Slashdot Mirror
Bring Back the 40-Hour Work Week
Barbara, not Barbie writes with this quote from an article at AlterNet about how the average work week is becoming longer, and why that's not a good thing:
"... overtime is only effective over very short sprints. This is because (as Sidney Chapman showed in 1909) daily productivity starts falling off in the second week, and declines rapidly with every successive week as burnout sets in. Without adequate rest, recreation, nutrition, and time off to just be, people get dull and stupid. They can't focus. They spend more time answering e-mail and goofing off than they do working. They make mistakes that they'd never make if they were rested; and fixing those mistakes takes longer because they're fried. Robinson writes that he's seen overworked software teams descend into a negative-progress mode, where they are actually losing ground week over week because they're so mentally exhausted that they're making more errors than they can fix. For every four Americans working a 50-hour week, every week, there's one American who should have a full-time job, but doesn't. Our rampant unemployment problem would vanish overnight if we simply worked the way we're supposed to by law. We will not turn this situation around until we do what our 19th-century ancestors did: confront our bosses, present them with the data, and make them understand that what they are doing amounts to employee abuse — and that abuse is based on assumptions that are directly costing them untold potential profits."
Less work! Let's adopt the Greek model! 30-hour weeks and 50-yr-old retirements!
I swear, all you Slashdotters had better start learning Mandarin with this attitude.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
1. It costs more to have two employees who work 40 hours each than one who works 80 hours.
2. The public has been convinced that it is more important to protect consumers by lowering prices than it is to protect workers by hiring more people.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Mandatory overtime for like the last 3 years - it was fun until they stopped paying for any overtime. Only way I escaped was to work remote to pursue an MBA. And now what do I have to look forward to? Management Consulting or Investment Banking careers that have 60+ hour weeks as the norm.
Please... Don't listen to this drivel. I have kids and an angry wife at home. I want to be at work 80 hours a week.
We can whine all we want about the 40 hour work week, but no one is willing to unionize in order to get back to it. Can you imagine a white collar middle-management union? People would rather put in 80 hours as an "assistant manager" at McBurger Queen rather than be classified in their own minds as a worker.
As for IT, goodness no. It would require a reshaping of the laws that have been created. There are many laws in place that keep IT workers down. The luddites couldn't dare have an intellectual revolution on their plates, after all.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Until we have a health care system that is not tied to employment, this will never happen. It is MUCH cheaper for an employer to squeeze more hours out of several workers than to higher an additional worker.
The argument in the summary should have stopped at using the argument based on productivity. If your worker will make less mistakes and be more productive by working less, you want your worker to work about 40 hours.
"For every four Americans working a 50-hour week, every week, there's one American who should have a full-time job, but doesn't."
This, however, doesn't follow. If a 40 hour a week worker is more productive I might not need the extra worker if I'm getting more from my team. However, that may mean I can put my capital to better use in a different area, not necessarily software development.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
we will let the market decide what the proper work week is for our workers. it solves all that ails. workers who cannot keep up will die and be replaced by those who can.
three comments and I am forever at terrible karma
France made the work week 35 hours long, with the expected (advertised ?) benefit of creating jobs.
People just have more free time, but do in 35h what they did in 39 before. Often meaning less coffee breaks, etc. But overall, employment did not move a bit.
But this is also a particular situation, and not simply transferable to other countries/economies as the cost for employers in France is much higher in France than it is in the US, I think, and the Work Law (and all social benefits that came in in periods of economic growth) is probably hindering the process of reducing unemployment.
This facile analysis falls for the trap, so brilliantly outlined in The Mythical Man-Month , that throwing more people at the same software problem will result in increased productivity. Because of networking and communication problems, the reverse is often true. While I don't doubt the problems of overtime are a serious issue (and should be minimized), the reality also is that his "cure" isn't. It continues to amaze me how people know so little of our own history in this realm.
Come down here and talk to my boss, he thinks that working 12 hours shifts, 4 days on 4 days off and rotating between 07:00-19:00 two weeks days and then 19:00-07:00 two weeks nights will increase productivity!
You think they don't know? they know. They don't care.
Lets move away from an hour based work schedule to a task and accomplishment based work/pay system. Base salary and flexible hours. Penalties for work not completed or as a corrective measure. We don't measure lives in hours, why should our job's measure what we do for them in hours?
Mandating an "hours per week" for employee's is the problem, not the solution.
Careful what you say around me.. I will assume you mean it.
In European counties such as Denmark where on the whole the standard of living and quality of life are better than the US, people work less than we do. They have more time with their families enjoying life instead of killing themselves at the office. Americans are trained to feel like they have to overwork in order to get ahead, we should really strive towards following the European model.
I worked in IT since 1986 and I have never had any fixed hours or overtime. It has always been about performance - how much you do.
Fixating on one factor that affects productivity is stupid. Let people decided themselves. If someone can do more in 40 hours than in 80 hours - fine. Let him do it. If someone wants to work 80 hours, fine let him doing. Ask about project progress, not how many hours he was logged in or occupied the chair.
Unless you are talking about Chrysler shop in Detroit.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I don't expect many people would disagree with the assessment, except those pesky "people" called corporations. For many companies, their workforce is paid a flat salary and any concept of "overtime" doesn't mean more money paid out, let alone time and a half.
To hire an extra worker for those extra hours means spending more money, something that does not align with the capitalistic goal of earning as much as possible.
So you could hide out from your wife and get stupid with your friends.
rather than hiring new employees. Why incur the cost of more overhead then? The largest overhead is medical benefits, about $10K a family. then comes other benefits, office space, computers, etc.
I'm on a 35 hour week and I make sure I stick to it, partly because I don't know when I'll ever be on one again but also because I'm of the opinion that after 7 or so hours in front of a screen your ability think logically diminishes and no amount of over-time is going to fix the bug.
Leave the office, the chances are that you'll figure out the problem on your commute home, during dinner or on the john and you can fix it the following day.
I've found there are three main reasons why people may end up working beyond their contracted hours:
1) The work that they have to do cannot be done during the hours they are contracted to work.
2) The work that they have to do can be done during the hours they are contracted to work, but the organisational or office culture puts pressure on people to be seen to be in the office outside those hours.
3) They have their own reasons for wanting to be working, which may range from a genuine passion for their work through to problems at home they would rather get away from.
Of these, 3) is generally not something the employer/manager should get involved in (unless home problems are starting to bleed over into the office).
I think that in most non-militant workplaces, people accept that 1) will occur from time to time and that, if it's for short periods, it's not a huge problem (particularly if the employer takes steps to recognise it and reward employees accordingly, be it financially, via time-in-lieu, or some other method). If it's not for short periods, then it absolutely will lead to morale and productivity problems and the employer/manager needs to think again about resourcing, or accept high staff turnover and problems with the quality of their outputs. This seems to be an endemic problem in certain industries (such as video games development) which are seen by outsiders as desirable places to work - meaning that there are always lots of eager young things waiting in the wings to replace burn-outs.
I suspect that the most common cause, however, is 2). Certainly, in the decade or so that I've been in full-time employment, I've come across quite a few offices where the work could be handled within contracted hours, but where the nature of the workplace culture meant that people were "padding" their working day; making tasks take longer than needed, or spending lots of time browsing the web in the afternoon. It's particularly noticable that workplaces like this seem to prize "being at your desk late in an evening" over "being there early in the morning". In part, I blame the shift to open-plan offices for this - there can be a "walk of shame" factor to leaving the office when your colleagues are still at their desks.
In one of my early management posts, I did try to tackle a culture like this in the office I was managing. I made a big thing about tracking how heavily loaded each team-member was and getting people to report when their workload reached the point where it would require them to work out of hours. I also made it gently but firmly clear that if your workload wasn't at that point, I expected you to get it done during normal office hours (happily, there was a wider organisational push at the time to reduce our power/lighting bills, which I could hook that onto).
For a while, it worked reasonably well. There was a bit of grumbling from a couple of people who, I suspect, thought that being seen in the office doing very long hours was a substitute for being any good at their job, but most people were happy to go along with it - and the quality of the office's work (which was mostly casework, requiring little creativity, but a lot of attention to detail) actually rose.
Then word got out (falsely, as it happened) that there may be redundancies headed in - and despite reassurances to the contrary, everybody assumed that they way to avoid being singled out was to be seen in the office every hour of the day - so all the work I'd done went to waste anyway. Overnight, things went back to being as bad as ever - and productivity fell off again.
Managament can be a pita at times.
You can always work the 40 hours, then spend the other 40 somewhere else.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Untold profits? Hiring someone new will cost money and when business slows you can just fire that person? That is not how you profit . It is not that easy.
You can hire temps perhaps but for most operations they will not be up to speed quickly enough. But wait....You could outsource to a place that does not have restrictions on the work environment and then you could keep up the low prices for Mr and Mrs while complying with some new work hour regulation!
I may complain. Actually I complain a lot. But in the end I could settle for less and find a new job. Or I could be a bum. There's a whole lot of options in between. I guess I'm saying I would prefer to have the freedom to choose to be a bum rather than have more and more regulations from the government when it's just not that easy.
on a side note, i did not rtfa, I am not sure if government regulation was mentioned at all in another comment either. That is just the endgame for ideas like this and I just hate reading about business topics on slashdot.
Where in this magical world do you have the problem of too much overtime?
Most everywhere I look, I see people getting shafted with 20- hours, not 40+.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
In my current job it is the bosses :)
But I've been in many jobs where it's the workers. Where workers constantly and repeatedly overcommit (I can do this in 4 weeks). Then the customer is waiting and the boss (not unreasonably) expects the date to be met. The boss could do better at limiting this but the workers do usually deliver then commit again.
In other places, a few workers want to "get ahead" or just enjoy what they're doing and work more hours. Many of these people CAN and want to work 60 hours (actually around 50 is the limit I've seen and there's less productivity increase doing more month-after-month). The problem is that other worker start to try this to compete for the next promotion - and they can't do it.
Like the steel industry in Pittsburgh had. One week of 10 hour night shifts, 24 hours off, one week of 14 hour day shifts and a 24 hour shift to switch back to the night shift... See http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/ptpa.html -- it was so good for productivitiy!
If by "bring back", you mean force companies to limit the hours of workers that want overtime, and forcing companies to hire more workers (and the attendant tax and insurance cost increases that would bring), then hell no.
From the article: "Yes, this flies in the face of everything modern management thinks it knows about work"
So, yeah, by all means, let's ignore them and do what someone on AlterNet says instead. Business will be booming, then.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
If overtime truly resulted in negative productivity, wouldn't that spur job growth, rather than depress it?
He will begin talking to you about his ideas for a proposed pay cut for staff so that more can be hired. Still want to do this?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
The idea that you could end unemployment by spreading the work around assumes that people are fungible -- that they are completely interchangeable -- which they most certainly aren't. While it may sound like a good idea for Craig and Nate to share the job of coding System X, the fact is that Nate is 10X better at programming than Craig is.
In fact, it's arguable whether Craig can even do the job at all.
Go back to your cubicle, little drone, and let the big boys run the world.
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I have good news.
The CEOs of the fortune 500 companies have all just met and decided they are going to push for a 40 hour work week. The only slight catch is- they're pushing for a week to be redefined as 3 days long and weekends are being abolished.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
How dare these people suggest that the One Percent must hire 20 percent more development staff and cut further into their already meager profits! Just who do they think they are?
While the article has some interesting points I find it very hard to take completely seriously due to some fallacious logic. "For every four Americans working a 50-hour week, every week, there's one American who should have a full-time job, but doesn't." This seems to assume that the cost of another employee working 40 hours a week would be identical to the cost saved by cutting the first four employees down to 40 hours. Here's a few problems with that: Even if you are paying the original employees overtime it's still probably cheaper to keep paying them than hiring/training/providing a desk for/medical etc. Also if you decide you need to cut back a little bit it's much easier to end the overtime than it is to fire somebody (which can be fairly expensive). Finally my previous argument may not even apply since the first four may be salaried and not being paid any extra. All that said the increasingly large number of hours worked by people worries me, I just wish the article didn't stick in little bits like this that don't add up. I at least, find this sort of fallacy incredibly damaging towards the article's credibility.
This has got to be one of the most obviously nonsensical submission summaries I have seen. Firstly it talks about how people would get more work done if they didn't do overtime. Then it suggests that overtime is responsible for cutting down number of jobs. The second points very existence relies on the first point being false. If people doing 40 hrs are more effective then less overtime would increase the work done per person and thus decrease the need to employ more people.
This way employeers could eliminate things like health care, 401K, etc.
That study is over 100 year old. Lots of things changed from 1909 to this year ya know. Second thing is I feel fine after 40 hours and this means I can still work more than 40 hours but this is not for everyone I agree. Personally this depends on your type of jobs as certain jobs are very demanding. Also theres the income tax situation. If you do overhours, in my province anyway, you pay more income tax so in my situation it's not worth it so i don't work more than 42 hours because of that. If it wasn't that case, i would glady work more than 40. But because this article is based on that 1909 text, i don't fully agree with it. But it has some good facts though.
If workers were extremely efficient, then employers would need fewer of them. You might reply that employers could use the efficiency to grow faster and use more workers. However, you assume that the managers would be as proficient at managing complexity (a larger organization) as the employees were at working. That is another tread and a far more unreachable goal.
Meanwhile, from a civilized country, I prefer my 35 hour work week.
We will not turn this situation around until we do what our 19th-century ancestors did: confront our bosses, present them with the data, and make them understand that what they are doing amounts to employee abuse — and that abuse is based on assumptions that are directly costing them untold potential profits."
He left out the actual means used to do this - unionization.
Costs of health insurance and other items that are incurred for each employee don't extend to working more hours. Such costs run at least 25 percent and can be as much as 40 percent. And as just one more example, consider the costs of finding and hiring that next employee.
Before you start extrapolating how to spread work across more employees, consider the added costs of hiring that next person. This is why companies are reluctant to incur those costs until they are sure those costs will be recovered over the long term.
Ibid.
I am in charge of IT at my office; staff under me are paid hourly, this has been dictated down from our human resource department. HR keeps telling me that there are new regulations not allowing IT staff to be exempt from overtime as salary employees because of massive abuse in the IT field. They also are telling me that oversight organizations are heavily monitoring for abuse. Additionally, HR forces me to have my staff get overtime approved 2 weeks in advance. I think HR read some random article somewhere and is turning opinion into fact, but I am not an expert in the salary field. I have great staff, but technically when we have a service fail late at night and my Senior Engineer restarts the service remotely we are breaking all sorts of internal rules. It is my wish to move all non-tier one staff to exempt salaries, but I need information to combat HR’s ‘they have to be hourly’ stance. Anyone out there an expert on these rules that could explain them in a comment?
Please... Don't listen to this drivel. I have kids and an angry wife at home. I want to be at work 80 hours a week.
Have you tried golf? You can swear all you want, and young, pretty women drive around the courses offering you beer. It's a win-win, and a lot better than being at work.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
May I suggest:
Hobbies
Charity work
Exercise!
Go back to school for an extra degree
Or, if you really want 80 hours, a second job.
-GiH
"For every four Americans working a 50-hour week, every week, there's one American who should have a full-time job, but doesn't."
Unfortunately this isn't reality. Its not just the FTE and the Salary for said person, but the benefits package, bonuses, physical space, equipment (blue or white collar), and a host of various other things of the sort that an employeer has to take on the books. Add it all up and its often cheaper for the employeer to expect 4 people to work overtime. Please don't come back with the "well if the other four accept a little less benefits, etc...to allow for the fifth" arguement. Personally not interested in socialism.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Wait 'till the oil runs out, just like the Saudis. Then what?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
How about instead of focusing on eliminating the 40 hour work week we look at the vacation time given instead. Germany is probably the best example of this, given they get a lot of paid vacation time and are STILL one of the best off countries in Europe!
Practice Static Safety - Hack Naked
Not married to an angry wife, are ya?
To the creature that is the angry wife, the ONLY justification for not being home, catering to her every wish, unloading the dishwasher, and cleaning the garage, because you're lucky to have her to cook shitty potatoes for you, buddy, is if you're out bringing in more money so she can buy more things for you to carry home for her. Any other activity is tantamount to infidelity. This is one of the major reasons my angry wife is now an angry ex-wife (which still sorta sucks but not nearly as badly).
I kid, but some people (of both sexes) really do live this way.
When the sleep-substitute drugs that have been in testing over the last decade hit the shelves, that's when shit will really hit the fan. The market will readjust to the availability of labor and you'll have to work 18 hours a day to make the same pay.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Prices on commodities are skyrocketing because .Gov is borrowing, Printing and spending like a drunken sailor. This in turn causes high inflation and investment money then decides to go into middle-manning commodities such as Oil, Food and Energy. That in turn increases costs for businesses.
The only way to reduce hours is to cut pay and benefits to existing staff.
Problem: Per-Capita Income hasn't kept up with inflation for over 15 years. Cutting pay is not only bad for morale, but the staff you kept from the last 10 layoffs are the top of the company and those you let go are the fluff. You drop pay down and you open yourself up for being sniped by headhunters and compeditors, or for employee reprisal.
What bosses are doing is cutting budgets, and in turn not giving out raises to people, wherever they can. They also invest in scheme's that save time for the employee such as work-from-home scheme's. They're hiring less, eliminating positions when people leave, offering less for positions that open up, investing heavily in IT Projects to make their best employee's better. The problem is, down the line you have major hiring problems because now your company and employee's have specialized so heavily that when one of them leaves for some place else you have no idea what their responsabilities are and what the requirements are to replace them. How many systems are left undocumented as to how they are built?
Or you get the top 1% oddball in who does a job in 4 hours what takes others 8 to do and refuses to do more work because the pay they spend the other 4 studying/self-educating.....
Your socialism is a totally unsustainable model, and now you want Germans, the lone EU members who are responsible, frugal, and hard-working, to pay for it! Keep protesting and burning stuff, that will change reality!
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money." -- Margaret Thatcher.
I love this "gambled your retirement away" nonsense. How the hell did you people think you were going to get the necessary returns in your pension Ponzi scheme? Investing in 2% T-Bills? 1950 called and wants its retirement model back. Pensions don't work. Go ask Jimmy Hoffa, if you can find him.
Get to work! And real jobs, not steal-from-your-meager-private-sector-redundant-public-sector-jobs. And get a defined contribution model for your retirements like Chile.
Go look at the mortality numbers of who lives longer. Those who immerse themselves in work and never retire live to 90. Then go look at the people who die a week after retiring. People need a purpose when they wake up in the morning to stay vital and healthy.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
That's very much like saying "For every copy of Photoshop that is pirated, Adobe looses $1000." And it's wrong, for very much the same reasons.
I have certainly worked on projects where if we'd hired enough people to make everyone work 40 hour weeks, the project would have been horribly over budget and would have been canceled. Of course, those projects are usually unsustainable anyways (mine was - it was canceled. :)
I'm not arguing with the basic premise that the 40 hour work week is a good thing, keep in mind.
On the other hand, those who have been working overtime for years wouldn't be able to handle the pay cut they now depend on. So they end up looking for a second job and therefore work even longer hours. Catch-22.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
For hourly employees on government or agency contracts, hours beyond 40 per week are almost all profit. You'll commonly see employers pushing OT near the end of the quarter because it inflates their business unit's (or division's) earned value. The short term metric gain outweighs the long term costs because the metrics are what drives the financial bus. Unfortunately workers suffer. When they've had enough of the burnout, they eventually leave. Now a group working 50+ hours per week are made to work even more to fill the hole. Defects and escapes accelerate from there. Eventually the long-term debt catches up to the business unit through loss of contracts. The costs of escapes drives up their hourly rates to the point another company takes the contract. Sad that upper management never gets it.
My partner works 14 hour days every week-day, 9am until 11pm. She then brings extra work home to do at night and/or over the weekend.
She is paid salary for a 45 hour week. It's crazy. I've told her to work smart, not hard, but if she finishes work given to her, she is just given more.
She seems to be handling it ok, but does goof off a lot and wants to quit. Quitting means leaving the country.
BTW, this is a law firm.
My machinists make time and a half for overtime. They get pissed off when I pull back to 40 hours due to lack of work. At 66 hours, they're pay doubles over a standard 40 hour week.
As if they weren't dull and stupid before that second week of OT.
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
What is the motovation for an Employer to not cause an Employee to work for Free? If it's not jail time, then it's the cost of doing business.
Perhaps he's taking time away from his angry wife to spend it with your angry ex-wife?
I am officially gone from
Adding another person adds payroll costs not directly related to hours worked. And of course, adding another person means more money spent on rent for office space. And at some point, you have to hire another manager. So until someone invents magic pixie dust that causes the incremental cost of adding a new employee to be less than the incremental cost of just having 4 people work a few more hours, this problem will not go away.
When the fake, corporate controlled news this week was saying "how could the unemployment rate possibly be going down and the private sector adding jobs when GDP growth is only 2%???" as if they don't know full well why. It's because the private sector has squeezed every drop of productivity out of every stressed out worker it possibly can and finally HAS to hire (at huge discounts from a few years ago, since you're desperate now). Since there's no labor organization, nobody can go to their boss as a one person union and demand less working hours (they'd laugh in your face), corporations go by different measures of productivity because they know you don't dare. Yeah, that's the reason the hiring doesn't exactly match GDP growth. It's a rotten arrangement and until everyone gets the anti-union sentiment they've had hammered into their brains by *massive* corporate propaganda campaigns for 40 years, this is how it's going to be, so wise up or deal. Luckily the company I work at is privately owned and not subject to the torture of the merciless shareholder whip. That's really the problem with society overall. Corporate charters...and that's what is so confusing to people. They meet their CEO and he's such a nice guy and he cares about the environment and homeless people PERSONALLY, but in his INSTITUTIONAL ROLE, he's subject to INVESTOR LAWSUITS, if he doesn't operate like a psychopath and squeeze every drop of productivity out of everyone and every drop of profit out of anything at ANY COST. All externalities, like people, the environment, morals aside, he is BOUND BY LAW which is clearly spelled out in almost every corporate charter to do anything he can, screw anybody he has to, to get as much money as he can. If you don't get that, you don't understand how things work. Until the structure and mission of corporations are changed, you can whine all you want and nothing is ever going to change. GET IT? Seriously people stop being so pathetically naive. When it's profit first at any cost, problems ensue.
Oh I know that. Who said anything about telling your wife about the reduction in hours?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
You'll be comforted to know that a good deal of the worlds oil production in is done by thousands people who are contracted to work 12 hour days, 6.5 days per week, for 4 to 6 weeks per hitch. This is usually after killer jet lag, since the majority of them fly 8-20 hours to get to work. I know, I did it for a couple of years.
All that explosive, environmentally dangerous stuff managed by people who are impaired due to continuous overtime and lack of sleep? How could that be a problem?
Some years back I chose to reduce from 40 hours a week to 30. Best move I ever made, even though I got a pro-rata salary reduction. I choose to cycle instead of own a car, skip alpine skiing holidays and useless tech. tools, but gained overall quality of life. And I saw more of my kids growing up. And no union required !
And I am confident my employer got the *best* 30 hours of my working-week, not the end-of-day/end-of-week hanging around in the coffee room !!
Employment is generally considered a 'trailing indicator' of an improving economy. Why? Hiring new employees costs money -- there's the time and expense of selecting the right candidate, screening them, making sure they have space to work, etc.... And then, there's the risk that you hire somebody who ends up being lousy. Plus, when the economy is still shaky (as it is now), you don't want to hire new people because you're worried that the economy will tank again and you won't have any work for them to do.
So, why would employers *ever* hire new people? Well, part of it is because you cannot continually drive your employees to work 60 hours per week, for many reasons that the article points out: you don't get as much out of them, they get burned out, etc.... Plus, at some point, it's impossible to stretch your current workforce any thinner. And, when you have an open position, now somebody from your competitor, whose tired of 60-hour weeks will apply. That competitor, to keep its employees from leaving (and for the other reasons), will have to reduce them back to a more sane work week, which means they'll hire people.
But, that process starts with trying to stretch more out of the people you already have. So, when you see companies starting to do that, it's a good sign that they'll soon start hiring.
I worked in Germany for a year for an aerospace company that had a 35-hour week. My experience was that people got as much (or as little) work done as they would have if they had five or more extra hours. (Though some of the management positions had longer hours.) And we did have a very strong union presence, which as one might expect was responsible for this arrangement in the first place.
The reason why some workers work 50+ hours a week and other none, is because of work ethics and skills. You can't expect an unemployed janitor to become surgeon or an electrical engineer. Workers that are willing to work long hours are generally in demand because the produce more than the standard 40 hour workers. Rarely are there unemployed workers that are willing to work 50+ hours a week. Simply because they are hard working.
Another issue is that US workers must complete against overseas workers that work 70+ hours a week at a fraction of the pay American workers. Another issue is that American consumers prefer cheap disposal goods instead of quality goods that last. When I comes to more expensive American made product versus a cheap Asian made product, the majority of consumers choose the cheaper model.
This theory by "Barbie" is a farse. France implement a policy to limit the work week to 35 hours so that companies would be forced to hire more workers. It was a complete disaster and productivity in France tumbled. The problem with people like Barbie is that they are clueless about economics and business.
FWIW: back in 1909, Workers worked at least 6 days a week Monday through Saturday. Generally workers that are busiest are the most productive. They stay focused on there tasks and avoid goofing off. Too much slack in a workers jobs leads to decreased productivity because they lost focus and become distracted.
The way to get unemployment down is to fix regulation so that US companies can complete, and that the gov't prosecutes fraud to send a strong signal that fraud and corruption will not be tolerated.. Currently we have honest companies being buried under red tape, while those committing fraud bypass the regulations and continue to escape prosecution. Laws are pointless if they are not enforced. In addition the cost of US labor need to decline so it become completive with Asia. While it does not need to drop to the same cost per hour, it does need to be adjusted down. If wages and taxes for US labor dropped about 10% to 15% US businesses would be able to hire more workers and sell more domestically made goods.
Ultimately US manufacturing labor is in permanent decline, as factory automation continues to gain traction. Factory automation reduces the amount of factory workers and increases product quality. Workers are assuming roles of managing the machines instead of doing the actual production, which isn't a bad thing, since it reduces worker related injuries and reduces wear and tear on the workers bodies.
What you need is a change in the "exempt" laws. Here in Norway the only people that are exempt are those in management and particularly independent positions, simply being a white collar worker is not sufficient. As long as you have fixed or semi-fixed working hours, as long as you have no power of delegation or to organize your own work (really free like where, when, how you want as long as you meet your deliverables) you are not exempt. There are also some laws on maximum overtime but in all honestly both employers and employees often ignore that as long as they get their overtime pay.
That gives the right incentive that employers would rather hire people at full rate than have people work for time and a half. That penalizes inefficient workers and slackers who can't make up for it by working extra time - forcing you to work extra time to stay "even" because employers lose money when you need overtime to finish what others finish in regular hours. As long as the US is full of "exempt" workers whose work is still measured in wall clock hours, you will continue to get screwed because another hour is a free hour. It's like trying to keep the flies away after dipping yourself in honey.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I work in IT and only work 37.5 hours a week. Just enough to be considered full time by the government. I don't take phone calls or answer emails after 5pm. I am getting paid about 10% less than the average for my position but the perks are well worth it.
The inflation in people's work hours and willingness to work overtime is just a natural consequence of market forces at work in an unregulated market. There are too many people for too few jobs, and corporations take advantage of this situation by squeezing their employees harder.
Now, for the society as a whole, this does not seem to make very much sense, because the result is a scenario where nobody is happy. The people who have work are unhappy because they get very little time to enjoy life and have fun, and the people who do not have work are unhappy because their basic needs are not met.
Just by using simple game theory, the question of "how much should I work" is clearly a game where everyone loses - everyone is compelled to work a little bit more than the next guy, and because everyone comes to the same conclusion, everyone ends up working more - without gaining any competitive advantage. And this is _exactly_ because of the "everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves" type of situation which so many people are advocating, which basically rigs the game so everyone loses.
In order to shape society such that people don't have to work their &# off just to basically survive, then regulation is needed - there's no way around it.
Everyone's different, of course. Me? I felt sharpest and most productive in my work when I started being able to take a morning off in the middle of the week. I usually work overtime and, after a few days, I start to feel unable to concentrate after the 6th hour of work. When I get something done, I take much more time than I usually would and with stupid little mistakes in it. Just taking a morning off, in the middle of the week, really makes a huge difference for me.
This is just anecdotal evidence but there's something to be said about this. In the end, everyone's different and every job is different. Companies don't have the luxury of knowing all the variables about the way your brain works so they have to find an average. Some people's sweet spots for optimal performance, will fall closer to that average, others wont. If you have the flexibility to find it yourself, great! If you don't, arguing with your boss that you should work less is usually out of question.
Hopefully, companies will become more flexible and work more with its employees brains and less against them.
Go back to your cubicle, little drone, and let the big boys ruin the world.
FTFY.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
So your only purpose is your work?
It's fine if it's working for you, but I'm not a bee or an ant.
AC posting in case the angry soon-to-be-ex wife happens upon this.
You, sir, have perfectly described my life. No kidding needed. I couldn't spend an hour every three weeks with the guys without being suspected of infidelity. I would get up in the morning, get myself and 4 kids ready to go (2 hers, 2 mine - both of us have custody). I'd go to work, where she'd text me all day and expect immediate answers. I'd get off work, pick up 3 of the kids from daycare in time to get home to get the 4th off the bus, make dinner, entertain all 4, get baths and get them in bed. Somewhere along the way I'd manage to do the dishes and laundry. I couldn't deal with one woman. Why would I want one on the side?
Meanwhile, as soon as we moved into our new house, she quit her job. She'd sleep in claiming to be sick, make breakfast and lunch for herself and leave the dishes wherever she was done with them. And if I dared ask if she'd mind if I went out for an hour with some friends it was like the world was ending. I didn't love her, she'd say. How could I do such a thing? And when I got back ('cause I'd go anyway) she'd head out the door to be with her friends - after claiming to be sick all day.
Come to find out, she'd planned this from the time she met me. Her old neighbor has some pretty good quotes from her. I'm not the first she's done this to and one guy has already landed in prison after marrying her. I am absolutely terrified.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when she started telling her friend that I hit her. Honestly, I'm not a large person. She could kick my ass, I'm sure. She would try to provoke a fight but I never responded. Now she's trashing me to anyone who is a mutual friend and because she's saying how much she loves me but doesn't understand why I'm so mean to her they are all lining up behind her without even talking to me. I actually called the cops on her - big mistake. Of course they came down on her side. She went from physically imposing and verbally abusive to meek, humble, and victimized in no time flat.
I thought my first wife was bad...this one is spectacularly horrible. I think I'm done with marriage for good at this point. I just hope she doesn't try to get a protective order. When talking to the cops they said I needed to be careful she doesn't do that because I'd be forced out of my house. I asked, "What if I get one first?" He said, "You don't have cause." I said, "Neither does she." He said, "Brother, tough shit."
So, in closing, the lesson today is: don't marry a crazy woman. And the second lesson is: you can't know if they're crazy.
People need a bigger purpose to work for than squeezing out trinkets for the ultra rich, or persuing empty materialism. This is why capitalism is fundamentally inhumane. When people are free from having to work to live, they will be free to live to work.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I've been working as a programmer in an enterprise environment for the last few years, but growing up and prior work was in farming. A 40 hour farming week would be unheard of - hell, an 80 hour farming week would be wonderful. Even so, I'd still much prefer farming over the mental exhaustion of programming, email, meetings, ...
Flex time is a running joke with my brother in law and I. We often joke that Flex time is "You have the freedom to work more than the hours we demand from you, but no less". We've noticed that even with companies who are flexible in their hours and who DO focus on task/performance based accomplishments, it simply will always boil down to hours and working overtime. This is especially true if you're in software engineering, on salary, and receive no overtime compensation.
The reason is because of your coworkers. If you have coworkers (or bosses) perform much less than you do but "work" longer hours, they will often complain and treat you unfairly if you come into the office later than they do and leave earlier. This is despite the fact that you have completed all assigned tasks and did not over commit yourself into working crazy long hours. These complaints often result in bosses over tasking you and forcing you to work later hours. This turns into a dangerous cycle.
Another big problem is that managers who are in charge of production schedules are constantly getting pressure to finish sooner than the estimated deadline. When you have well thought out deadline that involves everyone working at full capacity and accounting for potential hiccups along the way, shrinking this deadline will almost always involve people working overtime. Sure, you can quit and find another job. But this sort of practice happens everywhere and you run the risk of being unemployed for an extended amount of time attempting to find a new place to work.
What's the solution? Well, for starters, I think the salary positions are a joke and that all employment should be contractual with understood requirements for completion. This would force everyone to understand contracts and some legalese which in general is worth knowing plus it would draw a very thick line as to when employment ends and needs to be renewed. If health-care was not so dependent on employers and telecommuting was more accepted, even better. This works out nicely for employers as they can write up specific contracts for what they want and only what they wants. This would also save them from having to do massive layoffs due to trimming the fat or downsizing because a project is finished, contracts would simply be finished.
If he is, I truly and honestly wish him luck.
However things shake loose, he's welcome to apply for membership in the "She spread her legs for me!" club, currently 1500+ members strong. Free swab tests upon membership approval!
Bitter humor is the best kind.
The GPS tracker she put in your skull is super hard to argue with. Though I guess you could try drinking enough booze to short it out. ;)
For many of us fulltimers, I believe, overtime compensation is exempt under FLSA Section 213 (a)(17). This gives our employers no incentive to prevent overworking, especially if we are (and "lucky" enough to be) salaried. Therefore I expect nothing to "vanish overnight if we simply worked the way we're supposed to by law". The law protects these abusive workplace habits, cultures, and practices.
Go ask a Swede what they think about immigrants coming in and wanting some goodies without paying into the system.
Sooner or later, all the social democracies will fail. Utterly unsustainable.
Side note, captcha on submitting above commentary was "unjust". LOL
The premiss of the article is fundamentally flawed as the 40 hour work wee really never existed, especially if you had the drive to be successful.
Go look at the mortality numbers of who lives longer. Those who immerse themselves in work and never retire live to 90. Then go look at the people who die a week after retiring. People need a purpose when they wake up in the morning to stay vital and healthy.
Right! Because correlation implies causality!
it certainly is not valid in all. Hell a five day work week isn't exactly valid for many either. I regularly put in past forty hours in IT but I can tell you this, it certainly doesn't feel like it all that much.
With very manual labor jobs I can see issues being raised. However I see more problems occurring the more hours worked in a row than how many in a week as threat to safety, accuracy, and whatnot. I know I am pretty much need a few hours after a long stretch.
Then again I started out on a farm, forty hours would have been a blessing.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If my wife ever did plant a tracker in my skull, I would take great pleasure in letting her know EXACTLY when and where I was cheating on her.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
The Republicans are dismantling unions so people cannot confront their bosses and ask for fair pay or other business practices to be put info effect.
It keeps the obedient workers powerless. Good for business, bad for society.
@sheehaje,
Hahahaha - I fell off my chair when I read this comment!!!
Can I quote the über-wise George Carlin in a relevant rant I heard once?
"...So... You hate your job?
There is a support group for people like you. It's called "EVERYBODY"!
They hold nightly meetings in your local bar."
Well... the question is why don't you just divorce her and get the hell out of there. Cut your losses dude. If you continue on that path you're either going to kill yourself from the stress, or she's going to kill you.
We don't have the entire picture, so it's pretty hard to just take your word for it, but you should be keeping notes. Good god in todays days of "everything can be used against you" why haven't you recorded the abuse she's putting you through?
Ha! Well said, sir. You and I should drink many beers together.
The hidden assumption here is that employee productivity is the most important and over-riding goal in actually making business decisions. It is not -- for the simple reason that employee productivity is difficult to measure and seldom measured, decreasingly so with increasing sophistication of knowledge workers.
While plenty of lip-service can be occasionally paid to productivity, usually other goals are more important. Like the boss pleasing his boss. Or the boss satisfying his psychological need to dominate subordinates.
The point is that whole-business profitability is not the only driver of management decisions, even though none dare admit such corruption.
all the richest guys I know work 60+ hours/week.
Except the lawyers, they work 80 hours a week.
I don't know how people can simultaneously criticize the rich, and how they got that way. Cognitive dissonance at its best.
If you hate your job, take a risk and start a business. But, beware, it's not as easy as Mitt Romney makes it look.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Man I feel lucky. I've worked in IT for a company for 14 years now where we have 37.5 hr work weeks and maybe one week of the year if even that have to work overtime. No its not a goverment job, its insurance.
Angry wives? I love that game!
Coming from Hong Kong, it is expected to work 50+ hours a week, there is "no putting in" extra hours, it is practically mandated. Everyone comes into the office Saturday, this is normal, the work week is Monday-Saturday. On top of it, hours in the office tend to drag well past 5 often having to go out to dinner with co-workers and then back to the office. I know from friends working in Korea that this is the same if not worse - a working day drags into night and mandatory drinks after leaving the office at night with co-workers/management. I cannot speak for other areas in asia, but from the general opinions I have encountered they see Americans as lazy wanting to only work 40 hours a week. Its great to point at other European countries and comparing them to America, but what about the rest of the world?
Personally I tend to agree with the article as from my experience people do work less intensely. A typical work day/week revolved around going into the office, going out for breakfast/snack for an hour or two, going out to lunch for an hour or two, going out to dinner for an hour or two then going out for drinks afterwards... The next day people are dragging after getting in so late, so instead of going in to work, they go in to go to get breakfast/recover, drag their heels until lunch and usually don't start being really productive until 2 or 3... then dinner hits around 5:30-6:30. Saturday is more typical of an American work day, they come in 30 minutes late, take a 30 minute lunch and leave by 4:30-5pm.
40? How will I be able to keep up with Slashdot on such a short week?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Please... Don't listen to this drivel. I have kids and an angry wife at home. I want to be at work 80 hours a week.
You're comment is very cute and funny, but for those of us with a lovely wife at home and two young kids that would like to get to know their father, please don't speak for all of us. I'm tired of our industry's all-hours, fully tethered nonsense.
I am an hourly worker that loves overtime. My wife works 3-5 hours a week due to having MS.
My Grandfather worked 2 - 3 jobs in order to make enough for his family (his wife did not work either.) Overtime allows me to work substantially less hours for the same amount of money than the hours he had to work.
I wish people would stop trying to "help" out by taking away things that a lot of middle class people need.
And here I am yet again without mod points when I really need them. I've said for a long, long time that the best societies are a healthy mix of both capitalism and socialism. Socialism for things that private industry cannot or is ill-equipped to handle (for example, major infrastructure projects, things such as health insurance in which free enterprise has a perverse incentive to screw its customers over, and things that are deemed essential for life or meaningful societal progress), capitalism for everything else.
This doesn't mean that the petty bickering that goes on now wouldn't happen; people would still argue over what private industry cannot handle and what is considered, for example, "meaningful societal progress." Still, the sooner people stop thinking of socialism as a bad word, the sooner we'll actually be able to regain and retain our position as the global superpower. Unfettered capitalism is just as bad for society as unfettered socialism. Look at a place like, say, Somalia, where there is virtually no government to speak of and individual liberty is taken to an extreme--if you want your neighbor's stuff there's absolutely nothing stopping you from simply taking it, provided you have a band of mercenaries that are skillful enough to go get it. Is this really any better than a place like, say, Cuba or China?
That's what's being lost in today's political discourse. The notion of a happy medium, the idea that both systems have things to offer and lessons to learn.
if we simply worked the way we're supposed to by law
Most of the world already does, including virtually everyone in the US. More importantly, just because something is a law, doesn't make it morally right or wrong.
This has nothing to do with the fact that people who can work into their 90s have jobs that are not physically taxing and wearing on the body.
Hey, good luck with that. Sounds worse than my experience with my ex, but the craziness and dishonesty are pretty similar. Hope you get through it without too much emotional or mental injury - also hope it doesn't affect your relationship with your kids. It really sucks that the system is so biased in favour of the crazy bitches, but that is how it is. You need to be smart and calm to get through these situations. Deep breaths, deep, deep breaths. Lots of walks.
My only purpose is to work. At the office I work for money. At home I work to keep my home clean and pleasent. I work to raise my children well. I work to keep my marriage happy -- work work work.
-GiH
So that's the attraction with golf!
http://www.acetonestudio.com
To the creature that is the angry wife, the ONLY justification for not being home, catering to her every wish, unloading the dishwasher, and cleaning the garage, because you're lucky to have her to cook shitty potatoes for you
Hey, I don't even get potatoes unless I cook them myself, you insensitive clod!
While that is true (the first year of life and the first year of retirements are the years with the highest mortality rate) I feel just going on working is the wrong answer to that. I feel it would be better to ease off from work, in order to reduce the shock. When this is combined with the advice to go do stuff you want to do (my dad got into painting and fishing) and at least one of those things should include appointments with other people. My dad has fishing appointments, that is enough. In a couple of months he'll have appointments to babysit my baby neice/nephew (hopefully). These are the things he lives for, and thus his Ikigai, as I understand it. Ikigai is the reason stated by the people who live in the region with the most 100+ olds (wich is in Japan, by the way) for their logivety.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
There is a big challenge with implementing this approach for white collar knowledge work though. Sometimes my boss has no clue what I do all day for a week at a stretch, and often she has no idea what of it is hard and what of it is easy. Often the easy stuff is viewed as hard and vice versa.
It generally evens out right now, so I just get my work done and everybody goes home happy. It's really pretty task and company contract based, and the 40 hour week establishes a baseline level of production. If it's too much to get done on time, I tell my boss and she finds somebody else to help. If the boss gives me easy tasks for a stretch, at first I relax for a bit, then I get bored and start to find other tasks. Most of the time, there's some ebb and flow and I roll with things. And what's easy, hard, fun, and frustrating for me is different from many equally qualified (on paper) employees. That's what the boss needs to understand in detail, because that's where productivity can really be gained.
If they were to get genuinely task-based and do so fairly, my boss would have to really understand my tasks in detail. And that would be a problematic expectation--frequently, explicitly defining the task and a process to resolve it is more than half of the work and really requires the expertise that the company pays me to offer.
Maybe she wouldn't be so angry if you spent more time with her and less at work...
I have a hard time understanding why a single recent graduate with no family responsibilities and a high-enough salary wouldn't be able to handle more than 40 hours per week continuously. When I was at that stage I would have taken the higher-paying job even if it required 60 hours per week, and maybe more. But if your peers are making about the same as you are and going home at 5pm every single day it leads you to wonder if the grass may be greener at the other companies pasture. Things change once you add a spouse, kids, and the responsibilities of home ownership. Again, if salary is high enough to afford a nanny, lawn mowing crew, and prepared dinners, then long hours might still be manageable and possibly attractive if the salary minus these personal expenses still leaves you with a net gain. The problem is that unless you are a high paid consultant working your own hours or the boss of your own company with the potential reward of windfall profits, it can be hard to find the 60-70 hr/wk job that really pays substantially more than the 40 hr/wk alternative. And you still need time out of the office for your own professional development, continuing education, staying fit, and managing your finances.
There's also the importance of having flexible time that you hold in reserve, the same way that a military commander keeps some of his forces held from battle so he can deploy them to mitigate an unexpected threat or exploit an opportunity. Anybody can have personal problems pop up, and these are usually manageable at 40 hr/wk, but not so easy when you constantly work longer hours. If you're already expected to work 60 hours each week, then you may burn out fast if a short term crisis pops up at work. How many weeks will you work 100 hours each week for $0 in additional pay when your peers are going home at 5pm and apparently take home a relatively close salary to what you already make? The 40 hr/wk worker will likely be more willing to work 60-80 hrs/wk to overcome a short term crisis as long as it doesn't interfere with his family responsibilities.
Finally, quality of life is an important factor. Some people are happy living their lives without children, or in some cases, even without a spouse or similar close relationship. Some careers, such as medicine or public service, may have intrinsic rewards and something that a person can devote their lives to and be passionate about. Their work may be the reason they get up in the morning. But after years and years, even these types of jobs can wear you down if you don't have a personal outlet. Even then, may people can sustain 50-60 hours continuously. There is also the possibility of working a high-pressure job in your early years while you build a nest egg or establish yourself into the fast track for executive promotion, with the intent of slowing down and enjoying life later. But for most of us, while we may "enjoy" what we do, we do not derive our life's purpose from our work. Even those of us who enjoy working with technology need some personal time to enjoy it our own way rather than following the schedules, deadlines, and division of labor handed down by management. So for the average person 40 hours per week is probably ideal. Expecting everyone to happily work longer hours will lead at least a significant portion of your work force to resent the hours you require. Some of us are not convinced that we will live until retirement or that we will be healthy enough to enjoy retirement. Myself, I would rather work 40hrs/wk on average for the rest of my career and retire when I can't work anymore. I have a spouse, kids, and a home to maintain. I have the occasional personal crisis (health, legal, etc.), but I am also willing to put in more hours during the short term when the company needs it.
France implemented a strict mandatory 35 hour work week in March of 2000. The hope was firms would be forced to hire more people. Using Google Public data, the unemployment rate was approximately 9%. The law was loosened to allow more overtime exceptions in 2005. Between 2000 and 2005, the rate fluctuated to 8% and then past 9%. Since 2005, it went as low as 7% and is currently around 10%.
A mandatory 40 hour work week is not the sole factor that drives unemployment, and if anything has no real bearing on hiring. Firms, in general, will do without instead of taking on yet another fully loaded cost for a full time employee unless the products they sell are in demand driving additional needs for capacity.
This sounds all well and good. The issue that they are not taking into account is that most people need to work the overtime just to make ends meet. I deplore overtime and only work it when necessary, however many people just cannot make ends meet with the cost of living going up and the companies not giving raises for years. I personally have gotten 3 promotions (not my choice) and not a single pay raise in 3 years. I make enough to get by but what about those that depend on OT. Their families/baby mama's/ and homes rely on the OT to survive now you want to take that away as well by bitching about it? There really are worse things in life than having a job and working OT. Just my opinion.
The article tosses out opinions with nothing to back them up; essentially all he is saying is that unionization will cure everything that's wrong in the US. This myth gets posted on Slashdot several times a year; it's no more true now that it ever was.
No doubt there are some programmers on mandatory overtime, but in my experience it's the exception, not the rule.
Finally - a scientific explaination for Congress!
Wait... What - they don't actually work?
Damn...
This is nuts. I will just offer this insight: it took Verdun and Stalingrad for younger men in Europe to realize that marching dutifully into a meatgrinder serves no higher purpose. What is it going to take for American guys to realize that marching into marriage as a "duty" and suffering silently serves no purpose?
Come to Europe and see how we live. No marriage, no games, men and women have to pull their own weight. We have some issues but staying at work to avoid The Marriage Empowered Queen of Consumption is not one of them.
When I start feeling down like I haven't accomplished anything in my life, I'll remember this and be glad that I work only 40 hours on most weeks and actually enjoy seeing my wife. Life is good, who knew?
So you figure you can actually age backwards if you do 16 hours of overtime a day?
There's a HUGE gap between overtime and no time. It's called 40 hours a week.
...I'd be happy getting back to a 50 hours work week and not working weekends!
Why do you keep going for walks? Are you meeting someone? Who is she? Why don't you love me?
I'm in Canada, and I work 35 hours a week. From 35 to 40 we are paid at a single rate. After 40 hours, we're on 1.5x rate. It's the law, so companies have to follow it.
When your overtime is not compensated, your boss will ask you to do overtime because it will cost him less the more you work. His incentive is to overwork you.
When your overtime is compensated, and at a 1.5 or 2x rate, then suddenly your boss doesn't want you to work overtime, he much prefer hiring someone else and having everyone work regular and cheaper hours. Now his incentive is to hire more employee and ask them less work hours.
So legislating the maximum hours per week and the overtime compensating rules is the only way to ensure that companies don't abuse their employee.
No need for a union, I'm not in a union and I don't want one, because my employer is treating me right (he has no choice, it's the law!)
Try it! Library of Babel
Brings a whole new light to the phrase "live to die" doesn't it?
Life is not for the lazy.
There is the problem with your argument! You seem to be implying that the USA is a civilised country.
Well, if you don't want to hire a new person you could just lower them to 40 hours a week and still get more productivity.
It's angry wives all the way down.
Life is not for the lazy.
When women are young, slim, and unwrinkled, they can get what they want by flirting with or marrying powerful men. Why should they be feminists? When their charms fade, their ability to manipulate bosses fades until it reaches the vanishing point. When they get dumped for a younger trophy wife, their chances for another marriage are, under the best of circumstances, about 2-1 against. If they've gained weight, lost confidence, and don't know how to get asked out for dates, the odds are more like 7-2.
http://www.calculatorslive.com/Chances-Of-Getting-Married-After-40-Calculator.aspx
If you're a programmer over 40, your mental powers and ability to concentrate begin to fade. Your ability to keep up with current technology trends, relative to younger engineers, fades until it reaches the vanishing point. Evidence for this is mostly anecdotal, but try not to be an anecdote and see what happens.
http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2004/05/28/ageism-in-it-over-40-forget-about-getting-a-job-39120958/
When you're young and female, you can bargain for the best deal at work or in your personal life. Why should you join a union?
When you're young and a programmer, you can bargain for better wages and shorter hours. You've got four or five other potential employers waiting in the wings. You can bargain for yourself. Why join a union?
Moral: If you're young, don't worry. You'll never get old. You don't need collective bargaining. The web has changed everything. Why join a union?
It's called lying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie
Oh, wait, she spends the fruits of your labor. OK, it's called divorce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce
I do the math and my week still comes out to average 168.115385 hours no matter what I do. Out of that I only sleep about 35 to 40 hours, but I wouldn't call that work. The rest of the time I am cleaning (myself or something in my environment), shopping (clothes, food, whatever), cooking (yes, men can do that!), watching, listening, writing, drawing, inventing, building, or teaching something with the rest of the hours in a week. Oh, and I occasionally get to work out, have sex and most importantly poop and pee when I'm not otherwise engaged in doing something productive.
Seriously, though, when I do work for others I do try to keep that under control. There are periods where I will work 70 - 80+ hours a week getting things done, but that usually doesn't last more than 6 - 8 weeks before I get back to a more normal (40 - 55 hours) schedule. There's always something that comes up to make for more hours in a week devoted to working for someone else. That's life. If it's too much for you then you need to talk to the people you work for. If they are not sympathetic, and it's a hard thing to say in this economy, but get another set of people to work for. Corporations, businesses, institutions, whatever, are heartless, cold, calculating machines that don't give a flying fornication if you're tired or overworked. They want their $$$. If you don't work for one that at least hires enough people to do the work, then you should try to find one. Life's too short to be that miserable.
Why else do you think so many CEOs and executives play golf?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
"Loan Wolf". Amazing. Techincally a typo, but it enhances the writer's meaning in ways that the correct spelling would not.
I'll be four years out of law school in May. I have an engineering degree in addition to my law degree, and passed both my state bar exam and the patent bar exam. I've have applied to *thousands* of positions - law, engineering, and a dozen other fields - in the interim and I took the time to customize each application, not just sending off generic resumes, etc. I have received exactly one offer, almost two years ago, that I turned down because of the ridiculous terms.*
I had sizable, but definitely manageable debt upon graduating, and figured I could always do IT or engineering if the legal market was slow. Hah. Well, my debt load has almost doubled now. I've managed not to default so far, by hook or by crook, but I can't play this game forever. My health has started to deteriorate, my mental health is definitely not good - I've basically been living and working in isolation for four years - and I don't know what to do anymore. At this point, while I would be grateful for a non-subsistence job, I'm not sure I can handle it anymore.
*before you criticize me for not taking it, while it was a patent law job, it was for $20 an hour, no benefits, no guarantee of work after 3 months, and required me to move 600 miles in the middle of winter a week after the offer. The firm has since folded, so at least I don't second guess myself anymore.
For me the effective working hours is 4..6 hours a day. This is about "deep pondering" tasks, excluding all the non-work related TPS reports, chatting etc. When chatting is included (TPS reports excluded), we get to the 40 hours number, including lunch time.
I am experiencing the same thing in my locale as well.
It seems that no amount of self education/classes/etc. I try does any good unless you have experience. I even have a masters degree in a related field.
Recruiters here tell me that "we can't find the right people." You can't tell me that with all the unemployment/underemployment/etc. that there isn't anyone whose qualified and/or is smart enough and willing to learn.
I'm part of the one percent, the leaders of this country, the job creators, the people who make your iPads and your Corvettes and your Xboxes possible, and I am not ashamed of it. And yet it is fascinating to see after all we have done for you this entitled attitude that you people are developing. Do you even fucking think you would have a job without people like us? Have you ever read Atlas Shrugged? Modern philosophy has advanced beyond retarded ideas like socialism and stalinism, and you idiots need to smarten up and quick.
PS: The day I hear the word "union" in my IT shop, I'll be firing every single motherfucking worker and hiring all new people. You marxists want to play hard ball? I'd literally bet my company that you can't fucking handle it.
You post is utter, citeless bullshit. The US is one of the few countries, unlike Europe, where social mobility is very possible. Even for worker bees, just putting money in a Roth IRA every month in a good Dow 30 dividend stock will make you a millionaire in 30 years.
2011's The Forbes 400 of Richest Americans was An all-time high 70% of this year's list are self-made, up from 55% in 1997>. And many are college drop-outs.
If anything, being born wealthy makes kids lazy and entitled and lacking in the drive and ambition that drove their parents. Last time I checked, Paris Hilton wasn't on the Forbes 400.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Yep..you nailed it..that's why the Welfare system works so well. Welfare recipients are free from having to work to live, and spend so much of their time working for free.
Unlike, say, everyone reading this?
Wow, dude. That sucks. If she's starting making up abuse you probably just need to get the hell out and worry about getting the house back after the lawyers are done. You're probably screwed there anyway, but at least you won't be in jail.
Productivity is not that important we are just brainwashed into thinking nothing matters more. France obviously had their productivity go down when they stopped their people from over working.
The all important productivity is going to replace jobs with robots and software AND cheap labor while putting a few people in charge of it so "Productivity" can go up. Meanwhile the population goes UP and there are not enough jobs to go around for everybody. How long are we going to blame the poor and unemployed for their predicament.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The lesson here is, try before you buy. Cohabitate for half a decade or more, that's plenty of time for the crazy to become evident.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Average weekly hours of all employees in USA per bls.gov: 34.5 hours. It was 33.8 hours at the height of the recession so it is the inversion of the truth that employers have employees work overtime to avoid hiring more people. 34.5 hours is the pre-recession level so employers have likely maxed out on increasing hours to existing workers.
We're going to force people to be less productive, and make smaller contributions to GDP, just to make work for people to do who don't really want to be working anyway?
Makes perfect sense.
No, don't believe this. This is actually a shallow depiction of the magnificence that is golf.
Golf is a sport that is several hundred years old and beloved by nobleman and commoner alike. It is truly the essence of man enjoying the peaceful tranquility of nature. The swipe of a 5 iron on a cool Spring day. A majestic Titleist ball floating serenely though the air as if it were your very own personal, fluffy cloud. The light "thonk" sound as it descends perfectly on the green, setting you up for that perfect putt that will bring you one under par for the hole. Truly, golf is a sport for OF COURSE IT'S ABOUT THE BEER-SERVING BLOND WITH BIG TITTIES!
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Right now you're the one responsible for allowing yourself to continue to be miserable, you're getting a really jaundiced view of all women, and one day you're going to come home to find the locks ae changed and your stuff is outside in garbage bags.
Then get on with your life as best you can, and maybe when you've "decompressed" (sort of like after a death march), you might find that you're in a better frame of mind to attract someone who won't make you miserable.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Going on welfare keeps one alive, but it does nothing to help someone find a worthwhile way to spend their lives. Almost every job that exists in this economy exists only to extract value from you and return it to the people at the top. That doesn't produce meaningful work.
As long as exploitation is the basis of our economy, I can't blame anyone for opting out of work entirely. If you want people to want to work, let's create a cooperative economy.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Agreed. I'm tired of hearing people whine about vacation time and work hours and over time as if they're speaking on my behalf. I work far in excess of 40hrs per week and I love it. I love my job. Why would I want to do *less* of something I love?
Work is an obsolete concept. The only reason why we work is because there is only so much purchasing power to go around, so we give the most to those that work. Nobody works anymore, it's all done with machines running on fossil fuels. The response to a lack of it is not more work, but an alternative to fossil fuels!!
Question "If a machine existed that made everything we needed that ran on renewables, would we all be jobless and unable to afford anything, or would everyone be provided for free?" Answer that question and you will understand anyone wanting you to work more is a moron.
Frits Rincker, inventor of the concept of the Roboeconomics http://www.sunreign.com/info/Roboeconomics
There is a consensus.
No brain, no pain.
Lets get off 40 hours per week and go to 40 lines of code per week. This week...
.......
double mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
mortgageRate = CalculateRate(principal, interest, currentDate);
return mortgageRate;
I haven't worked a full 40 hours in a week since Slashdot started!
So what makes 40 hours magically the appropriate number of work hours? I get burnt out, dull, and dumb just working a straight 40.
or else!
Does the article suggest that the only cost to an employer is the wage they are paid? You have training, health care and other expenses involved. Overtime is less expensive to an owners bottom line, than hiring a bunch of new people. But, in our socialistic driven agenda, profit is bad. You "occupy" clowns just don't get it do you. How many poor people have given you a job? Plus, how many poor/homeless are that way BY CHOICE. I see them every day. Standing on the corner with a sorry look on their face, dirty clothes with one of those will work for food signs. Usually they put god bless, a cross or some other symbol on it, just to tug at your emotions. Time and time again, you see stories where so called homeless people are not homeless and are not poor. They even caught one guy who was "homeless" holding up one of those signs, and the police ran him off, and he was spotted getting into an almost new car. And you have that "human wi-fi" article that was posted a few days ago, and some homeless people said they would NOT do it, since they make more money from welfare & panhandling than they would for the wi-fi gig. It's all non taxable income.
Please... Don't listen to this drivel. I have kids and an angry wife at home. I want to be at work 80 hours a week.
My good sir, perhaps you would be interested in joining the Royal Order of Water Buffalo?
I was onto you as soon as you referred to it as a sport. Nice try though.
You get more of it.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Eliminate unemployment? Hardly... Capitalism needs the "flexible" labor force to exploit for profits and drive down wages... Simply "bringing back" the 40 hour work week won't work, and that doesn't happen without mass action and public demonstrations anyways... He's going to persuade people that this will produce better workers? Maybe from his bourgeois perspective this seems practical, but, he's ignoring the majority of the working class... Many places don't care if workers are denigrated and burnt out, because the flexible labor pool allows them to abuse as many people as they want...
This is a bad perspective to have...
OMG bro....Please do yourself a favor and 1) clean out the bank accounts, 2) pack your shit, and 3) just disappear. Please get out of that horrible situation, which will NOT end well for you, while you still can.
The customer
... when I read the title: more and more people must be working less than 40. It's what I see here in Holland, almost everyone with kids work 32 hours or 36. I myself work 40, no more, because I want to keep my career going. How different are things here...
So file for divorce, change the door locks, and put her stuff outside in garbage bags. First to file isn't just for patents ...
While I agree he needs to get out fast, it's already too late, most states you can't file for divorce that easy. In mine, for a no-fault divorce you have to be separated. He should get a lawyer now and follow that lawyers advice. The lawyer will know better than any of use what to do and will certainly save him money.
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Perhaps working those 80 hours is why she is so angry?
Women have different needs than men and spending time is important. Not the paycheck. At least that was true with the ones I have been with.
http://saveie6.com/
I find these labor laws things repugnant. It is MUCH more effective for me to work my people long hours, especially if I can charge them to rent dorm rooms between shifts and sell them food in my company store. These namby pamby socialists are interfering with the free market. Overtime? why should I pay more wages for longer hours, because the workers get less effective towards the end of their 18 hour shift. In fact, I would prefer a piece rate, so that unproductive workers get paid less.
Why should *I* invest in safety guards, protective equipment and such. If the workers are timid and shy and cowardly and feel the need for padding or protection, then they can provide their own, as long as it doesn't get in the way of their assigned task.
And another thing.. when my workers get injured, I want them out of here quickly, so they can be replaced by someone who's not so careless as to get hurt. They were stupid and careless, why should I pay for their care? I derive no profit from it.
"Golf is a good walk spoiled" -- apparently falsely attributed to Mark Twain. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/28/golf-good-walk/
(I haven't actually played real golf. I remember "Tin Cup" actually made me want to try it, but I never did.)
I think that one's called "Angry Birds" in the UK.
Is alien to 3rd world countries. Only exploitation matters. Because, the foremost aim is to hammer down any glimmer of hope and insubmission. All forms of exhaustion, depersonalization, mindlessness, and distraction are "profitable". While the real plunder and unscrupulous pillage of the poor 3rd world "country" runs amok in its merciless rampage.
Management clearly had nothing to do with the decline of the U.S. auto industry? Saying the problems that the auto industry has is the all the fault of unions is a bit like blaming Sarah Palin for the woes of the Republican party. She may have played a role, but I doubt she did the whole thing herself.
"no one is willing to unionize"
It is not legal for professionals to form unions in my jurisdiction.
Hmm.. Maybe she would be less angry if you actually spent some of your waking hours at home? ;)
So what does this have to do with working hours per week?
Clever signature text goes here.
28 - you turn 28 years old when you get married (and have completed all requirements for ages above)
I stopped having birthdays when I turned 29, but this is even better.
I am eternally 28, and nobody's going to tell me any different.
With the attitude towards working hours it's no wonder ageism is so rampant and the efficiencies experience brings is lost.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Not married to an angry wife, are ya?
To the creature that is the angry wife, the ONLY justification for not being home, catering to her every wish, unloading the dishwasher, and cleaning the garage, because you're lucky to have her to cook shitty potatoes for you, buddy, is if you're out bringing in more money so she can buy more things for you to carry home for her. Any other activity is tantamount to infidelity. This is one of the major reasons my angry wife is now an angry ex-wife (which still sorta sucks but not nearly as badly).
Sigh, I wish someone would have told me that beforehand... so true.
I once worked a contract job where we were expected to program for 12+ hours a day 5 days a week, and another 8hrs on Saturday. It was a cool assignment, so the majority of my team were talented people, as talented as I have worked with at any other company. Yet because of the (vigorously enforced) long hours our productivity was shit. We spent the first four hours fixing the bugs we had inserted the previous day. The next four hours were genuinely productive. At that point we were all exhausted, and spent the next four hours writing horribly buggy code to be fixed the next morning.
This arrangement worked out great for the bodyshop employing my team. They got to bill insane hours, and the project dragged on forever. The company hiring the work, however, fared rather less well. While I left after 2 months of that bullshit, I heard from friends the project was cancelled as a failure after a year and a half. FWIW, the bossman of the project was a case study unto himself in repulsively ineffective management techniques.
Another point is estimation. If we estimate things to take 40 hour weeks but use 50-60 or more hour weeks then technically nobody wins. We end up deluding ourselves and often overcharging clients, causing delays in schedules, turning out sub-optimal work etc.
If you didn't realize ... thats really a pet peeve of mine.
Be honest ... track *all* of your time ... and report it! Also make sure on the other end that your company actually counts that time!
This is likely true for people who aren't passionate about the work they do. But, there are many companies, like Apple, that succeed because their employees are giving it their all. Think of all the Apple keynotes where Jobs thanked his people for all their hard work, over evenings and weekends.
Also, think of startups where founders and initial employees work significant hours to get something off the ground.
If YOU want to work 40 hours a week, and no more, that's fine, but please don't impose your work ethic on everyone else, because we need those hard working folks to create all those 40 hour a week jobs.
My last full time job had me frequently doing 25+ hour double shifts.
& if it was a busy week (a holiday or something) i'd have to work on the weekend too. 7-day work weeks for months-long stretches were not uncommon.
I worked 363 days in 2008.
It was a huge problem, and due to company safety policies, there was really no way to fix it since new employees were pretty much useless for the first 6 months of their employment (not allowed to do most duties until this "training period" was over)... and most new employees never lasted that long anyway.
Thats why i dont work in aviation anymore... something to think about when you're looking out the window of the airliner at the guy pumping jet fuel.
You think your mind softens after 20+ hours at a desk coding... try 20+ hours standing in freezing rain. But hey, at least the company was keeping us "safe".
The question is, who gets the first claim on a body that appears on public property (unfortunately, we still have some around)?
public property is a myth propagated by the government. there is no such thing as public property, only private property that has been stolen by the government. all property will be sold back to the private domain so rightful owners can do with it as they see fit.
After all, a hundred pounds of meat or fertilizer is valuable property, and nothing to sneeze at.
and it will be sold off to the highest bidder until the property under it is sold as well.
three comments and I am forever at terrible karma
Hey if they are stupid enough to force over time I'm mean enough to work it at 1.5 times my regular rate. My bosses did the same thing all after firing the most recent group of new hires to try to skew their data numbers to look better in the cash flow department. The consequence is with out the fired new guys we cant make our production numbers so now we're in mandatory over time. funny how that works out.
That and pretending that you're working while even if you are with a client neither of you want or give a shit about talking shop! Golf is not the lone activity that can get you out of the office while still being on the clock, Strip Club, Convention, "Training"!
He spent actually 60 on Slashdot, Poker, Porn and lolcal!
I've been working 40 hour weeks as an application developer for the past 15+ years. Usually I'm contracting, but I've also had some perm stints. I typically only do 40 hours. If you are contracting hourly, then usually there is a budget based on 40 hour weeks which the manager will want you to stay within. They really don't like you to go over 40 hours. Works perfectly for me.
I had four years perm that ended last summer when the company emerged from bankruptcy for the 2nd or 3rd time since I'd been there. I can count the number of weeks that I went over 40 hours in that 4 years on one hand. Any employer will take whatever you are willing to give them. One clown I worked with would start sending emails around bedtime, and then people would start responding. I'd come into the office in the morning and find this huge exchange of emails spanning the entire night, which frequently ended up with the shocking discovery that there was no problem at all, and that a mountain had been made of a mole hill. Idiots, getting dragged into something like that. This guy would find some error that had been logged months ago by some obscure system, and he'd start sounding the alarms. Eventually the CIO would get involved, and all sorts of people would start commenting. It made for great comedy as I did the mass email delete from my inbox to start the morning. I was grateful that people were willing to throw away their lives all for my morning amusement at least once a week.
Tired enough to take this article and shove it under your boss's nose and show him how overly long hours is costing the company real money, even if they don't pay a penny more in salary?
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
I used to work for a company who refused to allow overtime. However, the workload they gave you forced you to work overtime for free, or they would fire you for not doing what they assigned you to do. Thankfully, I quit before I lost it.
No, since that leads to the European model where nobody bothers to do any work since more benefits will get cut. Not good at all.
The better thing is to (largely) remove their ability to not do anything except hire in good faith, under FTE/benefit terms. That brings the long-termers back in the fold as productive citizens of their own choosing, thus making the sum of the parts productive. It would come through relieving the existing people as well as restoring a lost trust through legislative force.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
By asserting your own arrogance to actively avoid hiring, you are part of the problem. Suggesting productivity isn't a magic thing you can invoke to dispel a proper measure, if only one that doesn't go fully to bring businesses to a humility not seen in a generation.
It is not an aberration to see workers and business be balanced unlike your suggestion; it is an aberration to see business operate with excessive favor as you advocate.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
One boss I had stated a 40hour week was counted as sick or vacation time.
He also thought anybody who came in at 7AM shouldn't leave until 6PM==Weekdays--YES, that's 11 hours so long as you are willing to eat lunch at your desk. Weekends then it was OK to come in as late as 9 in the morning and leave by 3 or 4PM. It was the weekend after all, and he'd be satisfied with 12 to 14 hours total.
Or get a job where you have to spend every other night out drinking.
If you are going to get anywhere you need to become a loan wolf who's ready to do whatever is necessary to get ahead in life.
I don't know if that pun was intentional or not, but "loan wolf" works brilliantly, either way.
Socialist? Managed economy?
On what grounds do you call the US "socialist"? Socialism implies worker control over production. Where is the worker control? Worker power has been in decline since the 1970s.
And how is this a managed economy? (which is not the same thing as socialism.) The US economy during WWII was a managed economy. It isn't now. No one is telling factory owners to make smidgets instead of widgets. I don't see a price or wage control regime.
Just because you or the Koch bros. cannot do everything you want doesn't make this a managed economy.
Both Gates & Trump were born into money. Gates' father was a successful lawyer, Trump pere a real estate baron.
Not to protect the employer, but realize, that YOUR overtime many times are caused by the very person sitting next to you - slacking off...
When your team is understaffed, underpaid, burnt out, and you are one of the idiots who "CARE", then whether you are told or not, you will end up putting extra hours in, since the hours in the week/day are just simply not enough anymore to complete the task.
Well ... just my though .... looking at my colleague looking into a css file, making a 3-keystroke edit every 15 minutes for the last 2 hours. In the meantime I wrote lots of lines of code and had time to good-off to slashdot. I am probably going to stay longer, even though I came an hour earlier..... I am not told to do that, I am doing it because it is the right thing to do.
Maybe being mariied to an asshole like you is the reason she is angry? By the way, you sound like a great father!
PLEASE bring back the 40-hour work-week. I am sick and tired of having to work three part-time jobs because I cannot get full-time work any other way. It is disgusting how employers do this, I spend too much just travelling from job to job to job to home (where I often only have six hours to unwind/eat/sleep/shower/eat), both in money and time.
The last full-time job I had, I was told during the interview that I would be laid off before I completed six months and rehired at a later time, that this was standard practice... And this was a CITY job, guess they like to weasel out of benefits as much as private employers.
Meanwhile, the employees have slowly had the attitude of uncaring beaten into them. Your new purchase not working? Don't blame the manufacturer, blame the stock-persons who bounced it around the store before shelving it because he just didn't care any more. Milk go sour too soon? Shame that it sat in the aisle for two hours before going into the cooler because the employee didn't have any interest in keeping his job - because there's no reason for him to - and spent the time smoking out back.
When employers cared about their employees, (most of the) employees cared about their employers - and the customers of the business.
As for you lightweights crying about getting overtime, stop your crying! It may be a surprise to the average American, but you don't need to spend that overtime as fast - or faster - than you make it. A 60-hour week (20 hours at time and a half) gives you an effective 30 more hours of PAY each week. Keep it up and you can retire at least two decades sooner, without the financial hit. How many of you whiners have credit-card debt? You apparently aren't working enough. I would LOVE to be told during the interview, "We'll need you to work overtime each and every week." I could stop driving 100,000 miles/year and start eating better - AND I'd still have less time in the combined "working and driving to/from my job(s)" category. It'd be like a permanent vacation that I get to take a few hours per day, permanently - and I'd be getting paid (better).
Bawl about something important.
Wow, that's the most retarded thing I've ever read. And not a bit of it pertains to why people should be worked to death.
Free swab tests upon membership approval!
Membership approval? Somehow you're giving the impression that she was not, in any way 'default deny'...
Bitter humor is the best kind.
Preach it, brother!
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
While the club does require membership approval, she approved every member who came across her*, so it's something of a cosmic wash.
*bwahaha
Have you tried golf? You can swear all you want, and young, pretty women drive around the courses offering you beer. It's a win-win, and a lot better than being at work.
Eighteen holes in one day and I still have time for golf!
-Tiger Woods
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
While the club does require membership approval, she approved every member who came across her*, so it's something of a cosmic wash.
Heh. As a fellow bitter-humorist, I approve heartily!
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
I'm sick of working 37.5 hours a week.