basis in nature.
    No. It was the idea, but it's been changed over the years and we have pretty much lost the sync with the universe years ago.

  11. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mihalik View Post
    The 5 days work 2 days off cycle is the one I'm most unwilling to renounce. Most 10 day cylces would need wierd work shifts adjustments like the one you described.

    If your work is as mentally taxing as mine you literally need 2 days off every week to be able to pick yourself up again.
    And you don't think having a day of rest after 4 days work, and 2 days rest after 3 days work would do that for you? If anything, you get more frequent downtime while preserving the overall amount of work time.
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  12. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    I'd have thought it had something to do with honoring the Sabbath day and keeping it holy, and the whole "on the 7th day he rested" sort of thing.
    Since christian and other religions are based on old ancient culture, it probably is both.

    A lot of the things in the bible are based on natural things:
    - The 7 days are indeed probably based on the moon cycle.(the quarters as we know them)
    - I think it is also the reason why the number 7 is seen as a divine number in christianity.
    - Christmas is related to an ancient ritual of celebrating the return of the light, and is closely related to the midwinter solstice.
    - Easter is also related to the moon, as it is the Sunday after the first full moon of the spring (i.e the spring equinox)

    I guess the whole reason to incorporate it like that , was to make it easier for people to adapt to new religions, since a lot of what they believed in, was also present in the new religions, it was only told differently.

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    And you don't think having a day of rest after 4 days work, and 2 days rest after 3 days work would do that for you? If anything, you get more frequent downtime while preserving the overall amount of work time.
    Edited my original post to explain this one.

    Also I honestly don't see any problem with the 7 day cycle. It doesn't cause any issues like the Metric-Imperial difference that causes a series of commercial and communication issues.

    So if it ain't broken why fix it?
    Last edited by Mihalik; 2013-02-04 at 03:35 PM.

  14. #34
    I think people would adapt to a 10-day week easily enough. The bigger problem would be changing the whole existing infrastructure based on the 7-day week. But ignoring the effort in that undertaking I think the 4 - 1 - 3 - 2 pattern would be quite good. I've always thought 5 work days in a row is too much. :P
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  15. #35
    Merely a Setback Reeve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mihalik View Post
    Edited my original post to explain this one.

    Also I honestly don't see any problem with the 7 day cycle. It doesn't cause any issues like the Metric-Imperial difference that causes a series of commercial and communication issues.

    So if it ain't broken why fix it?
    It is kind of broken, but we've grown accustomed to the way in which it's broken and have adapted to it. The 7 day week makes it so that the days every year fall on different days of the week. That makes it so that holidays like Halloween are celebrated on a Friday one year and a Thursday the next year. It also means that people who are paid bi-weekly instead of semi-monthly end up paid at different points during the month, which could be bad, since a lot of bills are monthly. The first week of a month might start any time from the 1st of the month through the 6th of the month. It's just inconsistent.

    We may be used to it, but that doesn't mean it isn't a little bit broken, or that it can't be improved upon.

    ---------- Post added 2013-02-04 at 03:42 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Mihalik View Post
    And altought as you said it "seems" you have more recovery time, 1 day off is not as having 2. For exemple my routine is going out on a Friday night and then I spend the Saturday recovering and then Sunday doing some outdoor activity, other alternative being resting on Friday and then doing some outdoor activity Saturday maybe go out at night and then rest on Sunday. You just can't do this if you only have 1 day off.
    You still get this on the week end. You get one day off mid-week, but that doesn't stop you from having your extended time off on the week end.
    Last edited by Reeve; 2013-02-04 at 03:43 PM.
    'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
    Or a yawing hole in a battered head
    And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
    And there they lay I damn me eyes
    All lookouts clapped on Paradise
    All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

  16. #36
    While the idea is interesting and i like homogenisation for stuff like that (Inches have to die!), i fear we would end up with 8 days on 2 days off.

  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Afrospinach View Post
    5 day week seems more simple. 365/5... no leap weeks. Lose about 16% productive time of the 7 day week but you might very well gain that back through more rest and therefore less work related accidents and whatnot.
    You still need a leap something somewhere, because there is still that 1/4 of a day each year which over the course of time will throw things off.
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  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Reeve View Post
    You still get this on the week end. You get one day off mid-week, but that doesn't stop you from having your extended time off on the week end.
    But none the less, it would reduce the time I have available as effective offtime. Time I'm not spending on resting but rather on doing activities, such as going out or going hiking. The system would create a new routine where you would have 2 rest days and only 1 offday every 10 days. I'm still not buying the work 4 days rest 1 go back work 3 more then you can have 2 days fun thing.

    I'm usually open to new things, but this is just a change for the sake of change.

    The fact that certain holidays sometimes alternate on what day they fall on is rather irrelevant. Also it gives people the option for exemple to have the Thursday holiday, take a day off on Friday and tie it in with the weekend to go on a trip or something.

    10 days system has very few advantages over a 7 day system that would ever warrant such a radical shift.

    Also extended holidays and the 2 day weekends are a MAJOR bonus for the service industry and small buisnesses. People spend more money going out to lunches, drinks, activities, shopping then on work days.

    This is again thanks to the fact that they have the leisure of 2 days to do so without rush.
    Last edited by Mihalik; 2013-02-04 at 03:53 PM.

  19. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Skippy88 View Post
    An interesting concept but most people don't like change so I doubt it will fly. I do like the more days off part though.
    We can't even get the whole world to adopt Metric units of measurement ... (is that subtle enough?), how on earth do we expect it to change our calendars ?

  20. #40
    There is more to it than just people getting used to a new schedule. There's businesses that rely heavily on the current system (banks having Sunday as the bank holiday for example). Also it would be an IT nightmare. For one having to recode everything based on the new calendar, and for two having to get the new calendar out to every single device on the planet, and not all of them are so easily and readily connected to the internet to pull down updates.
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