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How Does a 9/80 Work Schedule Work Out?
cellocgw writes "My company is in the process of implementing a version of '9/80,' a work schedule that squeezes 80 hours' labor time into 9 business days and provides every other Friday off. I was wondering how this has been implemented in other companies, and how it's worked out for other Slashdot readers. Is your system flexible? Do you find time to get personal stuff done during the week? Is Friday good for anything other than catching up on lost sleep? And perhaps most important, do your managers respect the off-Fridays, or do they pull people in on a regular basis to handle 'crises?'"
I work from home, and as long as all the data gets processed, nobody gives a damn what I do. It's great.
It was really nice, especially if you set it up so that one week you're paid, and the next you get the Friday off. They were also flexible about it and would let you switch occasionally, although that obviously depends on the company.
I worked a summer job that was 9/80 in... ummm, 1998. It seemed to work alright. Can't say it really helped or hurt, though I wasn't in an on-call position at the time, so YMMV.
I think "buy in" will depend on how much the particular management team pushes it. If they really want to company to do 9/80, it will. If its change for the sake of change, it'll prolly be messy.
My company does it - and yes frequently we get hosed out of our day off OR have to travel on our day off. It is inconvenient to many of our customers and I spend a lot of time on my off Fridays checking my e-mail for potential issues. It is not much of a day off. We USED to have a 4-9-4 work week, where we worked 4 nine hour days and half days (4 hours) on Fridays this was AWESOME and I loved it - 9/80 is bogus IMHO
I interviewed at a large defense contractor, the office I interviewed at did a 9/80, it sounded great at the time and still does. As for lost sleep... seriously... you work 9-9-9-9-8, 9-9-9-9-off. I doubt the extra hour a day will kill you. If it does, just eat through lunch.
You get every friday or monday off depending on the stagger. The idea of 9/80 bothers me. There is a point of no return for employees. If you are going to work like that, you should make sure and take two one hour breaks a day.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
Also, to answer your question, those off-days were always respected, and I never missed the lost hour each day.
Wait-wait-wait-wait... Do you mean to say that you've found a job in the (non-government) tech industry that lets you work only 40 hours a week?
... Are they hiring?
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
If your manager pulls you in to cover a crisis, you need to demand flex time (a different day off next week) or overtime.
Or, send them an invoice from your consulting firm for about six times whatever your daily rate is.
A friend of mine worked under 9/80 and loved it. He felt like he could be more productive staying later on the busy days and he took the extra friday off to take small trips with the family.
I worked for the same company but different location under a flexible hour system where the only requirement was that I met the 40 hrs per week. It made things much more difficult to free up space on the weekends, but allowed me to be more available during the week.
It's just preference.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
While it is not a bad idea in and of itself, changing work schedules to some bizarre non-standard system is usually a sign that the company management is trying to squeeze more work out of you. First they change the schedule to give you more work per day, then they will ask you to work more days.
In this economy, they know you don't have anywhere to go, so unless you fight back against this or leave for a new job altogether, you're going to get screwed. Ask them if they've been considering offshoring the IT department. I'd be willing to bet that within the next year they are looking to thin the local IT staff to a skeleton crew and then migrate the servers over to India where they can do your job for a third of the cost.
With 4 tens, I get every friday off. As far as being pulled in on other days, it depends on whether your manager is an ethical person who respects their employees or not. You are the only one who knows enough to tell that, and a bunch of slashdot pundits won't help.
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
to get the 9 days respected than the 80 hours
Nullius in verba
If this an attempt to resurrect the Mayan calendar, then negative. Everything they did was apocalyptical. The even managed to destroy themselves...
I say, day in - day out. Nice and simple.
---
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
I've usually worked long hours (too many startups and contract jobs). I've always wanted a 3x13 or 4x10 workweek, but would happily settle for 9/80. This works great for the way my body works, but I've never had an employer who didn't just want more hours.
If the company would really do it, it would be great to have every other weekend be three days.
They just went to 4 10's. 80 hrs in 8 days. And pretty much everyone I know hates it. OTOH, statistically you get more done a couple hours after you get there up to a couple hours before you leave.
THL phish sticks
"Catching up on lost sleep?" Give me a break. It's only an extra hour of work per day, and in the end you get it back in the form of a 3 day weekend.
If one hour more at work is enough to deprive you of an equivalent amount of sleep... you might want to figure out where those other 7 awake hours are going..
I've worked for two consecutive companies with 9/80. At the first it was optional (but most people did it) at the second (current one) it is pretty much mandatory.
Let me tell you.... it's awesome.
Having a 3-day weekend every other week outweighs any perceived negatives. It gives you the ability to leave on a trip on a Thursday night... spend 3 days somewhere and still make it back for work without taking any vacation.
To answer your questions:
- I was wondering how this has been implemented in other companies.
For both of my companies you work 9 hours a day except the friday you work you only work 8 hours. Then you get every other friday off.
- Is your system flexible?
At the first company it was... you could choose which friday you wanted to start your 9/80 schedule on... so half of the people were gone every other friday.
At my current job it's not... everyone has the same friday off. I see the benefits of both. Personally, I really enjoyed fridays at my previous job... when (at least) half the people were gone I could get a lot of work done.
Both places I worked for have been flexible in your start time in the morning... meaning I can go in early and still get off early to get stuff done... which leads to:
- Do you find time to get personal stuff done during the week?
Yes. If I really need to get something done after work then I'll go in early. If I'm there by 7:00 then I can get off around 4:00 to 4:30... leaving plenty of time.
- Is Friday good for anything other than catching up on lost sleep?
Yes. You can use it for weekend trips like I mentioned above. Also, it's a great time to catch up around the house (mending fences, etc.). Finally, it's also a great day to get grocery shopping (and similar) done because most people are working...
I use the day a lot of different ways... and I do often sleep in a bit... but never sleep the day away!
- And perhaps most important, do your managers respect the off-Fridays, or do they pull people in on a regular basis to handle 'crises?'"
Has never happened to me. Like I said.. at my current job the friday off is mandatory. They actually turn out the lights and turn down the air-conditioning, etc. They really expect no one to be there.
But... I know my jobs are normal (I'm a research scientist at laboratories) so YMMV.
In conclusion... it can only be a good thing... go for it!
Friedmud
it's great as long as those days off ARE your days off and the company doesn't try to find some sneaky way to steal them. i currently work a 100 hour 8 day week, but then i get 6 days off. I find it's fantastic for productivity because longer days are better than lots of short days. it leaves more time to consult with peers and test things. lets face it, 9 - 5 days are a waste, those few extra hours aren't effective as lesure time. on my 6 days off i can really get out and enjoy myself.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
...this is what Ask Slashdot has been reduced to? Asking how a rather small change to a weekly schedule might work out?
Future Ask Slashdots We Can Look Forward To:
Advice: on VPS providers
My employer implemented a schedule like this last summer. They're planning on doing it again for 4 or 5 months starting in March or April. It's really pretty nice. Basically, while they're in effect you need to work an extra hour each day. How you do this is up to you. I ended up splitting the difference--get in 30 minutes early and stay 30 minutes longer. Since it was company-wide all the meeting schedules were adapted pretty quickly. It's worth it to have a 3-day weekend every other weekend. Makes setting up trips/vacations a whole lot easier.
This guy's the limit!
My father-in-law does this for the Seattle Parks Department. He still winds up taking a few crisis phone calls. But, he manages to do all the coordination via cell phone and only in an extremely rare occasion does he have to go in himself. The way I see it, and him, it's very hard to just put in 8 hrs a day. And since you probably aren't paid overtime, being rewarded with a day off for putting in 9 - 9's is pretty nice.
I work the 9/80 schedule but if you can get them to let you take every other Monday or better yet every other Wednesday. You can get a whole lot more done on a Wednesday. No lines at the bank, grocery store, etc. Unless you decide to just stay up all night Tuesday playing Halo then sleeping till 4 in the afternoon.
"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." ~Ozzy Osborne
It is really nice to have every other Friday off, however, if you have to work overtime to get your regular job functions done than it is probably not so great. You'll be really worn out by the time your three day weekend rolls around. It is a three day weekend though!
You should check the detail of what happens when a holiday falls on your off day though.
Good Luck!
Seriously though, does anybody actually work only 40 hours a week?
Colin McNamara - CCIE #18233 "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer"
My spouse had a work schedule like that. It was great, him actually being home and eating right instead of keeping weird hours, coming home at 3 am and eating junk food at work. I remember having Friday off as being a great day for him to run errands and go to doctors appointments. The down side is the company he had that work schedule at had a very mainstream sort of culture and didn't appreciate his unique ways of thinking. They eventually got rid of him when they got rid of a whole bunch of people due to not getting a contract.
I remember one job where, despite being salaried, I got docked 1/2 day pay for leaving at noon... the fact that I worked the whole previous day and through the entire night to avert a crisis of someone else's making and meet a deadline was irrelevant.
At some point you WILL work WITHOUT being paid for it.
I hope this schedule works out for you, as everybody's life is different, but I suspect you will find it a nice change.
At my first exposure to the 9x80's schedule the company split into two shifts with half of the company having one Friday off, and the other half having the other. While this may complicate holiday with vacations sometimes, having Fridays with only half the people there made for a more peaceful and productive Friday. But not all companies will split like that.
Our company is on a "nine nine's" system for IT, where we work 9 9-hour days, and have the 10th off. Combined with a telecommute day in the same time period, it works quite well.
In my group, this seems to be very well respected...Good luck!
I once worked a job that was 3x12.5, and it was great! It was overnight, and the boss didn't mind if we slept during the downtimes. The staggered schedule also made it that we had a full 7 days straight off every third week (followed by 6x12.5 in 7 days, that was a bit of a killer). Though being overnight in made family life hell for 3 days, the time off more than made up for it.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
I've worked 9/80 for the last 13 years or more. I also recently became a supervisor and am still working 9/80 and most of my employees do as well. In our company (68,000 employees total), it is generally implemented as schedule a, b, c, d (where a and b are opposite Friday's and c and d are opposite Monday's. Way back when I did LAN Admin work (Novell back then), Monday's were "password reset day" so I chose one of the Monday off schedules. On my "Monday on" I work from home - so I only drive in 4 days a week.
I don't think I would ever want to go back to a 5 day a week schedule - 9/80 is just so much better.
You also asked about whether the company respect those days off. In general they do really well with it. It is normally the employee that makes most decisions about "oh, we have some vendors coming in Monday - I will come in and just take the following Monday instead." There is almost never a "we need you to give up your day off" (I have rarely ever even heard of this happening and it certainly never happened to me).
My employer offers optional 9/80 schedules. I estimate that 90% of the employees voluntarily choose 9/80. It is great to have at lest 26 three day weekends every year. When holidays fall on Monday, you may get a 4 day weekend.
The off-Friday is well respected by management. The managers generally don't come in either.
An off-Friday is a great time for banking, appointments, the start of vacation, volunteering in your kids' school, etc.
Most people who choose the 5/40 schedule do so because they need to be home early to meet kids at the school bus or because the spouse works a regular schedule and they want to match schedules.
Flexibility is always good. We have core hours from 10:00 to 3:00. Some people come in very early and leave at 3:00 to minimize the time kids are home alone. It can save a lot of child care costs. Others like me regularly come in at 10:00 and leave at 7:00.
I work a 9/80 schedule at my current job and I like it overall. My company definitely honors the day off (it's a company-wide 9/80 policy, so everyone is out of office on off-Fridays). The nice thing about my company that helps to curb manager abuse in such a situation is that we get paid overtime for anything more than five hours in one week. It does a lot to keep the managers in check so that they only call you in when it's crunch time and they direly need you.
During the week I've found that losing an hour (between 4:30 and 5:30 for me) has not really affected my daily life. I still have plenty of time after work. The off-Friday on the other hand is like a god-send. I get all of my errands done on off-Friday when all normal businesses are still open. It's also very nice having a three-day weekend every other week. Like another poster mentioned, the Fridays that I do work are paydays, so it makes that 44-hour week (plus whatever overtime) a little sweeter.
Trust me though, the nine-hour day will feel much longer than the eight-hour day. If you're already consistently working overtime you might not notice a big difference, but sometimes I feel like the day just drags on a bit. All-in-all though, I would suggest that you go for it. I'm loving it.
I wish I could still have the schedule. It was well known that it wasn't a day that you were going to be there, so no one interfered. They knew if you had to come in that it would likely be repaid in the near future.
A lot of Federal employees have a 9/80 option. It works well because it puts less stress on the mass transit and roads in the area. I always notice that its easier getting around town on Fridays here in DC.
For IT folks I don't think its a good option. Even though I have a 9/80 option and a telecommute option, my work culture where I am prefers warm bodies in chairs. I'm a sysadmin though, and people expect me to be able to yank out parts and cables or whatever on a moments notice.
And the rest is either d*f*ing or sl*shd*ting, or informal socializing sometimes called status meetings, no matter what your punch clock says. It's connected to the levels of neurotransmitter chemicals in your brain, which run down throughout the day and faster with more or deeper thinking (also faster with coffee or jolt.).
I for one would dread the quality of design or software produced by regular 10-hour day programmers.
I was pleased to see 37 signals uses 4 days a week. Maybe you could recuperate enough on that schedule to work slightly longer productive cores of your creative day (maybe 6 or 7 hours?)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
... because of all the road trips we take on 3-day weekends. But that's a lot more fun than commuting on that 10th day.
I very much like 9/80. It gets complicated with holidays...
It depends on the work being done and the company culture.
Doing four nine hour days with fridays being alternately eight hour days and days off is nice. If you are in an area where many people have long commutes it puts them a bit more out of rush hour for the drive and people have one less day of commuting. I worked one place where we did this and it was great for people because they had long long commutes, that they were able to get out of once every other week.
It is also very nice for planning vacations since you have a lot of three day weekends. It makes it very easy to schedule doctor/dentist/car appointments too.
On the downside if there is something you need to do that requires input from someone else you are out of luck on Fridays. If you have a lot of team-based projects it may not work so well. Similarly you can't have meetings for one fifth of the work week (on the upside your friday on is meeting free typically). The extra hour is rough, and there may be some hard trade offs there depending on when you get home and what you need to get done.
There is also potential for bad moral if one 'team' thinks that the other 'team' has better friday off schedules because of holidays.
Essentially it is a nice feature, but be aware of how it impacts you.
The company I work for just switched to a 9/80 a few months ago. We're a little different since we have a schedule A and a schedule B, so only 1/2 the people are at work any given Friday. It's had some ups & downs.
Here's what I see as the positives:
1. Having a 4 day work week every other week rocks!
2. Getting paid on the Friday where I work 5 days makes it all the more bearable.
3. Easier to get chores, errands done since everyone else is at work.
4. I get more work done during the last hour of every 9 hour day than any other hour.
Here's the negatives:
1. It's a PITA to schedule meetings.
2. Sometimes I travel and it seems to always fall on a week where I'm supposed to be off that Friday.
3. Customers are annoyed because they're not on the same schedule and aren't understanding that it won't be until Monday before I get back to them.
4. I feel like I have less time to get work done since every other week I only work 4 days.
5. More free time means I spend more money.
6. Getting to work while it's dark & leaving when it's dark is depressing.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Pros:
Cons:
9/80 is best when paired with a flex time schedule so that you can move around hours when you need to. The off friday gives you an option to tell your boss "i'll work more these days or just come in friday" if you want to take a different day off instead of the off friday. Coming in on the off friday usually means the office is dead. That can be good and bad. Some people like not having anyone around because they normally get interrupted too much when people are at the office. Other people hate it because there's nobody else to kick the bucket with.
If you find you are normally working more than 8 hours everyday, 9/80 is actually a good option because you will have a decent excuse for not coming in on the off fridays and you will have to work 9 hours most days anyway. If you find you are working even on the weekends, 9/80 will have no impact on your hours.
As a single guy, I prefer 9/80. But I do know some family types that prefer the 5/40 since they really need the consistent 8 hour days to keep their family schedules synced. At first you will loath the 9 hour days because that extra hour is bigger than it looks. After a while though 9 hours will seem like nothing and the working fridays will seem really short.
I took a new job back in March at a company on the 9/80 schedule. It's really awesome. It's hard to imagine going back to a company that doesn't do it -- it would definitely take a lot to lure me away from my current job.
That said, I worked pretty much every "off-Friday" between October and December, although I probably only worked one or two the earlier part of the year. It's largely dependent on budget and schedule for us. My wife is having a baby in May, so I will have a built in excuse to not work on them. ("Sorry... I don't have day care scheduled for tomorrow.")
Whether the Fridays off are respected depends mostly on your direct supervisor and your peers, and how staunchly you're willing to defend it. (You don't want to be "that guy" who refuses to show up when everyone else does.) I've been there less than a year, so I'm not one to rock the boat. Some people seem to work all of them while other pretty much refuse to show up unless there's some dire personal deadline they'll miss if they don't show up (which is probably the better way to look at it).
On the plus side, we got comp time for any off Fridays that we worked which made it easier to deal with on the times that we did have to come in.
To avoid working on your off Fridays, it's probably good to over-schedule them. "Oh, I wouldn't mind working this Friday, but 4 months ago I booked a long weekend to Cancun since it was supposed to be a day off..." I never got hassled if I didn't show up because I had already made important plans based on the off-Friday schedule (family in town, long weekend trip, etc.)
Most of the time I don't get too much done on my Fridays off, but it's a great time to handle errands that can only be done during business hours, like trips to the bank or do some tours in the city. Plus it makes it easy to schedule long weekends. (Unfortunately my wife's schedule does not match up with mine, so I have not taken advantage of this aspect as much as I would have liked.) If I had been on this schedule 5 or 10 years ago or had more buddies on the same schedule, I'm sure I'd be out partying on Thursday nights a lot more often.
I used to get so excited about the occasional long weekend... Memorial Day and Labor Day... now I get two long weekends a month.
I'd rather have 4x9hour days, a 10% cut in pay, and 3 days off every week. (Hey, most of the last 10% is taxes anyway, right). If everyone did this, we could avoid tons of layoffs nationwide, lower energy costs (4 days commuting instead of 5), and 3-day weekends every week ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
I'm not on a 9/80 plan, but I've been with my company long enough that when they started requiring us to use or lose our vacation every year rather than carrying it over, I started taking Fridays off most of the summer. I had mixed success with it; just because I'm not planning to work on a given day, that doesn't mean that my customer doesn't want to schedule a meeting or call me on the phone, or that people stopped sending me emails that needed attention, or there might be training from the head office folks or whatever, so Fridays were often only half-off, or I'd sleep late and do email around noon. But still, that meant that I really did get my Saturday off :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This sounds like a lighter schedule for a lot of people, who are probably working 50 hours a week at least. This would be an extra hour off every day and a whole extra day off for free.
Wow, where can I get a job at 80 hrs in 9 days. Seems like I've been working 60-80 hrs in 5 or 6 days of late. Unless I'm between consulting projects in which case its more like 9/10 and then the pay is terrible.
My company does 9/80 work weeks and I find the experience mixed. I tend to have about 6 'good' hours a day for solid engineering design and after that the ideas don't flow as well. 9/80 works when you have lots of paperwork to do (perfect for a government contractor) but doesn't do so well when you have actual design work. Doing errands on weekdays or making it to the gym are impossible unless you have an under half-hour commute. On the other hand, the every second friday off is nice. In summary, it only works if you can you work steadily and don't mind cramming all your errands into the weekend.
We have slaved enough for our corporate masters. Time to go to full employment at 32 hours a week for everyone. Oh, and the weekly pay should remain the same for us all too.
You work 14 hours a day for a week and then repeat it.
A lot of people at my company work 9/80s. No problems there. People just know to check calendars and schedule around you.
I work a staggered 4/10, which is amazing. Mon-Thurs of the first week, then Tues-Fri of the second. Every other weekend is a four-day weekend, which is almost enough time to get to Europe and back (I'm on the West coast)
In my work we have this rule:
- You have to work 40 hours a week.
- It is mandatory for you to be at the office Mon to Thu from 11a to 3p.
Everything else is up to you.
I can say that it only works for people that are committed to get-the-work-done(tm) when that is needed.
If you're by the hour, now more than ever companies will try to restrict overages. Our support techs get called in off-hours for only the direst of emergencies. Of course, us salaried saps get to deal with the extra. "You've used linux before, here admin these two RHEL servers."
"I defy the second law of thermodynamics."
"The hell you do. Get back in the box."
Actually, you, your managers, and especially your timekeepers need to get over the 40 hours per week paradigm. US Labor law mandates it to some extent, but usually that is the only real constraint you MUST deal with. Just figure out how much work really needs to be done, how long it should take, what is a REALISTIC work efficiency factor (.5 - .8), then just get out of the way and let people work.
OK, now that we've had a nice trip to fantasy land... 9 hours/day x 9 days give you 81 hours in a two week pay period. Implement flexible work hours and work days. You will need to pick "core hours" and "core days" (e.g. Tuesday - Thursday, 9a - 4p) when (more or less) everyone must show up in person. The extra day and the extra hour are YOURS to build up and spend as you please, within reason. (i.e. No 20 week paid holidays sitting in the bank allowed).
It can work. We do it here. When a mandatory meeting comes up, people flex their RDO. They burn their extra hours up usually by taking an extra day off every other month. Keeps work and project schedules in line and doesn't stress the guys that have to work on the days or hours you are off.
Only company discipline can keep the managers from trouncing the system. They have to stand behind their own words when they say you don't have to come in on an RDO. And they have to be willing to take it when you throw their words back in their faces. "a day off does NOT mean Come in to work". If your managers don't have integrity, you're screwed. But that would be true anyway, not matter what you are doing.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
It was great. I usually put in 10 hour days anyway, so someone telling me that I was to get every other Friday off was great! Not only do you get the occasional 3 day weekend, but you will probably find that the Fridays that you do work are really quiet - assuming not everyone in the office is on the same 9/80 schedule. If you are in a "meeting rich" environment, you are spared on Fridays because half the people aren't there.
After I got into middle management, 9/80 basically meant that I didn't feel guilty for taking a Friday off, but often-times I was working those days as well.
In big companies where folks that work a normal 8 hour day are treated like slackers, it's a good way to actually get some benefit for those 8+ hour days. Also, remember that 5 days of vacation turns into 10 days off! Bonus!
the obvious reason:
actually getting to take off fridays off is an iffy proposition, at least in my organization. i objected to it when it was implemented nearly 18 months ago as a sneaky, underhanded way to squeeze extra unpaid overtime out of employees and i feel even more strongly about that now than i did back then. i haven't had an off friday for the past 3 months and it seems increasingly unlikely that i'm going to get to take those fridays off until i get through a march delivery. obviously, your mileage will vary; however, unless your organization is serious about off fridays being sacred (mine, unfortunately, is not --- they expect you to be in the office on those fridays if there's even the slightest business need), expect to lose them quite frequently.
the non-obvious reasons:
1) trying to make up sick leave / personal absence gets to be really challenging. i find the incremental effort from 8 to 9 hours in a day not that bad, but 9 to 10 and beyond is really, really difficult (at least if my goal is to be actually productive as opposed to a warm body).
2) scheduling with clients / customers / team mates that are not on 9/80 gets to be more complicated, especially if you have multiple stakeholders whose off fridays are out of phase.
3) receiving shipments of parts / software / hardware / etc. on time can be difficult unless you have a dedicated receiving department working throughout the week.
4) depending on how you do time cards (assuming you do), correctly transcribing time can be a challenge. (you need two fridays per week)
The film business here has two common standards:
five 12.75 hour days per week
or
six 10.75 hour days.
In practice overtime is worked up to the 14 hour statutory maximum work hour limit for truck drivers making a 70 or 84 hour week.
And they make all our actors adopt some really stupid accents ...
At my work we have a choice between straight 8s, or 6/10/4 schedule. Personally, I like the 6/10/4, as I come in at noon on Mondays (working 12:00-6:00pm), and leave at 11:00am on Fridays (working 7:00-11:00am). Tuesday-Thurs I work 10 hours (7:00-6:00pm), for a total of 40 hours a week. Plus, if I ever want to have a three day weekend, I only have to use 4 vacation hours, instead of the traditional 8.
...all work 9/80. They all love it. During really busy weeks, you may be asked to work on your day off, leading to 50 hours work weeks. But let's face it, if you were working a "normal" schedule, you'd end up working 10 hours a day on weeks like that anyway.
My dad also telecommutes one of the remaining 9 days. So he never goes to work on Wednesdays, which means he never has to commute more than two days in a row. Words cannot describe how much happier he is since that change. If you have a long, nasty commute, look into this sort of schedule.
i've been on 9/80 for just about 10 years now. it SERIOUSLY ROCKS.
the only thing that sucks is the 'long' 5 day weeks.
.
If you're not on a project in that situation (i.e. any web project, or one following the latest fad methodology to 'get the code out the door', then your 9/80 really becomes 90/80. You'll end up working on that day off--guaranteed.
When I first read it I was thinking it said you work 80 hours every 9 days including weekends which sounds more like my work schedule.
For both of my companies you work 9 hours a day except the friday you work you only work 8 hours. Then you get every other friday off.
Is this even legal in most states (without paying overtime)? I could be wrong, but I believe in Pennsylvania you can't push hours from one week to another. If an employee works more than 40 hours in a week, you have to pay overtime for the extra hours -- you can't offset them with fewer hours in another week. Of course, certain job functions are exempt from overtime (e.g. computer programmers and management).
I have a 4 day work week 10 hours a day. I much prefer that as I get 3 days off every week.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
I loved having a 9/80 schedule. When holidays came along, I either had three 3-day weekends in a row, or a 4-day weekend (if the holiday fell on my day off, I'd get either Thursday or Monday). No problems with getting called in or anything like that. The one time (in four years) that happened, I got a comp day off later in the month.
I'd take a 9/80 schedule in a heartbeat.
Back in the 80's some companies started experimenting with 4 by 10 weeks. I saw an interview on the TV news with one guy who said the one thing he didn't like about it was he was spending too much money on that extra day off each week.
The company I work for runs 4x10 as the "regular" workweek for most of engineering and production. Friday (the usual day off) counts as an overtime day. Non-exempt people get time and a half, and even the salaried people get straight time for that day.
I usually come in for a half day every Friday and pick up a few extra hours (business needs permitting, of course), though sometimes I'll sleep in an hour or two first--I usually show up around 615 the rest of the week. It still gives me an afternoon off to get stuff done around the house, run errands, or go to the range before my wife gets home. If we need to travel for the weekend, I can either use the day to pack and get ready, or we can leave early if she takes a day off.
If you find a company that offers this, take it.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
I worked it once as an intern. 9 hour days, 8 hours the first friday, off on the next. It was nice because it gave me a chance to take every other weekend off to go do things with friends, like roadtrips, either back home or to the beach. What I didn't like was that I had an hour and a half commute each way, so the 9 hours, plus commute time made for a really long day. Up at 6, and not usually back until 6 or 7, depending on the traffic through DC. As an intern I was never asked to come in on that day, and the job wasn't one where I had urgent deadlines to meet. In the future, I'm not sure if I would do it. It'd really depend on having a shorter commute and knowing that I had something to do on that Friday.
Depending on what country you work in, your marginal tax rate may be close to 50%. That is, for each additional dollar you earn, you pay $0.50 more taxes. On the side of the coin, if you earn a dollar less, you pay $0.50 less in taxes. So, if you work 9 days out of ten (without working an extra hour a day for 8 of them), you will earn just 5% less after-tax income, but have 10% more free time.
Nominally, a 0.9 schedule only gives you 2 days off per month, but many months there's a stat holiday, and if you're in the oil-patch you might get a floater day per month as well, so in practice your 0.9 schedule is actually a 4-day work week.
If more employees were to ask for 0.9 schedules, there'd be fewer layoffs!
- midtoad
Umwelt schützen, Fahrrad benützen
Well, those that are non-salaried do. I end up working about 90-100 hours in eight days being salaried, but that is another story.
Many of my friends here are hourly employees and work four ten hour days with every Friday off. They love it. They do not even notice the difference after the first week or two, and they get a three-day weekend every weekend.
I once interviewed for a job with a federal agency that would have had a 9/80 option: 9,9,9,9,9;9,9,9,8,0. My brother-in-law currently works for another federal agency and works 9/80--he seems to love it AFAIK.
I used to be a teacher, and I had the 50/37.5 option. Teachers were paid for 37.5 hours per week, but the workweek came out to something like 50 hours. I was the school sysadmin, so I was particularly under the microscope to the point where one teacher falsely accused me of working only the hours for which I was being paid. Note to self: never get a job where a coworker arbitrarily declares you on-call with your personal cell phone.
Unfortunately, the nature of my current job doesn't allow for 9/80, but if it was offered to me, I'd take it. However, if my boss started dragging me in on my Fridays "off", I'd just go back to 8*5. Or get a better job.
My company has flex time and, to some extent, comp time, as determined by the employee within reason. So, if I work 9 today and 7 tomorrow, that's OK. Nobody cares, much less notices. Just don't skip any meetings or miss too many important deadlines.
This, however, is far from the norm.
As a (reasonably) high paid professional, all too often companies assume that that means you're willing and able to work an absolute minimum of 40 a week, with 45-50 often times being the norm. And I think employees, perhaps motivated by some sense of guilt, often times work those hours without complaint. I say bullshit.
I'm a high paid professional because I'm good and I know stuff. My (reasonably) high pay is because of what I know and the skills I have. Not the hours I'm willing to keep. Working 40 a week, and not 10 minutes more, is first-and-foremost something the employee has to strive for. Employers will get the hint eventually.
But this seems to be a uniquely U.S. phenomena. Many areas of the world (Italy springs to mind) have a great deal more respect for leisure time then we do here. There is an innate understanding that life is to be lived and enjoyed, not worked. In the U.S. the emphasis seems to be on money money money. You're considered successful if you're pulling in $100K a year, regardless of the hours you worked to get it.
Well, what the fuck good is $100K a year if you don't give yourself the time to enjoy it? I'm always amused by people who save up all their "enjoying life" time for vacation. What? You gonna pack a whole year's worth of "enjoying life" into a two week jaunt to the Caribbean? Good luck with that.
I say we in the U.S. ought to ditch our puritanical work ethic already and slow down a bit and enjoy life a little more.
Maybe the current economic downtown will give some of us an opportunity to do just that!
at least at my company.
When on the road we end up working the Friday, and occaisionally here at home too. Oh well.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I worked in two government research labs that did this (Air Force Research Lab and Navy Research Lab...I understand that the Army does it as well, and just about every civil-service-job-that-doesn't-interact-with-the-public-on-a-daily-basis does it this way).
I rather enjoyed it. My Fridays were spent backpacking, kayaking, bicycling, sometimes even hobby programming, or Getting Things Done like doing banking/other paperwork. I wished that my private sector job did it. And as for managers respecting it, you bet they did...my managers all had Friday off as well.
At the Air Force lab, we could choose which Friday to take off (or we could take off any other day of our choosing...one guy I worked with took off Wednesdays for some bizarre reason :)). We tried to keep about half of us there each Friday in case someone called and needed answers. At the Navy, everybody took off on the same Friday and the place was all but shut down on the off-Fridays.
Good luck. It's a fun system, just be sure not to abuse it so that your bosses don't change their minds.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
40 hours a week? I wish I had that. If I did, I would be on Thursday already.
In general I love it, especially since in IT we tend to easily work 9 hour days. A few drawbacks that in my mind are minor compared to the benefits:
1) Some people will abuse the system and will still put in 8 hour days and take the off-friday off. If you are a good Manager or have a good team this won't be any more of an issue than any other issue. ;-)
2) You will find that you will often not get the Off-Friday completely off, in general I work 2-3 hours every off Friday.
3) 9 hour days can be a bit tougher until you get used to them
4) If it is just your group that does this it will fail miserably, either the entire company does it or none at all.
5) As a manager you need to arrange coverage. On a smaller team many people will fail to get a complete off Friday if they are on-call etc.. You can do alternating Off-Fridays but you will find that it is tough since many people will expect everyone to be there on an "On" Friday.
6) If you outsource parts of your infrastructure they may have issues with your lack of availability on off-fridays and the outsourcer may use that to extend tasks due to it. Or they may get more done since you aren't there to hassle them
7) A lot more work is crammed into the first 4 days of a week. At times Monday through Thursday can seem hellish.
I have had this schedule over two employers for a total of 5 years and I would HATE to go back to a normal 5 day workweek. The Off-Friday helps keep me sane and allows me to get things done that I can never do on weekends due to family and weekdays due to work!
I already work 80 hours.
Oh wait, 9 days. Ok, I see what you mean now. I thought you meant 5.
3x12 x == 40 and people put the 2 sets of 3 back to back/
6 days out of 14 giving you your full 80 hours.
I work healthcare IT but we don't get that.
I'd love it.
I've only been working the 9/80 schedule for 4.5 years but I LOVE it. I'm looking forward to 4 days off this weekend.
I haven't had any trouble with working off-Fridays. Our entire company works the same schedule which probably helps. In fact I'd rather (and have) come in on a Sunday instead of an off-Friday.
9 hours a day, 4 days each week. 8 hours first Friday. Second Friday off. repeat.
The Army and other government workplaces are becoming hip on this. Tobyhanna Army Depot, for one, has this for most of the DoD Civilian employees. They love it.
I could see myself not minding it too much. Though I work for a contractor and am not eligible.
We implemented 9/80 in the early 90s just before we received a new President of the company. He was not supportive, but did not buck it assuming we behaved.It is great, we can flex the Friday when Holidays come up. We are paid every other Friday. It is a good time to schedule non-work life appts. Some groups may use it as an excuse to work overtime, our group tends not to do that on a regular basis. The 4/10 idea is a way for folks to become completely unproductive in that last tenth hour. 9 on some days can be a stretch. We have to cover our phones on Fridays so there are 3 groups; 1 and 2 alternate Fridays and if you want to work 5/40 you can do that. It would be hard to give up.
Raytheon Company made the 9/80 schedule the default for most non-union employees more than a decade ago. Having worked this schedule for the majority of my professional career, I would say that having a three-day weekend every other week is decidedly awesome (not to mention the 10% fewer commute miles this affords).
1. I'd probably lose my mind by the 8th day in a row driving to work. Now, if I lived in short walking/biking distance or had a good, quick mass transit line, then that would be sort of okay. I could write it off as a workout, I guess.
2. I'm a single guy with no kids...one big reason that I hate working 4 10s or 9/80 is that I actually have friends outside of work (yeah, I know, Slashdot...whatever, you have friends like that too, and if you don't, you probably should think about getting some of those...and if you don't want to do that, then I don't care about how you feel about that) that work standard work weeks, and it's a pain to keep in touch and hang out when you have to ask your boss if it would be okay to cut out early on a Sunday. Or when you're all fired up and ready to hit the town on a Friday, and none of your friends can get off work early. Or are tired after the long week and need a good night's sleep first.
3. I'd rather choose when I want to work overtime and have my weekends when I don't need to work on something. But the amount of commuting and time spent just doesn't make sense to me. Unless you're working in some call center and stuck punching in and out, flexibility is the best option and that's a no-brainer.
4. I'd seriously want more than just one day to get things done, because I'd spend that entire day working and would need a day to unwind. Which is why the 2 day weekend is a genius thing that noses should never be turned up at.
On friday's the phone stops ringing, and all of a sudden everyone starts being able to work without interruption. For people who don't get jumpy on Fridays for the impending weekend, it really improves productivity
The company measures my performance by what I get done.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I used to work ~12-15 hour days with an hours break, with two days off (weekdays) every two weeks. I loved that as I got paid a hell of a lot for a days work, and if I did work less per day I could never be bothered to do anything else that day anyway. Secondly, compared to a 9-5 job, I could actually get into other stores WHEN THEY ARE DAMN WELL OPEN!! I now work the 9-5, mon-fri. Unfortunatly most stores also do this, therefore you can never get them when they are open unless you take time off work.
My last job did this, and it worked out pretty good for me. but I also made myself unreachable on my days off. We actually had two groups Team A had the first Friday off while Team B has the second Friday off. I got a lot of flack for not being reachable, but I tried to not leave any loose threads so they had to call me.
I am where I am at now due to the major raise offered and bennies. But I Also work 4 10's and I am on call one week a month. Which will bring me in at all hours.
I'm working as a part-time Security Guard/CCTV operator while I'm at University. Most of my colleagues work a 44 hour week (4x9, 1x8), not including overtime.
And they're the lucky ones - outside contractors (usually migrant workers) work 12 hour shifts with only 2 half-hour breaks (the legal maximum number of hours work combined with the legal minimum break time).
I guess it depends upon what you're used to.
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
During the summer months, my company works under a 8 days, 80 hour schedule. 10 hour days, mondays or fridays off for three months. (They split everyone up so there's half of us there on mondays and fridays)
It was really nice to have a 4-day work week but aside from the fact I ended up working for a friend of mine on my days off, it was tough sometimes going in at 8am and getting out at 6:30pm and my hour commute. If it weren't for the commute, it probably wouldn't have been as bad.
The three-day weekends were definitely worth it, though.
-SaNo
My old company did 9 hours Mon-Thursday and then 4 hours on Friday you were out at 11:30 on Friday. It was great. I never minded going in at 7:30 and Fridays were almost always useless and low stress.
I think that taking things slow is better. I work from 9-4:30 x 5 days. If you subtract the slashdot reading, cigarette breaks, trips to the coffee maker and social time it works out to be more like 30 hours of work. Other perks include a spacious private office, special daylight balanced lighting, bringing my dog to work, and telecommuting when I am out of clean launtdry. I wouldnt trade it for 9x80 or whatever that was called. Good luck with that though... Regards, One of the Bobs
The problem is ... FUCKING PAYING US.
Sorry, I'm not a 14 year old chinese boy making nikey sneakers for 3 dollars a week.
We cant compete with slave labor.
when my work is busy i work crazy hours, but i found that i only work 70% of the day, because i figure 70% of the day i work for myself, and the other 30% im working for the Goverment...
Our pay period is split at Noon on Friday; 4 hours the prior pay period week and Noon to 4:30 goes on the next pay period week. We have to use the Saturday to post this in our time keeping system.
It is great to wake up Saturday, having done all that business, med appts, honeydew list on Friday; You think it's Sunday, then all of a sudden you realize it's Saturday.
Makes the other weekend feel relatively tight.
Those weekends with a holiday can make for a 4 day weekend and as said can create space in planning your vacations. Look at the calendar and pick your alternate Friday carefully.
Yes, having half or less of the company there on Fridays makes for productive and quiet workplace and Meet Less Fridays.
That's what I don't understand. The whole concept that thou MUST work 40h to get paid is artificial and just dumb. Companies often make us work more than 40h for no more pay, so why not be a good(tm) company and let your employees work less than 40h for no less pay?
I've often said that if I ever own my own company, I would, to the best of my company's ability to do so, implement a 32h work week, that is 4x8h days per week. Yes, it might create some challenges, perhaps some would take monday, others friday, whatever.
But, I believe that if you pay people full competitive wage yet give them a 3 day weekend every week, not only will they be just as productive as if they worked 5 days that week, but you'll gain an employee loyalty that will *also* save money by virtue of retaining staff longer.
Really, I've been to enough places where people are just so tired of the same grind that they find unproductive ways to waste way more than 8h per week, so why not just give it to them and make them happier. Happier = more productive (at least in most cases)...
Seems i've been spoiled.
At the companies i worked i found hardly any regulations in place. Besides the like of "show up before 09:30" and "no unscheduled weekend hours" you where to make your own decisions:
It basicly came down to
"Per month work an average of 40 hours per 5 workdays."
In IT I worked as consultant and rented employee for support and development clients. (The Netherlands)
Surprised nobody before claims to have dynamic hours. Or they don't care. Article is not slashdot worthy imho..
Hivemind harvest in progress..
My company has had 9/80s for as long as I've worked there (~8 years) and I'm a fan. Its great having a 3-day weekend every other week and nice to have a weekday off to get done all the stuff that you can only do 9-5 on weekdays. I would end up working 9+ hours a day even if they were 8 hour work days, so the 9/80 is all positive for me. I've never been pressured to work on my off Friday.
It's been almost 15 years and I still miss it -- it was great! We had 9 hour days Mon-Thu, either 0 or 8 hours on Friday.
The company originally instituted it in California to meet a mandate to reduce pollution by 20%. They shut down 1 day out of 10 + took credit for 10% reduction in employee commuting. It was popular enough that they spread it to other sites.
One side effect was that the week started/stopped at noon Friday. Part of the plant was unionized and union rules said anything over 40 hours in a week was paid at overtime rates, and if the company scheduled you for less than 40 hours work in the week you still got paid for 40 hours. Nothing in the contract specified when the week started. So it was timecards at noon Friday.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
If you're hourly, you can often get away with a "40 hour" work week that lasts less than 45 hours. If you're salaried, whether in government or not, you will be expected to get your job done whether it takes 10 hours a week or 168 hours a week. If you don't get it done, in this economic environment they will find someone who will get it done.
That said, my wife works a 40 hour week that's supposed to be 4 days per week, 10 hours per day. Usually that translates to 8am to 7pm daily. She say's she'd never go back to 5x8.
Unfortunately we car pool to work, so I work 8 to 7 as well. And then I usually put in 4 or 5 hours on Friday, and a few hours each on Saturday and Sunday. The difference.... You guessed it. She's in an hourly position that isn't exempt from overtime rules. I'm in a salaried position that is exempt from overtime rules. And to top it off, she makes about 20% more than I do because she is in an industry that competes to get workers. I'm in an industry that has more workers than it can afford.
All in all 4-5x9 probably works OK, and if you're in an urban area, it's 10% less time that you'll sit in traffic. Maybe more because you either be commuting early or late. If the extra hour in the work day is cutting into your sleep, your commute is way too long. If it's cutting into your TV watching, then get TiVo and watch on your new day off.
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I work 6:15 a day, 9 days a fortnite, taking off every second monday (unless something urgent needs doing)
Some Air Force bases/squadrons have a 9/80 schedule. Probably the most well known is at Keesler AFB, MS. There, most everyone except the students and instructors for enlisted training participate and it works well. Lots of people comment on how much they enjoy(ed) the schedule. Some senior enlisted and officers will work on Fridays "because they want to" i.e., I have too much to do / mismanage my time. I think that schedule can be very useful for keeping morale high, giving people more time with their families, etc. One thing you have to watch for: The very last hour of the day. Will productivity go down in that last hour each day because people are tired? Will you actually waste man-hours by piling them up on 9 days? Good luck.
I work 9/80 and its great. But, it really ends up being more like 7-8 hours a day, sometimes 9, but, 80 hours on a paycheck and Friday off.
Also, all of you are paying for my paycheck.
I have worked (while in the military) with a flexible work week. We were required to put in 80 hours in a 2 week period. We had core hours that we were required to be in the office. Basically we had to be in the office between the hours of 8 and 3 Tues - Thurs. All meetings, appt's etc were made during those hours. We did have to work out a schedule that insured we had minimum manning in the office during normal business hours (8-5 Mon - Fri). Otherwise we just had to put in the additional hours when we wanted. I loved it. I could come in before anyone else showed up and get a lot of work done without any of those pesky customers bugging me.
My wife works this kind of schedule, she's an IT manager type. Her company respects the days off, it is a company perk for those who choose. More importantly, it helps her to wind down in an otherwise stressful position. She's happy, I'm happy.
ISTR that in the South Korean economic collapse in the early part of this decade (or was it the late 90s) the South Korean government mandated that alternate Saturdays were to be added to the work week. I don't think that extra pay was included.
Let's hope that the U.S. government doesn't pick up on that one.
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I work 5/60, and for the last 6 months it's been mostly 5/80.
I don't work weekends, but I sure as hell need them.
--/Banking, why thanks for asking.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
9-80s suck. It's a bogus excuse to confuse your schedule until management thinks they can make you work any time they feel like it. Generally done by 'international' companies in the hope that you can somehow teleconference with people half way across the world despite a 12 hour time difference.
Why would you give your employer free overtime? Any work beyond 8 hours should be paid at time and a half. Anything less is shafting yourself out of pay.
You guys are approaching this totally wrong. When we had 9/80 at my work the people who opted for the alternate schedule pretty much put in eight hour days and took every other Friday off. Of course, eventually they decided everyone had to come in every day...
I and the staff in my department do it. I work for RealEstateWA (realestatewa.com.au). Because a lot of the info for Real Estate Agents comes in late in the week (Home open times and such) the work is highly compressed, requiring late Tuesdays, Wednesday and often Thursdays (when we publish). To compensate, every second Friday is off for some staff. With a relatively empty office on Tuesdays, I can do a lot of the IT work - updates and such. It is a brilliant way to work and I look forward to the day when the boss realises how good it is for the business - that we are not simply bumminig around during that time.
the small software business (11-16 employees) lives in a large house with a kitchen used by a cook each day to prepare meals. there's a bed room, a den with vcr & disney movies for the kids. staff brings their dogs to work. oh, and using the computers for personal business is ENCOURAGED.
which is to say, make life easier for employees -- no need to hop in the car to forage or run errands, there's more time to eat healthily, not having to run around leaves more energy available for work, less stress affecting work.
working longer days is harder, and the extra day off every two weeks could be disruptive. the changeover to 9/80 will no doubt add to the stresses of the business and the people who operate it.
great call, right to the heart: questioning ability to get personal business done during the workweek.
Sounds like you have a pretty sweet job there. Medical residents work 80 hours in 1 week. They have to do their bosses' every whim because if they don't they'll be let go and be stuck with a huge medical school bill that they would never be able to pay off.
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
...and I'm still grappling with this concept of work days that have predefined start and finish times.
Sounds like paradise!
Read Pynchon.
Amen. Any job where I have to consistently work 9 days straight I'd be quitting within a few weeks. I already have enough to do in the evenings after work and the company isn't going to take that away from me. Even 3 day weekends aren't worth it.
Apparently you hadn't noticed, this whole conversation is primarily applicable to salaried workers, not hourly employees. That extends well beyond just Software Developers and Managers.
I don't think that's a state thing either; I'm not 100% sure but are there any states that doesn't require overtime pay beyond 40 hours for non-exempt employees?
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
I was at my first employer for ten years; seven of those (the "middle" seven) went 9/80, and they not only respected our Fridays off, they also didn't actually enforce the full 80 hours. We weren't penalized for holidays either; if one fell on our natural Friday off, we were given an "extra" day during that holiday.
Though my current employer isn't as generous with keeping an eye on (or off, I guess) the 80-hour clock, they're still very fair about everything and respect the long weekends. It's really nice to be back on this schedule after over a year without it. I can go to my kid's school, watch a movie, run errands, sleep late, pretty much whatever. There are no drawbacks for my lifestyle (naturally, YMMV).
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
I've been working 4 10s for seven years, and I can pick which day of the week I'm off. Sometimes I'll put a friday and monday back to back for a 4 day weekend. As a result I get to save my vacation and sick days for when I want to use them, instead of when I have to. 3 years in a row I've ended up cashing in a week of vacation time every year.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
I worked a 9/80 schedule for years and grew to hate it. If you've got any kind of a commute that turns a 9 hour day into an 11 hour day. Days seemed interminable. All those extra hours for two days off a month. And the three days fly by because you tend to pack everything into your day off. Car maintenance, doctor visits, any errands.
A new company got the contract and didn't include the flex schedule and we went back to 8 hour days. It was like a vacation every day. 8 hours was a breeze.
Better than any flex schedule was finding a job I could telecommute part of the week. Now that's a luxury. Work is exactly the same but the stress is way lower. You don't realize how much time you spend getting ready and getting to work. No jarring alarm clocks, no traffic. I'm probably going to jinx it saying this, but since I started the telecommute schedule I haven't been really sick once. The difference is really quite amazing.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I have an arrangement with my employer where I work 2 normal days, and then 2 11.5 hour days, and have every Friday off. Admittedly the 2 11.5 days are hard, but they are always the most productive, esp from about 4pm on (he says posting on /. at 4pm!)
I find it works really well.
I work 4 10's, with every Friday off. I couldn't imagine it any other way. (unless I worked like 3 12's)
The only benefit I can see of this, is that I can actually be home during the 8 hour window the cable company gives for appointments.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
if you are used to working 10/100.
>The idea that at a certain point, the govt takes most of your earnings in taxes is an urban legend.
For anybody working by the hour, there is no "tipping point" where the govt keeps most of each additional dollar - it is just untrue.
Even if it's not true, I'd rather work just enough to get by than make more and lose any of the gain. Hell, I'd work for free before going over a threshold where the rate increased.
I work on a 9/80 schedule and love it. Having a 3 day weekend every other week is really nice and lets me do errands and go to the doctor or other tasks and not take away from work (OR go on a 3 day vacation - which is what I do most).
I work for the FED of NY. We have to work a 35 hour week, so I did 3 days a week at 12 hours a day. Had a 4 day weekend every week. Very Nice. It was the night shift.
Now I work 9/70. Get every other friday off. Most of time I get a nice 4 day weekend.
I worked for Loral Defense Systems - Akron, about 13 years ago.
It was implemented there, and it was greatly loved by my coworkers.
I wish I had that option now.
I've been on 9/80 for about 2 years, straight from college. It seems like the company has been on it forever, so the management essentially respects it and the employees decide what they want to do with their Friday off-time.
Basically employees get to choose every other Monday or Friday off. I should note that my company starts you off at 2 weeks of vacation (80 hours) and adds an extra week every 5 years, which (from my understanding) is not that much to begin with. Additionally, employees on the 9/80 have 8 holidays, while employees on the 5/40 have 9 holidays.
It's definitely harder to do personal things... what do you expect, you have less time after work! Although my boss is flexible enough to let me come in early and leave by 3pm to handle things. I love my off-days. Extended trips, vacations, going out Thursday nights (I live in a college town). It will be weird if I ever return to a 5/40 schedule.
I think many of your questions will probably depend on your boss/company philosophy... and it's hard for me to visualize this at a tech company.
Good luck
Sounds great! Seeing as how I work in an industry where we are capped at 80 hours in 6 days (we get one day off per week) averaged over a 4 week period, this seems awesome. At least we cap our maximum shift length at 30 hours, because otherwise, that would suck!
Luckily, I don't do anything critical - I just take care of you if you happen to come to my hospital.
80hrs in 9 days, That would be great!!!! I have a 7/90 now....
I am purposefully staying out of the CS/IT workforce *exactly* because of these issues (well, and because I can afford to after working).
Started with a worldwide paternal company that had summer hours ( in at 7, out at 3:30pm) and a christmas bonus of up to 5% over a decade, up to 5 weeks of vacation + personal days. Those days are gone because of wall street.
People in the US, collectively, are -dumb-; all I heard growing up is how great people were doing by the amount of overtime they could work. Well, they are/were boring/bored to want to work that much. They sent a message that it was acceptable.
I work with a totally flexible schedule... but I've earned it. 9/80 or 9 to 5... doesn't matter. I work when the company needs me... period. They cut my paycheck.
End result: I call my own hours 99% of the time. It took some time (months) to earn it (many 70+ hour weeks for catching the system up), but well worth it. Pride is a factor, but relaxing with knowledge (theirs and mine) it is working is much better.
the countries that have higher productivity per worker than the US.
According to a U.N. report released in 2007, only Norway had higher productivity per hour worked than the U.S.
Also I second the Friday off/mixed with holiday thing. During Thanksgiving/Christmas it's fantastic: I had two 5 day weekends this past year, Nov. 25-29 and Dec. 23-27.
I have worked 4/10's I have worked for wally world where they are uber strict on hours and over time and I have worked some construction jobs where it has been anythign from a 2 day week with 3 hours each to a 7 day week 14+ hours each.
I can only assume you mean 9 days on totaling 80 hours with the 5 remaining days off. That would be a little weird but by no means hard. If it as my wife suggested then it is 9 days spread over two weeks working 80 hours total _AND_ you are worried about being over worked then sir, I welcome you to the work force and tell you this as my first boss told me. It is feast or famine and when its famine you work like your feasting on it.
9/80 is a joke (for employers). It just means that the worker drones can come in 1/2 hour erly and drink more coffee and stay 1/2 hour later - essentially wasting that extra day's worth of time. This from one who cannot enjoy the benefits of 9/80. More like 5/10's.
I am currently working a 7/60. Where I "squeeze" 60 or so hours of work into 7 days and then do it again the next week.
Three days on, two days off. That would be awesome.
Now I just need to find a company doing that.
I worked 6/70 (only Wednesdays off) for 9 months. It's good because it forces fiscal responsibility. With no time off spent doing anything but sleeping, you can't help but save everything you make.
We work 4 10 hour days and alternate Friday off one week and Monday off the next. This way we get a 4 day weekend every other weekend.....Works out great!
Home is where you have your @
That's my experience with 9/80 in a nutshell - the privileged screw-offs (every job has them) get to do it some more.
Want to see where they'll put that 9th hour? At the end of the day? Oh, noes - traffic is too bad, I just remembered my babysitter, and I came in early. At the beginning of the day, as some of them claim? Oh, yes, absolutely - then watch them explain how they decided to park farthest from the door coming in at oh-dark-thirty - as if.
And don't expect 5/4/5/4 cycle of days. It'll be 5/4/4/5/4/5/4 - it's an easy system to double-dip. Forget Mondays being a jumping off for where everyone left off last week, and forget Friday having any relevance as a group-cohesive stopping point.
And forget getting a full 8, much less 9, out of those you're counting on when middle mgmt is exercising their off Friday.
What I did? Stayed on 10/80 and watched jaws drop when I started leaving after an 8 hour day.
Fuck 'em.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
From a non-scientific poll we conducted as undergraduates, we found some interesting results:
All of the science and engineering students we asked said the next sheet should go over. All of them. (About 14 people.)
The art students' inclination (8 of 12 people) was to put it under, with the other four simply saying "whichever way it ends up - I don't even look."
I work a 12x10 every two weeks (120 hours) but get paid for 80 hours! (exempt)
you're in the clear, go with it! god bless ya!
I cherish the weekends, but saturday and sunday still don't give me enough time to keep it real...
Been on a 5/80 work schedule for years.
Turning 35 into the new 80.
M
I have been on the 4-10s a week and prefer it. The two extra hours a day is worth the 3 day weekends. Plus it makes overtime worthwhile (10 hours) if someone calls in sick as well.
You two are completely missing the schedule. Not 8-9 days straight, but rather:
Mon-Thurs 9 hrs a day, Friday 8 hrs. Sat, Sun off. Next week Mon-Thurs 9 hrs a day. Fri, Sat, Sun off. 80 hours within 2 weeks, rather than 40 hours in 1 week.
A 3 day weekend twice a month. Sometimes a 4 day weekend when it coincides with a federal holiday.
It works well.
My company's been doing this for years and it works just fine (Fortune 500 company with 86k employees). And all these people who say that it will just increase goofing off and laziness don't know what they're talking about. Those who will be lazy and work the system will do so no matter what the work schedule. But for those of us who actually put in the required time really appreciate having a 3 day weekend every other week.
I've worked a 9/80 schedule for the last 5 years or so, and I can't imagine going back to 5 days a week, every week. I barely notice the extra hour per day. As several people above have mentioned, the extra Friday off every other week is extremely noticeable and helpful. I sleep in, get errands done, do homework (since kids are in school), play video games...whatever I want/need to do.
Management at my company is typically very supportive, as most of them participate in the 9/80, too. It's optional but most employees and contractors at my company do it if they can (some can't due to various job duties, etc.). The only time I've ever worked on my Fridays off is when we're really behind or when a major project is about to go live, and even then it's never been mandatory. Plus I get overtime! If I do work my Friday off, I typically go in late (whenever I get around to it) and leave early.
Since so many people where I work do the 9/80, Fridays are usually very quiet and let me catch up on things and get lots done. And since our company has been doing it for years and years, everyone understands that if something isn't done by Thursday, they'll have to wait til Monday. No one schedules meetings on Fridays, either!
This doesn't answer the poster's question in the least (hey, this is Slashdot after all), but the wackiest schedule I ever worked was when I was deployed to Turkey in the military for 2 weeks.
There were only three of us to cover one around-the-clock job: a staff sergeant, another airman, and me. The sergeant made it so that both he and the other airman worked two consecutive 12-hour shifts and then had a full day off. The only way you can do that, though, is to make the third guy pull a 12-hour shift with the next 24 hours off with no "break" in the schedule. Think about it: 12 then 24. My work shift (and hence my off-hours) were completely inverted each cycle.
I was definitely pissed about it at first. But it's the military, who am I going to complain to? I went along with it, consoling myself that it was only for two weeks. But man, I gotta tell you, I got used to it in just a few days. You would think that it would be impossible to get used to a schedule where one day you're going to sleep at 6AM and the next day at 6PM, but it worked fine for me because it meant that I got to sleep for 8 hours straight and then wander the base (or do whatever) for another 8. It was because of this schedule that I got to get off base for awhile and go on some tours of the country.
I could almost do that schedule again over here since my sysadmin job doesn't tie me to any specific hours, but my wife would never agree to it. The biggest downfall is that I'd never get a "real" weekend without using up vacation time.
They are very common at the state of washington. Its nice having the friday off to go run errands, make appts, and do everything else you cant do on a 9-5. I rarely if ever got called in on my friday off to cover, sometimes i'd switch a friday off for one reason or another though.
Why fuck around with half-assed shit like that when you could just do four 10-hour shifts per week, and get THREE DAYS OFF every week?!
jz (Je-Tze)
I've worked a 9/80 schedule at two different jobs. We were encouraged to schedule personal stuff on Fridays, such as Doctors appointments. The three day weekends were like having a mental health day every other week. And perhaps best, Fridays were declared no meeting days at both employers. The Fridays at the office were quiet, pleasantly productive days.
I currently work for an ISP where our shifts are split into 4 12hour portions across 2 alternating weeks.
Week 1 is: 2 days on, 2 days off, 3 days on.
Week 2 is: 2 days off, 2 days on, 3 days off.
Shifts go from 11am - 11pm (Day NOC), and 11pm - 11am (Night NOC).
So on average you do end up working 42 hours per week but you get every second weekend off, and you only work at most 3 days in a row, with at least 2 days off bracketing that.
It works fairly well for day noc's, but if you're not used to shift work, working nights can be killer.
Wondering if anyone has ever heard of this style of split-week schedule before?
user@host$ diff
I've worked four ten-hour days at several companies, and I love it. Recently I had a little boy, and with his sleep schedule I found it really hard to spend enough time with him after work, so I'm back to five eight-hour days. It feels like cheating, going home every day at 4pm. Until Friday morning :)
:) Live in Portland? Want to move here? We're hiring.
Four other folks at our company work 4x10, including the CEO, and it works just fine. Friday is fucking sacrosanct: no emails, no phone calls, no contact of any kind. If a fire flares up, other people in the office deal with it.
And when I say 4x10, I mean it. We track our time pretty religiously, and our most bust-ass employee has averaged about 42 hours a week over 18 months.
And yes, we're a tech company
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
There are 4 different schedules. 2 Fridays, and 2 Mondays. Nobody in my group does the Monday off schedule. Then the Friday off schedule is split about 50/50 so on Fridays, half the staff is there. Everyone seems to adapt well to it and they get a 3 day weekend every other week. It also works very nicely to extend holiday periods because people will shift that day off. Like if that Friday is actually a holiday, they get the Thursday as the 9/80 day. I think after a little while 9 hours seems like 8, as you see many people already work 10 regularly. I personally decline the 9/80s, though. Probably need to try it out.
I had a job with this kind of schedule. Loved it. Working an extra hour a day is no big deal. I didn't really notice it in my off-work personal life. If you're salaried, you probably already do that quite often, anyways. My boss always respected it (even if he didn't like it). We were an R&D engineering group, so if no one came in to work (thus potentially creating a crisis), there wasn't any reason anyone ever got pulled in on their off Fridays.
In the winter, every other Friday was Ski-Friday and in the summer, every other Friday was camp-Friday. Beat the crowds both ways.
I did work with one guy who didn't like being around his family and wanted to go back to the 10/80 schedule.
Gotta wuv doz publicans
It might work in this case, everyone takes every other Friday off. Everyone comes in at the same time, takes the same lunch break, leaves at the same time.
At my government job, the boss allows employees to pick what day they want off. Some pick Monday, some pick Friday, some pick Wednesday, etc. As confusing as that is (is Rhonda here today or is it her day off?) my boss allows people to work flex hours. Employees' work days starts anytime between ~4 and ~9 in the morning, meaning people are calling it a day at 3, 4, 5PM and so on. It creates a scenario you would expect from the government, high inefficiency.
Why, back in our day we would wake at quarter-to-ten, half-an-hour before we went to sleep, then we'd pay $10 to go work in the mines for 28 hours a day, 373 days a year, double-time on holidays. And we considered ourselves lucky!!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
I normally work about 45-50 hours a week, however once every 5-6 weeks I get a pager that I have to carry around 24/7 for that week. I could get paged at any time and have to respond to any number of pages. Last night I had 5 pages alone and they started again before work in the morning.. let me remind you I am still expected to be at work on time. I for one think this is bullshit, but apparently the company thinks it's okay to only pay me under 100$ stipends for that week of on call time and say, "Well at least you get good benifits, right?" I call it slavery.
I started doing this in the early 90's. Things seem much more flexible now. Basically, I just have to get in 40+ hours a week no matter the hours I choose. The only condition is that I still have to make all meetings and be able to talk meet with others on the team when needed.
isn't for suckers, theoretically... It's supposed to mean you work whatever damn hours you like and they judge the result, not your exact attendance.
I know things rarely work that way though.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
My company tried it. For about a year it didn't do us that much good because my wife, who worked at a different company, still had to work Fridays.
She called in some favors with coworkers and used some of her stock of goodwill with the boss, got her schedule somewhat reshuffled, we got other things arranged to take advantage of having Fridays free, and just as we were starting to like it... ...my company decided it wasn't working for them and went back to a conventional schedule.
Infuriating. If they'd stuck to the 9/80 schedule it would have been pretty nice, but staying on it for a year-and-half and then dropping it was nothing but a royal nuisance.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
It's interesting that everyone is implicitly assuming that keeping a 40-hour work week makes sense when it's divided into a different number of days. This almost certainly isn't true, because people's productivity drops after a certain amount of time at work in a single shift. Companies like Ford did a lot of research into this a long time ago, which is why we all work 40-hour weeks now. (Of course, these days, managers who naively assume that extra hours = extra work getting done have pushed it to 40 hours plus breaks, when it often used to be 40 hours including breaks, hence the expression "9–5".) And Ford's people were doing manual work, not jobs that depend primarily on thinking, where the number of productive hours per week, averaged over the long term, is lower for most people.
I think it's both sad and quite telling that no-one seems to be considering that those extra few hours might not really be worth anything anyway, but employees who get an extra day off every couple of weeks are likely to be both better rested/more productive while at work and more loyal to the company. Businesses that have tried radically different working practices have sometimes seen counter-intuitive results, particularly when it came to working much lower hours. I'd like to see a company suck it up and have all their employees working only 9/10 Monday-Fridays over a two-week period without expecting them to turn up for an extra hour on most of those days, and see whether it made things more or less productive.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
My wife works at a company with that implemented, and it works out relatively well except for going in early (45 minute commute). We're done dinner by 6:30 most days, she misses most of the bulk of traffic by about 20 minutes in the evening, and the off Fridays are great for getting in extra errands to places that maintain similar hours to when we work, like our banks.
The downside is she gets up at 5:15 every morning and gets into work at about 6:45, to leave around 4 and miss traffic. But she's gotten used to it now and enjoys the Fridays off.
Does anyone here work at Best Buy (corporate)? The Results-Only Work Environment they have implemented sounds ideal.
The 9/80 isnt too bad, I really like 3 day weekends. the worst part is the middle of winter when youre arriving and leaving in the dark. also make sure your company changes the holidays to 9 hrs, my company screwed us that way 8hr holidays so if you want the full paycheck you have to use a vacation hr to make the difference :(
I serious thought that your company was planning to over haul a new meaning to work hours by giving you 80 hrs. a week work. I think my work is getting pretty close there without any announcement. =(
I take every other Monday off, but most of my coworkers take every other Friday off. Working Friday at a nearly empty office is great because I actually get a lot of work done without interruption. Plus, I often miss the latest post weekend "crisis" and time wasting meetings that accompany the usual Monday schedule. Although, I was wrong about the convenience of running errands during this extra day off. I am still surprised to find so many local businesses closed on Mondays. My employer is quite flexible with comp time and sometimes overtime (budget permitting) if I have to work or travel on my normal day off. Sidenote, a coworker chose Wednesday as his day off. He also had enough vacation saved up to take off the other Wednesday. At most he worked 2 days in a row for nearly a year until management finally realized this schedule wasn't very productive.
at a newspaper. I loved it. Worked wed-sat and had sunday, monday and tuesday off. 10 hour shifts.
It was the only really good thing about that job. :)
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
there was always an emergency that required I come in on my day off.
I was supposed to get comp time but that got forgotten about too...
YMMV
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
You have to figure that twice for the alternative minimum tax where deductions you might otherwise have taken are pulled out. It may still not have any points where you actually lose money by making more income but it comes a lot closer than the simple tables imply.
Work was so last year.
Heads up to anyone in the medical field wandering across this post - stop reading right now before the urge to hit something or someone becomes unstoppable.
Compared to the 10/90 (5/45) schedule, 9/80 sounds pretty good! Basically, I'd get days off? Nice. When I was employed, this is the sort of schedule I'd run, if I was so lucky, whenever I didn't have an emergency keeping me at work overnight. Overtime? No chance. On rare occasions I might have gotten a bonus.
The torture of the long hours and the long commute is why I took a big pay cut and started my own business.
I work for a large company (7000 employees) that has been offering optional 9/80 for years. I have never heard anyone complain about it, although participation is entirely optional, and most people really enjoy the extra day off. The Friday off is treated the same as a Saturday as far as getting called in goes, it is very rare that people get called in. It helps if you get on the same Friday off as your boss (so he/she is less likely to be there).
I love 9/80, but it really works best if you can work flexible hours. That way if you have to leave early some other day you can make it up on the off Friday. And since it's a 2 week period I can work a little extra every day and leave an hour or 2 early the other Friday. Many people also take vacation on weeks with a holiday on Monday and a Friday off. 3 days of vacation for a whole week off.
I've heard of 8/80 failing because 10 hours is just too much for one day. I've also heard of companies going to 9/80, but people scheduling meetings on the off Friday and if you have to be at the meeting you have to come in. It only works if it's a general company policy not to schedule anything on the off Friday unless absolutely necessary.
The only downside I've experienced with 9/80 is if you like to take long lunches or leave to do something in the middle of the day it could suck. This is where the flexibility comes in handy for making up time.
I've worked with people who did 4/40 work schedules, and said it was great.
I'm a big personal fan of the 4-day working week. An extra hour every day for an entire day off? I'd love the 9/80 option at my workplace!
Yeah, so you labor those 55 hours a week working hand-in-hand with idiot consultants earning twice as much money as you; all the while trying to meet that arbitrary deadline. So, what? You know that the Thank You email and the $10 bag of candy bars makes it totally worthwhile.
Honestly, *krinkle* those consultants *crunch* are so *chew,chew,chew* stupid.
I have no direct experience or knowledge, but I'd imagine...
My company works us on a 168/0 system.
Yes, that's 168 hours per week at work, the rest you get to sleep.
Ah crap, I just realized I'm working for less than minimum wage. I'll have to remember that in 18 months when it's time to negotiate a new contract!
This is your brain on a 7/100 work week.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
...but it pisses my wife off because I'm always late for dinner. On the whole, I'd say it's a (slight) plus because I spend a couple of hours a month less on commuting, which saves time, gas, and money.
:D
Yes, I've occasionally been called in on the "off" Friday, but it has not happened often enough to really piss me off (yet).
The comical aspect is our time reporting system. Since we do a lot of government contract work, we have to keep detailed time records. Furthermore, the time reporting system they've set up requires that we report at least 40 hours per *week* (including holiday/sick/vacation time). The way they've dealt with this is by decreeing that the end of the work week occurs at noon on Friday; so Friday afternoon of the "on" week has to be reported in the following week's time record. Explaining this to new employees is fun!
Agreed. Actually, lots of state agencies (in several states) and other companies have started offering this option recently to help employees save on fuel and transportation costs.
On the other hand, if you're commuting far enough for the cost savings to amount to anything, those four days that you do work are pretty much shot: 10 hour day, 2+ hour round trip, 8 hours sleep, that leaves you with four hours to yourself each day.
I did 4/40 for years and loved it. The longer day allowed me to miss one rush-hour commute every single day, and one day every week to shop when traffic was light and stores were empty was nice. 20% less commuting. One more day to sleep in, though I rarely did.
Management respected it and my schedule was overruled only when there was something scheduled outside my workgroup that I had to attend, which happened infrequently.
I work in a unionized government job in Canada, under the SGEU. We negotiated every second Friday off into our contract. My work hours are 8:30 - 5:00 with one fifteen minute breaks and half an hour for lunch. My previous job did not have every second Friday off, but offered the same schedule except with an hour fifteen for lunch and two 15 minute breaks. That 1 hour a day adds up. I feel it does not affect my workload or performance and I get another full day off a week! I couldn't be happier.
I work this schedule now and it works great for me. We have a busy office, and I do work a lot of overtime too, but they dont hassle people about their Friday off. If you abuse it (ie: insist you get your day off when there is work to do), they would Im sure, but I havent seen it happen yet.
There's more to this than just personal convenience, which really hasn't been taken into account. 9/80, and other more extreme methods (like 12.5 hour days 3 times a week) are actually a fast way to decrease your performance on the job. Psychological studies have shown that extended hours, leading to reduced sleep, tend to have very adverse affects on attention span and reaction time. A very extreme example of this was acted out at a nuclear power facility, somewhere near (i.e. within blast radius of) New York. This happened during the early hours of the morning in the night shift. A cooling pipe had been plugged by a maintenance crew for cleaning, and they had forgotten to remove it. The monitoring crews noticed that this pipe had very little pressure in it. So, they decided that this could be remedied by shutting off all the other cooling pipes. Now, nobody there figured out that this might potentially not be the problem, and had it not been for the well rested daytime foreman who arrived during the shift change, who noticed this and immediately deduced that a blockage was to blame, well, the population of North America would be significantly smaller. I know that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data", but it's really necessary to take this kind of thing into consideration. It may sometimes be more convenient to have longer periods of free time, like an extend weekend, but really, making it up by adding more time to existing slots isn't always a realistic solution. That said of course, I've never done 9/80, so I can't really say how it affects your sleep cycle or job performance. Just please take caution when looking at this kind of thing.
I'm a software developer in Montreal and most companies here only require to work 37.5 hours/week. There are a few exceptions, some people are lucky and only need to work 35 hours/week and other less lucky people that need to work 40 hours/week. There are no jobs in montreal (aside from people working in hospitals) that require to work more than 40hours/week. Some people do work more than 40 hours but they are not paid for it and are not required to.
I prefer doing 7.5 hours every day and 5 days a week. I'm much more productive in those 7.5 hours. Working 9 hours a day doesn't work for me. I've done it a couple of times to catch up on some missing time for leaving early the day before and I ended up being very unproductive in the last 1.5 hour.
Disclaimer: This was on top of a 45 minute each way commute.
I found it killed my day. I still ahd to get there at 8am, but had to stay until 6pm. Every. Day. That extra hour makes a HUGE difference, at least to me. Even though my job had decently flexible hours on top the 9/80, there are limits to that. It changes the time you get home from evening to night.
The non-off fridays got out at 5pm instead of 6pm, and I felt so much better I couldn't even believe it. The off fridays were usually spent too exhausted from the week to do anything but sleep and catch up on errands.
YMMV. I'm usually someone who likes to work long periods of time without interruption, but this was absolutely miserable.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
It is also very important to take the time to eat your lunch away from your desk if possible to recharge you batteries and allow for proper digestion.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The only downside from my experience working that schedule is that there is very little productivity on the work Friday
I work a 10 hour day/ four day week and love my job. Four days on then 3 days off. It can't be beat. Weeks like Thanksgiving mean working Mon & Tuesday, then you are off until the following Monday using zero vacation time. Or, take Mon Tue as Vac and get 10 days off. "Enjoy what you do and you will never work another day in your life."
AMT?
I hate your definition of "working poor"
I think you are defining poor incorrectly by tying it to social services benefits rather than tying it to a fixed definition.
#define INCOME_LEVEL_NOT_POOR ((52 * 5 * 8) * LIVING_WAGE))
#define IS_POOR(INCOME) (INCOME) INCOME_LEVEL_NOT_POOR
FWIW, I also think that taxes should be defined like this:
#define TAXES MIN((INCOME - INCOME_LEVEL_NOT_POOR),0) * TAX_RATE
and I might even be willing to live with something along the lines of a welfare state:
#define GOVERNMENT_PAYOUT (TAXES ? 0 : (INCOME_LEVEL_NOT_POOR - INCOME))
If you want to fund social services or pay off your politicall cronies, do it on the record and allocate money out of the budget for it so we can all see what you're doing and hold you accountable, rather than trying to find ways to hide it in the tax code.
Thanks.
Oddly enough, in Australia there are certain scenarios where increasing your pay can make you earn less. The marginal rates work as described, but due to convoluted children's benefits and other concessions, there is a band of income, between low and medium, where you go backwards first. It affects students and low income parents the most, and is very frustrating.
I work the 9-80 schedule at a county government agency. I work an extra hour from 7-8 am, and it has improved my commute considerably. After adjusting to the slightly longer days, it isn't a big deal to get through it. The only issue I have is that I often have to adjust the day off to deal with important meetings or emergency responses. Not everyone in the agency works that schedule, so I get quite a bit done in the hour before everyone else shows up. The three-day weekends are great, and since you are only working a few extra hours each week, you don't get burned out. As for my employer, I am not sure what the benefit is to them. Because we have to have someone working to respond to the public from Monday through Friday, the office is actually open longer hours, so there is no savings on heat, lights etc. Considering that we are not officially open until 8, it doesn't provide a benefit to the community (the extra hours don't help them, and the number of employees is slightly reduced the rest of the week).
My friend works for Wells Fargo's ATM computer/mainframe division and use to have a 9/80 work schedule. Last spring in an effort to reduce costs and "get more value" out of their employees they let go of a couple of people from his department and then switched everyone back to a traditional 40 hour week. Thus everyone lost their every other friday off.
You have to drop them off at daycare in the morning and pick them up in the evening. Therefore, no 9 hour workdays, unless your company provides on-site daycare.
In all the firm I worked on there was some principle called "shifted time". You were supposed to work when you are needed naturally, but also with a lot of slack. The system allows you for example to work for the maximum allowed by law for a few days, then simply take the time off the next day, or even the day completely off. I know people which accumulate enough hours during normal time to have 10/12 week of holiday (instead of the 6 normal week). Me I did something cimilar to 80/9 , I worked ~10h a day during 4 days ,then took the last day off, or any combination allowing me a day off after 1 , 2 or 3 weeks. It LOOKS nice for a while, but after a long time of doing it, fatigue cumulate, and you see you easily are less productive working 4*10 rather than 5*8. Your brain function slowlier on the long term when you are tired. Nevertheless I like the system and would not want to lose it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
My supervisors work 9 nines. That's 81 hours every two weeks, and they're supposed to get every other friday off. The work more like 11-12 hours a day and my direct supervisor hasn't had one of those days off in 5 months. I would never work for a salary. I however get paid 1.5 hours for _every_ hour of overtime I work unless it's doubletime. Oh and the NRC actually regulates how much overtime each person can get. 16 in a 24, 24 in a 48 and 72 in a week. But that's all about to change. It's going to get alot tighter.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
But as an engineer, I worked at least 9 hour days anyway. For me it was like getting 26 extra days off a year. I use the Friday off to get shopping done at the nearly empty stores in the mornings.
"9/80" sounds like a buzzword. "8/80", more commonly known as "4 by 10", is almost certainly far more broadly adopted. I would guess that 5% of the people I know in the IT field (a total of maybe 50 out of 1000 people) work four ten-hour days per week, with a permanent three day weekend. Another 1% work esoteric schedules like 2*12+2*8, 3*12, or 3*13. I know zero people whose schedules alternate on a two-week period.
My old company had a similar system, but it was based on a 35 hour work week squeezed into 70 hours over 9 days. You could also choose the day you wanted to take off within reason. Excellent for those doctors/dentists appointments and errands that could only be done on a weekday. Particularly when you worked on a remotish site and there was no nearby shops, or you had to commute to the other side of the city to work but needed to do some weekday errands near home. It's a system I greatly miss. Don't miss much else abou thtat job though... Most construction sites in Australia have a 19 day month (1 day of every 4 weeks)
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
It would be even better if this wonderful work practice was on a boat, say a galley, yes! With a great big oiled up chap banging a drum. HEAVE! HEAVE YOU DOGS!
Indeed, if your income is adequate and you have a high marginal tax rate, it's quite attractive to trade some pay for extra vacation. Living in Europe, my average deduction rate is about 45% (I get 55%), but the marginal deduction rate is about 65% (I get 35%). The deductions include income taxes, social taxes, UI contributions, etc. I usually trade a few weeks of pay for extra vacation every year.
Due to the difference between average and marginal rates, each week of extra vacation costs me 0.636 average weeks of after tax pay (ratio is 0.35/0.55). That's a bargain, for those who can afford it. It may also help to explain to Americans why high taxes go hand-in-hand with long vacations in Europe.
Last year, I took 7 weeks of vacation in total (paid and unpaid), and still had a 6-digit pre-tax income.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I'm currently working in Madrid and I have the common work schedule in here: 8.5/40 which means I work 8.5h a day and I get Friday afternoon off. I really enjoy this method and the Friday afternoon off is always respected with very few exceptions...
it will probably flop.
as a self employed developer who runs his own small software shop, i can tell you that such shedules do not work out. there has been many periods in which we worked in cram sessions, overtime for long durations and took days off. doesnt work out. you cant let go of the cumulative stress and wear & tear easily.
moreover it further imbalances the individual's work rhytm. imagine youre working 9 days, 10 hours a day. and then imagine you are suddenly off for 3 days in the next 3. and then again 9.
it will be socially awkward too, you will lose step with the society. while people are resting all around the city, you will be working. and then occasionally while all people are working on a friday, you will be resting.
i assure you the work done while all the world is resting will not be as efficient, and the rest done while all world is working will not feel like a healthy rest.
Read radical news here
I have worked for a company that does 9/80 weeks for a while now, and I have to say it is a completely great way to go. For one thing an extra hour a day really isn't that big of a deal. In my old job, I'd usually get sucked into something at the end of the day that made me stick around the office for a few minutes to an hour after normal working hours (if not more) so working 9 hours instead of 8 doesn't feel that unnatural. But what does feel unnatural (and fantastic) is having a three day weekend every other week! If you are worried about not having time to get things done in your personal life, I wouldn't. I used to have a real problem scheduling doctors appointments and visiting shops that had odd hours and such during the week, but having a totally free day (while everyone else works) during the week, every other week, is actually incredibly convenient. Plus the Friday that you do work is a normal 8 hour day, which oddly enough ends up feeling like a half day for some weird psychological reason...
One caveat I will say, is that my company is pretty flexible on the start time that you work. Many people come in at 7 or 7:30 instead of the usual 8am and subsequently leave at 5 or 5:30 instead of 6pm. That kind of takes the edge off. I could see a company that expected you to work from say 9am to 7pm being kind of brutal. But overall I would NEVER voluntarily go back to a regular schedule again.
Hope this helps.
The best strategy when evaluating work regimes is always to ask yourself: "will this help me to eventually set up my own business?".
If you believe the extra Friday off will enable you to pursue a self-employed career, then do it. If not, then you need to find another solution that would enable you to set up as self-employed, or do it immediatelly if you can.
which is what he's on about.
For the last few hours you may be getting "paid" $3/hr rather than $10/hr. Would you work for $3/hr?
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Lets say I start at 9:00, if I take an hour lunch break I would need to stay until 19:00.
If you commute one hour each way, that means my time devoted to working would start with my commute at 8:00 and will be back home at 20:00
Now tell me, do you have a hobby? Do you want to go to the movies? To a concert? What about house chores?
All that inconvenience for 8 days just so I get a frigging Friday off? Are you serious?
I can hear already the "skip lunch hour" crowd. Well, I know people that have done that, now they have stomach ulcers or are anaemic. And that still would mean 11 hours devoted to work.
Most people nowadays devote already between 10 and 11 hours to work, so these schedule extends that one more hour for most days.
Now pray tell me, will your company at the very least respect your day off and your "shorter" 8 hour day? Or will it be a case of "hey, please be available just in case of an emergency".
No way. 40hours/week (ore less) is actually much more flexible and allows you to actually have a life after work.
It is very telling that so many here seem to like this, it seems like the stereotype of the geek with few social interests may be true after all.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
9/80 is sloppy. 9 x 9 = 81 is Square like the geeks we become at work.
n/t
I get to spend a whole day with my wife, Betty, while the kids are at school. Oh yeah, By the way.... I was working those 9 hour days anyway, now I just get another Friday off. Secondary bonus - At the end of the year you may find you have a few extra vacation days.
I've been working 9/80 for the better part of 8 years now. It's fantastic. We actually have the ability to do 9/80 or 5/40 and switch back and forth whenever we like. I tend to do 5/40 in January and February just so I can go home when it's light out, but other than that I do 9/80. Two day weekends are not at all satisfying compared to three day weekends. You're off on Friday and you can run errands to anywhere you like, because everything is open, and then you can lay around on Saturday and just when you're thinking "man I don't want to go back to work" you realize it's Saturday night and you don't have to! Last Summer I actually switched to the 4/40 and had every Friday off. I think I'll be doing that again this Summer. For me it's very much about getting to see the Sun when I leave work. In the Summer I can do a 10 hour day and still have a couple of hours of daylight when I get home.
I've been doing 8/80 for a while now, and I love it! I do 10 hour days MTRF, and I have my "week-mid" on Wednesday - it's amazing how much you can do on a Wed when everyone else is at work. My manager and co-workers tend to respect my day off, with the occasional call, or need to switch my day off to another day. (Sometimes, if there is a holiday during the week, I'll switch my day off to coincide, so I get 4-day weekends). I would think how much you'd get bugged when your off would depend on how much your manager/co-workers respect your personal time in general
Some benefits to this kind of schedule:
- Your longer hours mean you're there when other people are not, so fewer distractions, more productivity
- If parking is bad where you work, and your new schedule means getting there earlier, you may not have as much of a problem
You talk about your life. Dont let the disgusting dragon eat your soul.
Working seven hours in three days each week for some company is more than enough, if you want to see your partner / wife / children and if you want to live.
Everyone accepting work times like "80/9" or similar infamies, helps to prepare the road to even more abuse and exploitation of people.
it's like getting 26 extra days off a year. lockheed martin has been doing it for quite a while and it been really good, good way to get new talent in the door too.
in my dept they respect the day off and we dont get called in.
Girlfriend has a 4-10 work week (10-hour work days 4 days a week, with every Monday off). She loves it. Gets all of her appointments, errands, etc. done on Mondays. It takes the stress off of the entire week knowing that she has her Mondays to get things done. If at all possible, I am going to try to find a similar schedule.
We have strong labour laws where I'm working. I'm a doctor at a medium-sized hospital in a city. This is one of the busier hospitals in the country. Our work weeks vary, but the law says a working week is 37.5 hours a week. We often work more than that, but our schedule is made so that the six of us who work together rotate. We each get a week of compensatory time off every sixth week. This means that the number of hours we work averages out to 37.5 a week during a six week period. Every hour of overtime we work beyond what we're required by the schedule, we either get paid 1.5x our hourly wage, or we can choose to take that time off later. If someone calls in sick, and one of us takes that shift, we get paid double our hourly wage. Our night shifts are 19 hours at a time, so that adds up to a lot of money if someone is sick. We all work a lot and we work overtime because the hospital is so busy, so we all get sick, and the cycle continues. I, personally, do not take many extra shifts because I don't like to be sick. Getting a headache after so many hours on the job, or getting a cold or worse isn't worth the extra money to me. Plus, the government taxes us 50% of our overtime earnings. Since I'm American, I'll never get used to that. I don't use the social services here, many of which are great, but there are just as many I don't agree with. So I prefer not to work extra shifts and give the government 50% of what I earn in tax. Furthermore, we each get 14 days of sick leave a year. The best part is that there's no pressure on you when you're sick. No one asks you about the reasons, gets suspicious, treats you differently, and it's illegal to do so. You get to stay home and recover, the way it should be. Short-term or long-term disability is possible after those 14 days are used up, and you will get paid 100% of your salary. We also each get 5 weeks of paid leave a year, on top of our weeks of compensatory time off. You can imagine how much this costs the state, as they have to employ additional people during the times that we're sick or take off, or pay our colleagues more. I left a life of only work in the States and I've never been happier since doing that. I'll never go back to work in the US, no matter how much doctors there earn.
I developed schizoaffective disorder from all of the stress and got fired for being sick on the job.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I have never heard it called that before, but here they call it an Alternative Work Schedule (AWS). Not everyone (particularly managers) can take it due to the nature of what they do, but it works out well for those of us who can.
So we work 9 hour days Monday-Thursday, and then eight hours every other Friday. Our team is split pretty evenly between people that work the first and last friday, and one or two work only 4 hours on Friday.
Given that we live in a rural area and its difficult to get to 'civilization' for shopping or other events, this has really improved the quality of our life as a family. I for one like it, but I'll admit it isn't for everyone.
We have a 9/80 work week, and it's *GREAT* 3 day weekends every other week make up for any sort of inconvenience of getting there a half an hour earlier, and leaving half an hour later.
Another side benifit is, when extra work DOES need to be done, it's very easy to simply work the extra friday.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
This is an hours-of-work labour violation by the employer in my jurisdiction (Ontario). I would be surprised if it is not illegal in most jurisdictions.
I work at a place where we have a choice between 9/80 and 8/40. Almost everyone here does 9/80, but having tried it for awhile, it just does not work for me. I'm typically very busy after work (I have two large dogs that need exercise, and I work out myself, plus a few other hobbies take up the rest of my time). The extra hour/day is much more important to me than a day off every two weeks (I tended to sleep until noon on that day off anyway, due to the exhaustion of trying to get everything done around my 9 hour day the rest of the week). A lot of people here are claiming that they "never missed" that extra hour per day, but I think it's important to realize that it's personal preference. If you take part in a lot of daily activities, that extra hour a day may be more valuable to you than the day off every two weeks.
I used to work 3 12s and a 4, that was nice. But I agree, 12 hours of the same thing in one day would get very numbing. My role changed throughout the day so that helped.
The only bad thing was that my 4 was on Monday, the 12s were W-F, but I could usually get Monday off and have a nice 4 day weekend (then nothing but workeatsleep for three and a half days.)
I agree, one needs to be careful with salary. I'm salary now, and it's not huge, but it's pretty good, and while I am required to work "overtime" some, it's also pretty flexible with longer lunch hours or being able to do real-life things in the middle of the day, so it balances out. I do hear coworkers saying "I'm on email all night and all weekend" every weekend and whatnot; which to me is a big sign of something very wrong--either they have let the company/boss take advantage of them and can't make it stop, or their workload really needs to be reallocated. Or they have no life and this is voluntary, which is fine.
We do it here. I'm currently working a 4-10s schedule, and I like it better. Sure, the days are longer, but I have every Friday off. It's nice in the summer time because I can go camping on a Thursday after work with the family, spend all day Friday hiking and fishing, and leave Saturday afternoon when it's starting to get crowded. Then I still have Sunday to rest. It's perfect.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
I say work 6 hour days instead, no overtime, no crisis, no nothing. Plan ahead and plan well, update your plans every week. If I work 6 hours, the next day I will be fully functioning and I will be very effective. Working 10+ hours will make me very ineffective and more mistakes will be made, less constructive solutions will be taken, and the quality of the code will be worse. High quality code is the key here, and it can't be created by tired, overworked, and worn out people. You can't keep up the intensity nor concentration if you don't get enough time away from it for personal stuff and sleep (not being able to get your personal stuff done / spend time with your friends and family will stress you out!).
Btw, my quick definition of quality code:
* Easily readable by everyone working with it
* Documented (not the same as commented)
* Unit tested fully before it is checked in and passing 100%, every time, all the time
* 100% of all tests always passing on your "main line" so your software is always in shipping condition
* Refactored and redesign on a continous basis to make sure adding to and changing the code is as painless as possible
And you will not get that from stressing the shit out of people!
(If in the zone, a 12h shift can be very effective, anyone doing so should get the next day off to rest up)
You would love working with an Israeli offsite team. Israel has Fri-Sat as the weekend and Sunday is a working day. Now when we worked with them we had Sat-Sun as our weekend so on Fridays we had no teleconferences or simple phone calls interrupting us and we got a lot done and when the Israelis started working on Sunday they would send off a bunch of emails with questions but as we didnt look at them till Monday half of them were already solved(as in on second thought that already makes sense) and did not even need responses to. One Monday morning I actually had more recall requests waiting then actual messages :)
**Life is too short to be serious**
haha i work like 10-15 hours a week :P charge around 40-80 an hour depending on my customer's circumstances - if you have more, pay more :D
average out at like 600 in pocket per week enough for me!! and all the free time in the world. just got back from bondi beach (it pays to own your own business, btw im 21
i dont get why people need so much extra money? life is for living!
I had a 9/80 schedule for two summers, and I greatly enjoyed it. To me, once I get to 10 hours @ work per day, my productivity drops, so the 4/10 schedule could get a bit tiring. The 9/80 schedule is a great balance in providing every other Friday off. Plus, on the Fridays that I did work, the office was quieter, since others had the day off, so I was more productive. I'd imagine that the boss/environment would affect how successful such a schedule is, but I loved it, personally.
I love my 9/80 schedule, and my company has been doing it for longer than I've been here (and I hired on in 1999). I work at a company that has a history of discouraging 'casual' overtime (we get paid for OT! We just need eight hours of it first. It's better than nothing.), so unless something has really gone veryvery bad, we're not coming in on that Friday.
Everyone knows which Fridays are 9/80 ones, so typically very few meetings get scheduled on them.
I find it's great for getting things done, particularly for scheduling doctor appointments.
The 9/80 work schedule is a scam. Youâ(TM)ll have worked the 80 hours, but on Friday there will be a big meeting and youâ(TM)ll need to work. The next off Friday some important maintenance task will come up and youâ(TM)ll need to work. After that there will be a client interaction and youâ(TM)ll need to work. Your company will not pay you overtime for any of these extra Fridays because youâ(TM)re a salaried professional.
Itâ(TM)s a trap!
I dont know anyone who isnt FORCED to work over 80 hours over two weeks - without pay.. What are you talking about?
We tried it over the summer. I loved it so much that I begged my boss to let me continue on. What we did while everyone was doing it was have people familiar with a project alternate fridays so if the customer needed something it looked like there was someone knowledgable here all the time. The only difficult parts are making up time missed. Holidays cost you an hour of vacation if your company does 8hr(normal workday) holidays.
At a very large defense contractor we had 9/80s. I'm not a huge fan of them. Now, at the aviation and electronics company I'm at, we have regular 5/40s with an unofficial hour of flex time. I live about 30 miles away (all highway driving though) so after a 30-35 minute drive, I get to work around 7:00-7:30am and leave 4:00-5:00pm. I've only had to work late a couple times, the rest of the time I can just go home at the end of the day, no questions asked. If we are planning something that is going to run late and should be checked on, I can take my laptop home and VPN in, although that is a rare instance. Its the least stressful job I've ever had. We even get to carry over up to 14 weeks of vacation time from year to year. We get a staggering amount of job applications as we're also the most profitable company in the metro area.
http://www.yutiti.com will help you out with that.
Our Director does honor the Fridays off. The Friday is nice to play or get things done. We still have time to get things done during the week. If there is a "crisis on somebodys part" and we have (or choose) to work on the Friday I get paid the hours for it.
We do this at my company and it works out great. We do it dept by dept though with the manager having say on if/how it works. However, some of the departments don't do it as it gets harder to do the more people you have. Then half the staff is gone every Friday. Also, some of the hourly people get miffed because they can't do it because if they work 45 hours in one week and 35 in the next then they have to get paid overtime for that first week and our company isn't willing to pay out that much overtime as over half the company is hourly. But for those of us who are salary it is a great benefit. I know, it's not fair to the hourly people, but life sometime sucks, right?!
My points exactly!
In Chile we work 45 hours/week... 80 hours in two weeks is actually less work for us, not squeezing anything.
You insensitive clod!
My work typically does a 40 hour work week in 5 days but does 9 hours M-Th then 4 hours on Friday.
Everyone appreciates getting out early on Friday to get a head start on the weekend, either for local travel, weekend home improvements or just playing a round of golf while everyone else is in the office. We do sometimes have urgent projects that need some people to stay but we try to compensate them in some way later.
I don't think taking a full work day off is workable as some things simply have to be done each day due to other companies schedules... so a half day works well as this type of phone call/paperwork can be done easily in a few hours.
We just don't plan on getting anything 'completed' on a Friday. it's always due on Monday EOD or Tues morning. This is a good policy anyways as it's hard to find people toward the end of a Friday regardless of whether they are supposed to be there or not.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
The energy sector in Canada (Calgary to be specific) has a number of companies that do this.
I have been working with every other Friday off and think it is great.
Pros
- On the short weeks your vacation used is only 4 days.
- The Fridays free up my Saturdays with my family because I can get stuff done that I normally would have done on the weekend.
- My company closes completely so there is never the possibility of working that day (unless you are on an on-call rotation and something at the datacenter dies).
- Long weekends are fantastic. Add that to another Monday holiday and you end up with a 4 day weekend or a 3 day week.
I personally like having the extra day off. I find myself better rested and more productive at home.
I work a 9/80 schedule right now. It's really good because:
1) You can schedule your vacations to coincide with your 9/80 Friday, so you don't need to take a vacation day that day.
2) You can schedule all sorts of doctor/dentist appointments for that day.
3) Gives you a day to catch up on doing stuff around the house.
4) It's super flexible, at least at my company. If I need to take a day off during the week for some reason I can just make it up on the 9/80 Friday I would usually have off. Or if I need to leave early for a few days out of the week, I can just come in on that Friday and make up the time.
5) I have never been pulled into work on that Friday, unless it was by my own decision.
6) On the Fridays that are not 9/80, it's exciting because you can leave an hour early!
7) I still have time to do whatever. Yesterday I went to the gym and out to dinner.
I'd rather them give us mondays off, especially since Fridays are usually the slowest days in the support department anyway. God knows, EVERYONE hates a Monday.
"Do you find time to get personal stuff done during the week? Is Friday good for anything other than catching up on lost sleep? "
Buddy. If the addition of less than one hour of extra work per day is causing you to lose any amount of sleep or not have time to do chores, you are doing something wrong. Sleep = 7 hours (if you sleep more than this you are in fact using your leisure time to sleep). Your work now = 9 hours, let's say, although it isn't quite 9. That's 16. Where are the other 8 hours in which you neither sleep nor work? Is that not enough? Take a time management class maybe?
We work an 8-7 Monday and Wednesday for one half of the staff. Tuesdays and Thursdays for the other half of the staff. Every other Friday you get off. This works well because then its only 2 days a week for a couple of extra hours to make up those 8. We work on a commission basis so a lot of people are still on their day off but it gives them free time to work on what they want.
FTW. I don't work there anymore, but it was pretty sweet while it lasted. The Thursday before every off Friday is "Virtual Friday," and the Fridays you do work you get off at 4:30, and it's payday.
I love the 9/80 schedule that my employer has. The off Friday is really useful to get all those business hour things done that normally you'd need to take time off for, like having a repairman come or doctor's visits. And one less commute per two weeks is also great. Officially, my employer oddly does not allow flex time so everyone is supposed to work the same set hours, but I have never seen this enforced at all.
The extra hour per day makes for a longer day (so you have to go in earlier or stay at work later), and if you have an unproductive day for some reason, more time is wasted. I see my kids a bit less in the evening because of this, which is one big downside.
Coming here, I was skeptical that the "off friday" would really be a day off, and if I'd be expected to regularly work that day. But it is treated as a day off, and most people do not work it. On a crunch effort, people might work it, but that's rare, not "mandatory", and usually paid overtime would be available for that. And even if paid OT isn't available and you want to work a Friday, unpaid overtime is credited against any absent/sick time you take off.
In my place of work we have some labor board variances that allowed me to work flexible hours. A couple of years back I was working 4 days per week at 10hours per day excluding lunch break. This allowed me to have every Friday off. During the summer months, I was able to head out to go camping a full day earlier than most and get prime camping spots.
I would rather go back to the 4 day week even now. So given an option to cram 80 work hours into less days in a two week period, I would jump at the idea given 10 hour days, if the solution was more than 10 hours per day I would still entertain the idea because of the extra full days off that would occur.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
I work on a long-term government contract, out-of-town. The 9/80 gives me an extra day for travel home, and not being home during the week means I don't miss any family time. We do a split-shift, so a co-worker covers for me on my friday off, and since we only support internal folks who are also working 9/80, fridays tend to be really light anyway. I'd gladly work a 4/10, but haven't been able to convince anyone. I do get to be pretty flexible on when I work (I bill straight hourly - it just costs me billable time to not work).
I love the fridays off that I end up staying out of town - it's like having an entire extra day free to do whatever.
I've been doing 9/80's for ten years in the IT department here at the rocket ranch. This schedule is the best schedule I've ever worked in the 30+ years I've been a wage slave, and I've worked a lot of schedules -- split shift, rotating, days, swings, mids - you name it, I've probably worked it. The number one benefit for me is the three-day weekend that 9/80 generates every other week. With some judicious use of vacation time, I can take a lot of on-Fridays off as well, so that I can have even more three-day weekends, or the occasional four-day weekend by taking a vacation day on the Thursday preceding an off-Friday, or on the Monday following one. 9/80s make taking frequent mini-vacations feasible, which definitely keeps my morale high.
On a related note, working in IT means sometimes being available 24/7, but that goes with the territory. I don't think I'm being abused by management when they require me to be available on my off-Friday. As long as the compensation I receive from the company in return for being available is commensurate with the inconvenience of being on call, I have no problem with it. It is in my best interest, and the company's, to try to make sure that my services aren't needed on that off-Friday. The key here, as I see it, is that when I am on call, I get paid the same whether or not I get called in, and as long as that policy remains, I will remain with the company. I've worked on-call for companies that compensated me only if I actually was called in. My employer makes no distinction between being on call and actually being at work, when it comes to compensation. Recognizing that there is an opportunity cost for an employee on call is very important to me.
Honestly the 40 hour work week is just ridiculous. There used to be an idea that science and technology was there to remove the burden from man. This was shown with the 40 hour week but since then no progress has been made. Worse yet from a nuclear family perspective the work week has jumped from 40 to 80+. Society should move to two weekly shifts of 3/10 so that one parent can be home to watch their kids when they are young and so people can shop, take classes, and upkeep their property if they do not have kids or the kids are older (in school). Really! Why do we have this society where the majority work at the same time, shop at the same time, and go out at the same time. Its ridiculous.
While I understand that the tax bracket system is very widely misunderstood in this manner, please note that there are some edge cases where a small raise can make your WITHHOLDING amount larger than your raise. For example (looking at 2007 tables because it's what I've got handy) someone making $449 weekly has $52 withheld from their check, but someone making $450 weekly has $54 withheld. I believe it all works out on April 15 though.
Knowledge != Intelligence
A lot of simple minded posts against this 9/80 day concept. While I don't think any company should force this on it's employees, I like having 3 day weekends. So much that I work a 10hr per day schedule Mon-Thur.
The extra 2hrs more at work per day isn't really noticeable but the extended weekends are well worth it. In a way, with a 2day weekend, you only have 1 really care-free day which is Saturday, because on Sunday you know when you go to bed that day, it's Monday. With a 3 day weekend I have two days where I don't need to care when I go to bed or when I wake up. In a way it doubles my weekend enjoyment.
How much sleep does everyone really need? Maybe this should be an ask slashdot thing. People are amazed that I get 3-4 hours of sleep a night. One Saturday a month I sleep on and off till noon. But unless I take a sleeping pill I never get 7-8 straight hours of sleep. I sleep for 1-2 hours then wake up. stair at the ceiling for a bit. Then hopefully fall sleep again. There has got to be others who do not need this 6-8 hours of sleep every night.
I'd rather have the 4 day 10 (or 11 for lunch) hour shift and three day weekends all the time.
I work for a very large high technology company that has instituted a flex-time policy for about 10,000 people in California and Colorado. An employee may work traditional, 9/80, or 4/10 (4 ten hour days/week). Almost everyone from interns to senior management is on 9/80. The office is a ghost town on those "off-Fridays." I barely notice the extra hour per day and still have plenty of time for life outside of work. The three day weekends are priceless, whether you want to shop at the mall on an uncrowded day or go on a 3-day ski weekend. Even on the off-Fridays we're asked to work, management usually offers hour-for-hour vacation time reimbursement.
The downside of the 9/80 (besides the resentment of my friends at other tech companies) is that you often waste your off-Friday waiting for your wife, buddies, or whoever to get off work before you can leave for weekend trips. I often lament that the only other people with off-Fridays are my co-workers.
All the more reason to adopt the Fair Tax!
I work a 9/80 now, and have for the last 3 years. I love it, and my employer definitely respects the off Friday (the boss is generally off as well!). The biggest disadvantage I've found is that the off Friday isn't really a day off; it's when you do things that you'd otherwise take sick/personal/vacation time to do (Doctor visits, take the car to the shop, etc).
I have never had a M-F 9-5 job so I really dont know what it would feel like. Current schedule is either 3 13 hour shifts a week or 4 10hour shifts and it rotates where we have to work every other weekend. It sucks but it does have its upsides. It really sucks when were short a couple of operators and have to fill in working 5-13 hour shifts a week.
This Sig for rent.
While I don't work there, I have friends and acquaintances who do. Their 9/80 schedule is optional, not mandatory (though once they choose it they pretty much have to stick with it).
My friends seem to like the Friday off.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
So to spend time together, I flex time too. My employer is very flexible, and I can take a day off during the week and make it up on Saturday or work 10 hours a day for a 4 day work week. The 10 hours are rough, especially in the winter, until you get used to it.
I have been working this schedule for the past 7.5 years and love it. I work on a military base and almost all of the base staff works this schedule. On non working Fridays the place is a ghosttown. An advantage of this is that there are savings in utility bills with no one coming into work on the off Fridays.
What's a Sig???
I ditched the IT world after cashing out in dot.communism and joined the fire department as well. We work a killer schedule. Every other day for a week (4 x 24 hour shifts) then four days off, then another round of every other day for a week (another 4 x 24 hours) and then six days off. So we basically get a four day weekend and a week+ off every 28 days. AND we're allowed to freely trade amongst our ranks, so a guy that works opposite me at the same station and I have a deal where we trade one day each month, turning our six day into an eight day (and having to work one 72 hour shift).
I can take four shifts of vacation and have 17 days off. We get 14 shifts a year combined vacation/sick time. Take 10 shifts off and I get 30 days. I spent an entire month in Australia last year, and still had vacation time left from the yearly allotment.
The funny thing is, that when I left my consulting job (which I can still work during my off days), they all thought I was nuts. Now that the economy is in the crapper, they're all looking at my steady income and retirement package with covetous eyes. I'll retire at 57 with 90% of my highest years pay (assuming there is still a government in 20 years).
All this and I get to ride around in big red. And for those of you thinking it's too late, I got hired on at age 32. A guy in my training class was 36. Just put down that jelly donut and see the light!
Our whole work site is run on a 9/80 work schedule..
It works out great and you end up with a couple 4 day weekends around the holidays.
We typically work 7am-4:30pm with 4 9's and an 8 on the full work then 4 9's on the off week.
Christmas fell on the Friday off this year so we only had to work 2 days that week (2 paid days for Christmas, Christmas eve here)
On the down side we had to work 10 hours for each of those 2 days. ( 2 - 8 hr holiday pay plus 4 hr rollover from last week left 20 hours to cover for the 40 hour week) Most people just burned a couple vacation hours and worked a 9 hour days.
As for off day coverage.. We have a group who works the opposite schedule taking the other Friday off so we have coverage on the off weeks.
My dad took a different twist on the schedule..
4 9's and a 4 hour Friday every week.He figured all he did on the full day off was sleep in so half the day was wasted anyway.. Be having to get up and work a half day he could enjoy his afternoon off every week.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
I used to work a 9-9's work week and I loved it. I was able to get all
of my normal errands done, mow the lawn, etc. on my off friday, leaving
my Saturdays for fun.
Now I'm working for a company with a standard 5-8 schedule and it seems
like my Saturdays are wasted doing chores and errands.
1. Generally, your managers always try to convince you to move your personal appointments to the off friday and start enforcing leave/sick leave/PTO if you don't. 2. IT workers usually have to do all their disruptive stuff on the off friday in return for future comp time that never materializes or ends up looking more like 5x8 anyway. Despite that, the occasional long weekend where you can get away to someplace on a friday that is usually way crowded on the weekends makes it worth it.
9/80 will burn you out! You work to live not live to work!
My company (the one I work for :) ) has been working 9-80s for about 2 years now. The first year we had the option of which friday to have off. One Friday you'd have off, and the next half of the people would be in. The second year everyone was on the same schedule. There were very few (if any) meetings on the working Friday as the culture seems to be one that if you have a meeting it must recur weekly (as opposed to bi-weekly).
The largest impact that 9-80 has had on me is that it made me realize that the work schedule is fairly flexible. Last year I would intentionally work my 9-80 off days, bank that time, then apply that time towards taking a week off. As long as I have the required time in the system during a particular accounting month I'm OK. I would typically take my vacations during long accounting months (July has 5 weeks on our system). By working 9 hr days I'm able to build up 5 excess hours a week (or 20 hrs during 4 of the 5 weeks) and apply that time toward my vacation on the fifth week. A weeks worth of time off may cost me 20 hrs of vacation (less if there is a holiday). Last year I was able to stretch 3 weeks of vacation into 5+ weeks of time off.
This year I'm going push the envelope a little further. Assuming you can bank 5 hrs of working time every week by working 9 hr days, and you can carry hours from accounting month to accounting month, you can theoretically take one week off for every 9 calendar weeks without dipping into any of your vacation.
I work at the US Environmental Protection Agency, and we have various flexible schedules open to us. I use the most common, the 9/80 with alternate Fridays off, and it works fine for me. It's very nice to be able to be home during the week for, say, a visit from the plumber, or to arrange for an appliance to be delivered and installed. It's especially good because it's optional. Others in my office, especially those with small children or difficult commutes, don't necessarily appreciate such a long day and so don't use the option, but I live in DC proper and it takes me under 45 minutes to get to and from work on public transit. An additional plus is that I can switch my day off on an ad hoc basis by advance request. It doesn't have to be a Friday, either; some of us have Monday off, and I know someone who chose Wednesday (why, I don't know).
I did 9/80 for awhile a few years ago when my employer offered it. At the time, my kids were younger and I ended up only seeing them an hour or less every work day. Even though I made up the clock time on the off Friday, I still felt I was missing too much of their lives by rarely seeing them for 9 days out of 14.
Probably be different now that they're older and awake so much more of the day, but haven't tried it again.
Thats just the truth. I work 40 hours a week and go to college and I would gladly decrease an hour of work every day if I could. And I have a good job in my opinion. Definitely not tack another hour while making my personal time after work shorter during 4 straight days. People should be done at 3:00 PM... I think we would live healthier lives that way. Also considering all the time wasted while at work I can definitely see accomplishing everything that needs to be done within that time period.
As a long term contractor, I always suggest the 7/12 paradigm.
7 days, 12 hours per day is about 105 hours of billable time. Work a week, take 2 weeks off.
Getting over time on its own is a pain in the ass these days... takes the fun out of contracting.
Works terrific for us.
We work(ed) a 35-hour week; that is (was) 7 hours per day.
By adding 45 minutes per day (not much, I can assure you), the 9 x .75 works out to 6.75 hours; the employer kicks in the extra 15 minutes for the day off. This is known in our culture as a "compressed" day, or "CD".
This gives everyone a "9-day fortnight", with a tenth day off - usually Monday or Friday, but could be any day.
I can say it is one of the main reasons I work here. This is a unionized shop (although I am an "exempt" employee), so that explains the 35-hour week.
I take Fridays, to hit the ski slopes a day before the maddening crowds.
Life is sweet!
Only downside is that the wife tries to "program" my compressed days.
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
Factory work, specifically assembly, is very prone to an actual loss of work output with excessive hours. When you're working with a thousand dollars of parts, and a simple mistake can make them into ten dollars of scrap metal, making sure your workforce works as many hours as they can before their error rate begins to spike is crucial.
Some would argue that, in the information age, it's easier to correct the mistakes that overwork & undersleep will lead you to. I'm not entirely sure this is correct... while fixing the extra '$' or misplaced ')' is an amazingly trivial task, finding it can be challenging.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I think the point is more that if you're working at the kind of place where it's "up or out" and 80-hour weeks, you've probably made a bad decision somewhere along the line. If you WANT to work in that environment with those kinds of hours, you should probably see a shrink.
Nearly every entrepreneur, doctor, investment banker, and more than a few young lawyers work those kind of hours. Some endeavors require that sort of time commitment. Not a life for everyone to be sure and you may be right with your "see a shrink" comment but that's what it takes sometimes. It's not wrong though it might be a bit pathological.
I'm married to a physician and I generally tell people who are considering her profession that if you can imagine your self doing anything else you probably should do the something else. It has to be a calling because it is too hard otherwise. You'll basically give up a decade of your life just for training, work most holidays, work long and irregular hours, and miss a lot of "normal" life. The pay might be decent down the road but if helping people isn't something deep in your soul you'll probably burn out. Fortunately there seems to be enough people with that kind of commitment.
Where I work 9-9-9-9-9 as the standard, and if I'm lucky I don't have to come in on the weekend, and if I'm really lucky I don't have to stay after the 9. which sucks during winter, its dark outside when I got in, and its dark outside when I go home, add in 30-60 mins for the going to and from work, and its closer to 10hrs to 11hrs (Winter traffic sucks) of your day gone. (Not counting remoting in from home, and crackberry time) Anything like Doctor Appointments and such that have to be scheduled usually end up having to become a PTO day. During the Summer they offer Flex Days, (They give they give us like 2 or 3) If we use one of them we only have to work for 10hrs a day for two weeks to get that 1 Friday off. And if its release time all bets are off, 116hrs is not unheard of.
We had this when I worked at an Air Force lab over 10 years ago. Our system was very flexible for which day off people took. I actually took alternate Tuesdays which was great for appointments. I think it was much less stressful than a 4/40 schedule.
If someone needs to work 80 hours a week on average then I would say that their life doesn't have much quality to begin with. Unless by "maintain our quality of living" you mean "paying off the luxury goods and services you've purchased". But then again, as your work load stops you from benefiting from them, I seriously doubt that they do much good.
Materialism and all that keeping up with the joneses is a bitch, isn't it?
It's not 80 hours a week! It is an average of 40 hours a week. It is called a 9/80 because you work 80 hours over 9 work days and get the 10th day off.
I have been on a 9/80 schedule for years and love it! The friday I work we work 8 hours so it is not bad on Friday and having every other friday off is great.
I want to go up to a 4/10 schedule now but no one else will go for it.
I have no problem doing stuff after work either since my schedule is 5:30-3:30.
My company has a 9/80 work schedule and it works for the administrative and some of the design people. It's a lot more hit or miss for anyone associated with production, I'd guess only about 30% of them consistently work to that schedule.
The engineer in me says "over" for the oh-so-obvious reasons.
The cat owner in me says "under", else the cats quickly find the "over" roll and unroll it all straight onto the floor!
Why not 8/80? I'd rather work 4 10 hour days myself. Have 3 day weekends, or 6 full days off at a shot. ;)
Use the disambiguation page, you insensitive clod!
Clarus the Dogcow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I've worked a schedule that fits those parameters for years and it's WONDERFUL. Three-day weekends every other weekend... Make that a four-day when there's a holiday Monday. We work 9 hours M-Th, then 8 on alternate Fridays. Total 80 hrs every two weeks, no time and a half for the 44 hr week, but who cares? Mark up a calendar with alternate Fridays off. Worked four 10s and 12s also and I'd take those above 9/80, unless, and it's a big unless, you have a long commute. If you're working 12s and commuting an hour each way, your life on work days is GONE.
We're not complaining about the long hours, we're bragging! It's a whose-penis-is-bigger contest. You can't win if you refuse to participate.
I piss off bigots.
I have a little data that suggests there is a relationship between being required to "list your extra contributions" and your company working you to death for 80 hours then giving you shit if you don't work fridays too. If your boss isn't looking over you shoulder or asking you to justify your existence at the company you have a good change of relaxing long enough to do another 80 hour stretch.
On a more serious note. If you get paid weekly, won't you miss going to the clubs every friday night?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I hate to bring human biorhythms into this, but we are made to work not more then 6 days, and rest on the 7th, except if you are a farmer with animals to tend. For the common religions (Christianity, Muslim, Jewish) one day has to be reserved for a Rest. I could accept 4*10 or 3*13 (with a free 1 hour). But not 9 consecutive days on the job.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I've been working for a company for 5 years with the 9/80 schedule. We work 8 hours every other Friday and then have the alternate Friday off. I really like it for the extra day to get errands done or take a long weekend out of town.
I don't think I could go back to working 5 days a week every week!
My wife has been doing it for years at the World Bank. She really loves it. No managers ever force her the work the extra day, which she uses for errands & personal stuff, and anyway extra work means overtime at her level. Of course the WB is non-profit, so there is little incentive for manager abuse, and a strong culture against it.
argh...take that extra ' out of your sig please, it burns me
Its use is completely correct when it's a contraction.
Hey, apostrophes aren't evil, they're just typed that way (even if some people do seem to think it means, "Look out! An 's' is coming!")
In Soviet Russia a beowulf cluster of these things imagines you welcoming your new, neural-network overlords.
As an hourly employee of a major defense contractor, we're barred by a fucked-up union contract; thus we're on 5/40 - probably forever.
My salaried co-workers are on 9/80, and they all love it. It's been with the company for several years; I see no reason for management to change. For them, 5/40 is available, and a small percentage of the population avails themselves to that schedule.
Roughly 90% are on the preferred "A" schedule; the remaining 10% are on the "B" schedule, there to support us hourly heathen.
depends on how you look at it i guess ... do you want to spend 80 hours working for stuff that you don't need or would you rather have more free time to pursue self-enlightenment? i'd go for making myself better (that way i can maybe do in 40 hours what someone else can do in 80) then again, intellectual integrity prescribes that this is a personal choice. So no flaming me or anyone else please, just remember that the company is not your life (if you're american or japanese that might be a problem though) ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
That's the first major question!
What about Saturdays? The kids need their parents for a day.
I worked 4/10's. This gave a personal day off to pursue personal interests like hobbies, self-employment, make-up days, or "overtime."
Don't you think...? Or don't you?
... and loved it. There were several really great benefits in my opinion. First, my company tried hard to match up the off Fridays with holidays so many times we were actually given 4 day weekends. Second, they always respected the off Friday. However, when I was working full time and going to school full time, I was permitted to come in on those Fridays to make up whatever time I needed -- knowing I didn't have to put in a super long day or come in on the weekend was also helpful while I was killing myself with my schedule otherwise. Third, it motivated me to actually schedule a vacation knowing I was using fewer work days when I scheduled them for weeks that contained off Fridays. And finally, considering mundane errands are a big hassle and boring anyway, off Friday became a great time to schedule them all and not have to worry about weekend business hours or about burdening an entire weekend with car appointments, dry cleaners, and all that crap. Plus, I'm a skier and I certainly enjoyed being able to ski a weekday and avoid the horror that is Saturday and Sunday on most mountains... I don't have a family but, of my coworkers that did, ALL of them appreciated the time they could spend at home on those Fridays at home. I work a normal 5 day, 9-5 schedule now and I really miss the 9/80. It was, in my opinion, one of the best things about my previous job.
I was a consultant at the Texaco refinery in Wilmington, California (near Long Beach) in the late 80's, and the Los Angeles "Air Quality Management District" folks mandated that they decrease the average number of cars going in and out of the main gate per month in an effort to improve the air quality in the LA basin. Not sure how that would have compared to, say, decreasing the smoke-stack emissions at the refinery, but I'll leave that for YASP. (Yet Another Slashdot Post) Anyway, their creative solution was to request everyone at the refinery, office staff as well as the operations guys, to work "nine nines" and they'd get every other friday off. This ended up working extremely well for everyone that did it, and it did not seem to have any negative impacts at the refinery, so... I'd say it was a success 20 years ago. I have no idea if they are still doing that. I guess if they had gotten everyone in LA to adopt this plan it would have reduced smog caused by car emissions by roughly 10%. I never heard of anybody else doing this, and we now know that smog caused by cars is a much smaller percentage than was once thought, so how much did this help the smog situation? I'd say it was bureaucrats wanting to look like they were doing something about a problem.
Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.
I used to work 4/10s, starting at 4AM - so with an hour lunch, I ended the day at 3PM. It was nice, because I had early afternoons off every day. It was also nice having a three-day weekend every week.
The roughest part for me was the fact that I had to get up before 10AM.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I had that schedule for about four years and found it invaluable. Once you've been at work for 8 hours, does 1 more really mean that much to you? As much as 26 additional (albeit inflexibly scheduled) days off per year? I have changed jobs (thanks Bush!) and no longer have the 9/80 schedule as an option. The three day weekends are great - I took a lot of short trips with my kid on those weekends.
Sure, once in a while we had to come in on an "off" Friday, but usually were able to scoot another day around to make up for it. It rocks. I miss it. Enjoy it.
I prefer to keep my marriage and family intact and not so my company can exploit me and get a 2 -1 in keeping costs down.
9/80 is 11 hours a day and this assumes no days off. Now you get only every other friday off??
This kind of reminds me of the movie Little SHop of Horrors where Seamore claims he gets every other Sunday off as a joke.
All the studies show that after 50 hours a week productivity goes down and at 60 a week you get negative return. SO how much time do the programmers now have to do to correct the mistakes they made during their last 13 hour day? Yeah real productive use of time there, not to mention the senior level developers will probably jump ship if this is considered the norm leaving the least producitive workers.
Go get some balls guys and tell management to screw themselves. Do you see any other department putting in those hours? Are you appreciated at all?
http://saveie6.com/
... and make patent reform and drugs and medical equipment. If you really want we should lower the standards of becoming a doctor or nurse to increase the supply which would lower their demand.
Problem sovled. ...oh wait that is socialism. Sigh.
Some businesses are in favor of universal health care for this reason. They can save a bundle but many employees who have true ppo (not hmos) will throw a fit and vote people out of office!
http://saveie6.com/
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