The Compelling Case For Working Less (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report from the BBC, written by Amanda Ruggeri: As we fill our days with more and more "doing," many of us are finding that non-stop activity isn't the apotheosis of productivity. It is its adversary. Researchers are learning that it doesn't just mean that the work we produce at the end of a 14-hour day is of worse quality than when we're fresh. This pattern of working also undermines our creativity and our cognition. Over time, it can make us feel physically sick -- and even, ironically, as if we have no purpose. Think of mental work as doing push-ups, says Josh Davis, author of Two Awesome Hours. Say you want to do 10,000. The most 'efficient' way would be to do them all at once without a break. We know instinctively, though, that that is impossible. Instead, if we did just a few at a time, between other activities and stretched out over weeks, hitting 10,000 would become far more feasible. "The brain is very much like a muscle in this respect," Davis writes. "Set up the wrong conditions through constant work and we can accomplish little. Set up the right conditions and there is probably little we can't do." Many of us, though, tend to think of our brains not as muscles, but as a computer: a machine capable of constant work. Not only is that untrue, but pushing ourselves to work for hours without a break can be harmful, some experts say. Ruggeri goes on to highlight the negative health effects associated with working long hours. "One meta-analysis found that long working hours increased the risk of coronary heart disease by 40% -- almost as much as smoking (50%)," she writes. "Another found that people who worked long hours had a significantly higher risk of stroke, while people who worked more than 11 hours a day were almost 2.5 times more likely to have a major depressive episode than those who worked seven to eight."

Comments

Work less

[rodrigoandrade]

Until you get fired and replaced by an immigrant who works more for less.

Re:Work less

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesn't have much to do with immigration. The race-to-the-bottom works just fine with locals.

What you need to have is a strong (independent and non-corrupt) labor union to ensure the employer offers the same employment conditions to different people for the same position, so employers can't do this.

Re:Work less

[Anonymous Coward]

Six hours per day, five days a week is considered "full time" here.

I could never understand why Americans burn themselves out working eight or more a day. They live to work, whereas we work to live.

Re:Work less

[Austerity Empowers]

What you need to have is a strong (independent and non-corrupt) labor union

Alas, no unicorns have been spotted in these parts, and local statute requires they are killed on sight.

Re:Work less

[jedidiah]

Don't believe the hype. They don't actually work that hard. Any genuine workaholism is relegated to a very tiny part of the country. Everywhere else, you are lucky to see 6 hours of productivity out of American workers in an entire week.

Re:Work less

[TheRaven64]

There was a study a little over 10 years ago that measured productivity in a variety of 'knowledge worker' applications and concluded that productivity peaks at about 20 hours per week, then plateaus to about 40, and then drops off. This is particularly noticeable in something like programming, where a small mistake made when tired and not thinking straight can lead to 10 hours of debugging the next week. People who work a solid 4-5 hours a day are likely to be a lot more productive than people who are physically present and trying to work for 10.

Re:Work less

[kilfarsnar]

Six hours per day, five days a week is considered "full time" here.

I could never understand why Americans burn themselves out working eight or more a day. They live to work, whereas we work to live.

Americans are kept in a state of anxiety about their jobs and livelihood. From advertisers to the news media, to big business, to the government, everyone has an interest in scaring the American people toward their own ends.

Re:Work less

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah in general that's true. Actual productive hours typically seem to average around 6 or so. Why bother forcing more if it's unproductive? Because as an employer you can churn and burn. I've experienced *many* dysfunctional environments in s/w dev (both startups and large companies) where the expectation is *always* 8+ hours of daily intense productivity to meet objectives, and *often* 12-14 hours to get things done in crunch mode that may last weeks. I had a brain hemorrhage after one such stretch of too much caffeine, too little sleep, and too much work stress. I've seen many marriages destroyed by overwork. Work culture in the US is uh... pathological. Queue the tough guys and/or braggarts who have found themselves a niche outside this insanity. Apparently the line of thinking is that things are just fine, as long as we do better than a foxconn factory.

Re:Work less

[interkin3tic]

It's self-imposed. You work hard to keep up with everyone else and by the time you realize it's bullshit, you're unwilling to admit it because you've missed out on so much of your personal life. Admitting you didn't need to be at the office instead of your son's baseball games is painful and makes you feel like a fraud.

Re:Work less

[EndlessNameless]

The 40-hour work week was established by law. We can just as easily establish a 30- or 35-hour work week.

We could also remove the overtime exemptions so that managers, programmers, etc are all eligible for overtime. Companies only have the power to treat people like garbage because we let them do it.

Those laws should apply equally to immigrants too. Even if you're more concerned with limiting immigration rather than want to protecting immigrants, it's still a good idea to give them full legal protections. This eliminates some of the incentive to hire them in the first place.

Re:Work less

[plopez]

Or Capitalism with a human face which actually pursues scientific management. As another poster put it, no unicorns have been spotted in these parts.

Re:Work less

[Anonymous Coward]

Productivity is not what CXOs value - they are "alpha males" - and believe their value derives from their ability to bully others.

Re:Work less

[ceoyoyo]

Productivity yes. Actual studies put that number even lower, around 3-4 hours / day.

But lots of managers have a butts in seats style: if you butt is in your seat you're working, if it isn't, you aren't. Sitting at work reading Slashdot or Facebook isn't contributing to your relaxation and future productivity, it's truly wasted time.

Re: Work less

[houghi]

That is because uou have guilds, not unions. A guild will protect the job. E.g. a writers guild. A union will protect the people.

Living in Belgium as an adult you can join almost any union. No matter what job you have or even if you have a job. You can join any moment and nobody cares if you are union or not.

Re:Work less

[ceoyoyo]

There's been a lot of research on this, going back a long time, but what is old is new again.

The Brits did studies in WWII to maximize factory production. It turns out your maximum productivity working an assembly line in a life-or-Nazi-occupation scenario is 40 hours / week.

Re: Work less

[Austerity Empowers]

You can join any moment and nobody cares if you are union or not.

I'm curious about this, not to be combative:
1) You can join at any time, but you pay dues right?
2) The people who have been in the union for a long time have more pull with leadership, right? (They have paid in, after all)
3) Who negotiates your wages/conditions when you take a job?
4) If you dispute your union's leadership, and believe they are in the wrong somehow, and you do not support the actions they take to achieve their objective, what happens to you?

Honestly

[GeekWithAKnife]

From working cash in hand jobs as a teen to a couple of decades later, the less I work the more I earn.

I was always led to believe the inverse is true.

Humans can work, so they will

[Baron_Yam]

We're productive enough as a society that we could probably get by on a 20 hour work week.

So what happens then? Well, it's obviously fairly sustainable to work 40 hours per week... so someone's going to get two jobs with opposing schedules so they can have a nicer house.

When they do that, someone else won't have a job opportunity and they'll lower their income expectations. The economy will slowly adjust to the practical reality that people will work 40 hours a week for a standard wage, and then 20 hours won't be enough for food and shelter any longer and everyone will have to have two jobs instead of one.

Then you're right back to where we are now.

Re: Humans can work, so they will

[Zero__Kelvin]

You would need jobs with congruent schedules, not opposing schedules.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[squiggleslash]

That already happens, people will get a full time job and then a part time job to make ends meet. Or in some cases multiple part time jobs. This isn't unusual in the US, it's the norm for people on low incomes, and it's probably ultimately devastating both for the people involved and for productivity.

I doubt moving to a four hour day (or rather a three day week) would actually result in much of a rise in the number of people doing this (assuming total pay remains the same or in the same ballpark), as most jobs would schedule the same hours, just as they do today.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[hackertourist]

Something similar happened in the 1970s in the Netherlands. Before that, women were not required to have/look for a job. When the law changed, labor participation of women rose steeply, average household income rose as well (2 incomes instead of just one), which led to a steep rise in housing cost. The end result is that buying a house is no longer affordable for singles and single-income families.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[Baron_Yam]

The last time I am aware something similar happened was when women entered the workforce in significant numbers post-WWII.

It used to be very common for women to not enter the workforce, and families did OK (for the times... poor buggers didn't have Internet, home theatres, or microwave ovens!). After women entered the workforce, it didn't take long for two incomes to become standard (even if it took a long time for women to commonly start doing the same kind of work as men after the war effort).

And what's happened since? Having one person stay home is now the exception rather than the rule, and it's generally considered a strain on the family finances if only one person in a couple is working.

Society adjusted to the near-doubling of the work force to ensure all the little cogs were kept turning for as much of the day as possible.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[kilfarsnar]

We're productive enough as a society that we could probably get by on a 20 hour work week.

So what happens then? Well, it's obviously fairly sustainable to work 40 hours per week... so someone's going to get two jobs with opposing schedules so they can have a nicer house.

When they do that, someone else won't have a job opportunity and they'll lower their income expectations. The economy will slowly adjust to the practical reality that people will work 40 hours a week for a standard wage, and then 20 hours won't be enough for food and shelter any longer and everyone will have to have two jobs instead of one.

Then you're right back to where we are now.

If I could maintain my current lifestyle, while working a 20 hour week, I certainly would not get a second job.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[Baron_Yam]

>If I could maintain my current lifestyle, while working a 20 hour week, I certainly would not get a second job.

That's the point... you can't maintain your lifestyle because OTHER people will gladly pick up a second job so they can have more stuff. Eventually that kind of choice puts downward pressure on wages until everyone has to work 40 hours again just to keep up.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[bluefoxlucid]

Not really. Remember wages are paid by consumers: you need the revenue stream to make payroll. Wages are just labor hours at exchange rate.

In a population which works 20% less, 20% less is produced, and wealth drops by 20%. Sliding wages as a whole doesn't change relative consumer buying power: your consumers are just 20% poorer and can only afford to buy 20% less.

I have a path to a 32-hour work week. It involves taking productivity increases in part by reducing full-time working hours, slowly marching toward a 4-day work week while becoming wealthier more-slowly. The alternative is to stay 40 hours and end up with more stuff in the end.

What good is amassing more stuff if you don't have the free time to enjoy your wealth?

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[Wycliffe]

>If I could maintain my current lifestyle, while working a 20 hour week, I certainly would not get a second job.

That's the point... you can't maintain your lifestyle because OTHER people will gladly pick up a second job so they can have more stuff. Eventually that kind of choice puts downward pressure on wages until everyone has to work 40 hours again just to keep up.

A partial solution would be to make it illegal to work more than 20 hours per week and/or mandatory vacation. I say partial solution because if you could only legally work 20 hours a week, you would likely see a lot more people doing projects in their spare time like fixing up a car for extra income. I think this would still be a net win though as it would encourage entrepreneurship.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[be951]

I'm not sure why you would think that, since we have gone from 12-14+ hour workdays (six days a week) being typical to today's standard of 8 hours per day for 5 days.

Of course, many people work outside the standard, working more or fewer days and more or fewer hours -- some due to unusual job requirements, some due to necessity resulting from low wages, some simply to have more, like the theoretical case you described. But 40 hours is now the standard and around 47 is the average put in by U.S. full-time workers (spent on the job, though most don't actually work the entire time they are at work). It obviously has not crept back up to historical levels, even though history clearly shows that people can work those kinds of schedules.

Re: Humans can work, so they will

[houghi]

That can be corrected with taxation. E.g if my company asks me to do overtime and they give me double pay, i would still be short, do it is not worth it. Simplidication:
First 20 hours standard taxation standard tax. Everything over 100%tax. Now how many are willing to work more?
This is exttemely simplified.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[ceoyoyo]

The solution to that problem is progressive taxation.

Go ahead and work two jobs if money is that important to you, but don't expect to make twice the money.

The slope of the tax rate changes the set point for how much the average person finds it worthwhile to work.

Re: Humans can work, so they will

[Khashishi]

First 20 hours standard taxation standard tax. Everything over 100%tax. Now how many are willing to work more?
This is exttemely simplified.

Overly easy to game, no matter how convoluted you make the laws. The thing about overtime pay is that at least one party has an incentive to make sure the law is followed, so while it is gamed, at least there is a check on it.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[be951]

In a population which works 20% less, 20% less is produced, and wealth drops by 20%.

Possible, but unlikely. If you mean that 20% less work is actually done, perhaps. But only if the 20% of work not being done is average with respect to the wealth it produces. However, working 20% fewer hours does not mean less work will get done. Some research mentioned in the article indicates that office workers spend less than 3 hours per workday actually doing productive work.It also mentions that the then-standard 10 hour workday was changed to 8 hours early in the 20th century because it made workers more productive -- not just on a per hour basis, but overall. So working fewer hours might actually increase productivity (some research has show this, but how broadly applicable it is is undetermined). And the Pareto Principle (AKA the 80/20 rule, which has been borne out in many, many domains) indicates that we could very likely keep similar levels of productivity with much less time spent on work.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[bluefoxlucid]

Possible, but unlikely. If you mean that 20% less work is actually done, perhaps. But only if the 20% of work not being done is average with respect to the wealth it produces. However, working 20% fewer hours does not mean less work will get done.

Oh come now, you can do better than that.

The major assumption is that most productive work done is full-time. Problem is service work is 100% productive: all service jobs rely on time coverage, rather than strict output. That means you need those grocery cashiers and waitresses on staff continuously, even if the place is more or less slow within the variation of what requires a minimum of and no more than X people. Much service work is also part-time; whereas full-time work often involves problem-solving, and problem-solving uses down time (your brain continues to make associations in the background when not actively thinking on a problem, and so it becomes efficient to set the problem aside and come back later). Much office work is down-time.

So the first-pass consideration suggests that a 20% reduction in what we call full-time hours results in less than a 20% reduction in total working hours. A second-pass suggests that some subset of full-time work will be more than 80% as productive even when 80% of working hours are performed.

But yes, a reduction of work actually performed by 20% will result in 20% less wealth. That's the conservative estimate.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[be951]

The major assumption is that most productive work done is full-time.

No such assumption is made (by me) or required. Full time work simply provides a basis for comparing time spent working vs. productive time.

Problem is service work is 100% productive

That's not what "productive" means, particularly in this context where we are talking about income/wealth produced relative to hours worked. It may be necessary to have that coverage, but if there are no customers during an hour, no revenue (nor profit nor wealth) is produced during that time, so you could hardly say that a worker working during that time was productive (of course, it is possible to do work that has some value during that time.

But yes, a reduction of work actually performed by 20% will result in 20% less wealth.

Again, this is only true if the work that is no longer being done produces at least the mean value of wealth per unit of work. Surely it does not need to be explained that not all work produces equal wealth? Although I should point out that wealth is the wrong word here. Income would be more accurate, and you could perhaps use GDP to describe it in terms of a nationwide aggregate. Even that is not fully accurate, since productive work is obviously not the only source of income possible.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[Kjella]

It used to be very common for women to not enter the workforce, and families did OK (for the times... poor buggers didn't have Internet, home theatres, or microwave ovens!). (...) And what's happened since? Having one person stay home is now the exception rather than the rule, and it's generally considered a strain on the family finances if only one person in a couple is working.

So... a normal income is determined by how much a normal family works? I'm shocked, I tell you. If "everyone else" started working and you were a stay-at-home mom would you expect not to lag behind? That's basically saying that what women do at work is worthless. You could life off one income, you choose not to because everyone else has two and you want to have what they have. I think that if you were warped back 50 years to 1967 wages and prices and tried that gig you'd find that they didn't actually have a whole lot of money, they were just in similar company.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[Sumus Semper Una]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't propose a theory like that without listing the assumptions. You've assumed:

1) Unemployment in this scenario is low and someone looking to work two jobs can easily find two jobs with offsetting schedules because employers badly need workers.
2) Working a second job means you took it from someone else who needed it (again, most likely to be the case during low unemployment).
3) Someone who could work 20 hours a week to get by is willing to work 40 hours a week in a pinch for the exact same pay if employment is scarce.
4) A 40 hour work week is the "natural equilibrium" that the US would go back to even if one were to change the externalities that go into people's employment decisions. Any artificial attempts to lengthen or shorten the work week will end up back at 40 hours.
5) Most people are willing to work far longer than they do now if you pay them a bit more, even if they are living comfortably on a schedule that affords them a lot of time for leisure and pursuits outside of work.

I disagree with practically all these assumptions, which is why your conclusion struck me as far fetched. If you offered to pay me 1.5x my salary to work 1.5x longer than I do now, I'd tell you to go to hell. I concluded a long time ago that my money and my time have an exchange rate. Paying to save time and being paid less to have more time for my own interests are acceptable trade-offs to me and many others.

Re:Humans can work, so they will

[bluefoxlucid]

That's not what "productive" means, particularly in this context where we are talking about income/wealth produced relative to hours worked.

Actually, it's impossible to measure proportional productivity in any way other than time at maximum productivity. Technological progress can always increase the amount produced per unit time worked, so the theoretical productivity would be 1/inf or 0% at all times; whereas the productivity of a worker using whatever tools at hand top out at a maximum. If the worker operates at half that maximum output, he's 50% productive.

Thing is some jobs are uneven in terms of available work, and can be "caught up". If you work 8 hours a day, but spend 2 hours in the middle waiting for another department to give you an input, then you can actually come in 2 hours late and get all your work done in 6 hours--no loss of productivity. On the other hand, a restaurant will suffer in terms of service quality if it's short-staffed, even though the waitresses aren't busy 100% of the time: you can't toggle them on and off (to release them, you have to allow them to go anywhere, so bringing them back in may take half an hour), so you need your waitstaff on-hand 100% of the time--therefor cutting waitstaff hours in half means you must hire twice as many waitstaff. They're productive 100% of the time, thus 100% productive.

Even if you have no customers one hour, you can't very well predict that. You can predict low customer load and so have reduced staff in that hour, yet you will still have some staff. If you try to predict the days when customer load will be zero, you'll suffer loss. Because you have no way to avoid said loss except by having staff on-hand during those times, that's the maximum output of your staff--long-running productivity is decreased by sending them away when you think there will be no work.

Your waitstaff are producing what is called "coverage" in the industry.

No shit Sherlock

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't get more than 6 hours of productive work from a knowledge worker. They can be there for longer, but they could do their shit faster and head home, and there would be no difference in output.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[Kiuas]

You won't get more than 6 hours of productive work from a knowledge worker. They can be there for longer, but they could do their shit faster and head home, and there would be no difference in output.

This is indeed true and backed up by studies and experiments.

The 8 hour work day is by and large a remnant of the industrialization when factories needed to be ran in 3 shifts. When you're talking about a monotonous, assembly line type of a job, 8 hours lets you get by with just 3 shifts instead of 4 which saves cost and the productivity difference in those kinds of jobs was not too noticeable.

However, when you start talking about anything that requires more than performing a simple manual task over and over again, 8 hours starts to be too much. When you combine this with the fact that the need for time-consuming manual tasks is going down as automation and AIs increase it starts to make even more sense to cut down the length of the workday.

Personally as a project manager on almost all days I can get the relevant stuff done in 6 hours or under, the main exceptions being the days when there happens to be several meetings that require travelling between locations, and even then the extra time is spent on the road instead of doing something productive. I'd happily have my work time reduced to 6 hours provided the pay stays the same. And herein lies the core problem with this situation: we know that cutting down work time will increase efficiency, but we still evaluate and pay workers based on 'time spent at workstation' so the intuition of corporations is that if worktime is cut, pay must also be cut.

In other words: the basic assumption that people are paid 'for their time' needs to be done away with in knowledge work especially and replaced with paying people for working outcomes.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[nctritech]

I wonder if it would work better to have people working on a per-day basis. Then again, that would require less concretely observed metrics than simple "hours worked."

Re:No shit Sherlock

[Opportunist]

If you pay me for my time, you will get my time and nothing else.

Re:No shit Sherlock

[Joe_Dragon]

great idea bob.

Jay you have to work M 0:00 to W 23:59 and you only get paid for 3 days for a 72 hour work week.

14-hour day should be X2 OT or more

[Joe_Dragon]

14-hour day should be X2 OT or more and that immigrant needs to be pay at least $90-$110K.

2% target inflation nixes that

[Ulfilas2000]

As long as the goverrnment finds virtue in people working 40 hours a week and incititing it by knowingly inflating away their earnings and taxing the rest people will continue to be on the long hamster wheel.

Re:And this is why...

[geekmux]

...Europe is falling far behind the United States in productivity and wealth.

No, this is why Europe has a different definition of "wealth".

Wealth gained from unrealistic productivity goals become pointless if you ultimately end up pissing it away fixing the medical issues caused by pushing yourself too hard. Retirement goals also become pointless if you're dead before then.

Even TFS makes the detriment to health very clear, and I have zero fucking desire to hand over half a century of retirement nest egg to the Medical Industrial Complex. I guarantee that maintaining good physical and mental health will become your most valuable asset later in life.

Besides, humans better start accepting a 20-hour workweek as normal, especially as automation and AI march on to decimate human employment.

If people are going to work less

[rsilvergun]

It means they have to be paid more. But as automation and outsourcing devalues their labor they're going to be worth less. That's just supply and demand. So of they're going to work less the people who pay them are going to have to be forced to pay them more, probably with an underlying threat (e.g. of you don't pay your taxes you go to jail). Now, I'm a socialist so I'm fine with that, but how about the rest out there? Forget logic and reason, how does it make you feel?

Re:If people are going to work less

[jedidiah]

Sterilize those that aren't productive.

People misunderstand socialism. The heavy socialist countries don't let you lay around and do nothing. Even the original Marx implies that everyone is supposed to work.

Re:If people are going to work less

[GameboyRMH]

That's how we know our social media stars and trust fund babies are vastly more productive than our construction workers or paramedics.

Re:If people are going to work less

[kilfarsnar]

Sterilize those that aren't productive.

Wait, I would get to be a lazy bastard and not have to take care of children? Sign me up, that's a win-win!

Re:If people are going to work less

[Khashishi]

Automation makes labor worth more, not less. The amount of goods produced by one unit of labor is amplified by automation.

Re:A wish for more work

[bulled]

Your salary (IMO) is not there to cover the fact that things are running smoothly. It does cover some of that, but I suspect you are paid what you are because you and your group know what to do when everything goes pear shaped.

Balance is immensely important

[slaker]

17 years ago, I had a one year contract with unlimited overtime, all meals and accommodations provided. They wanted me on site all the time. I worked 18 hours a day with no time off for that whole time... and immediately had a breakdown as soon as that contract ended and I got out of the weird routine of it. I needed months to get back to anything like sanity.

The next job I got, and the job I still have, is a four day work week, 50% telecommuting gig. I have responsibilities and I'm on call 24x7 but as long as I keep everything working, I have a pretty sweet work/life balance. I can't bring myself to give that up.

I've been on both extremes and I consider myself extremely fortunate to be where I am right now.

This study is based on a false premise

[hyades1]

The study assumes that employers want to treat their employees as human beings. In the United States, employees are inconvenient, failure-prone devices that insist on receiving a few dollars in pay for the work they do. This puts an unfair limit on the employer's ability to make money.

So if an employee has a heart attack or a stroke, or suffers from depression...that's their problem. If one of them occasionally loses their shit and goes on a killing spree...it's not going to be the CEO who gets shot.

So the hours an employee works need to be whatever the employer says. If an employer wants 60 hour weeks with another 10 hours of tacked-on, uncompensated "setup time", the employees should just shut up and thank god they have jobs.

And no health care. That could raise corporate taxes, and it's better for America if the employees die off when they can't work anymore.

Re:This study is based on a false premise

[liquid_schwartz]

If one of them occasionally loses their shit and goes on a killing spree...it's not going to be the CEO who gets shot.

This is the part that would get change made the fastest. I'd be happy if politicians were killed off in pairs since both D and R are hopelessly corrupt and both need to have the herd thinned. The bipartisan nature of it would allow justice to be done without it becoming partisan. A milder version of this is that both Trump and Hillary need to be locked up.

Re:This study is based on a false premise

[eaglesrule]

That's why this is one of my favorite quotes:

"Somehow, we got into a discussion of the responsibility of management. Holden made the point that management's responsibility is to the shareholders – that's the end of it. And I objected. I said, 'I think you're absolutely wrong. Management has a responsibility to its employees, it has a responsibility to its customers, it has a responsibility to the community at large.' And they almost laughed me out of the room."- David Packard

Re:This study is based on a false premise

[david_thornley]

Ideally, companies would want their workers to be productive, and that means not overworking them. Hiring new employees is expensive, and so replacing burned-out employees is expensive. From a purely selfish point of view, a company should not demand work that will reduce immediate productivity or have longer-range ill effects.

Of course, there are a large number of managers and executives who wouldn't know informed self-interest if it bi them in the ass.

Re:And this is why...

[Bongo]

...Europe is falling far behind the United States in productivity and wealth.

No, this is why Europe has a different definition of "wealth".

Wealth gained from unrealistic productivity goals become pointless if you ultimately end up pissing it away fixing the medical issues caused by pushing yourself too hard. Retirement goals also become pointless if you're dead before then.

Even TFS makes the detriment to health very clear, and I have zero fucking desire to hand over half a century of retirement nest egg to the Medical Industrial Complex. I guarantee that maintaining good physical and mental health will become your most valuable asset later in life.

Besides, humans better start accepting a 20-hour workweek as normal, especially as automation and AI march on to decimate human employment.

Absolutely. Health is real wealth. I saw a figure the other day that USA spends 3 trillion on medical problems. I dunno if that's a made up figure, but even if only a quarter of that...

I mean, I gather in UK, when the NHS was founded, it cost, in today's money, 20 billion. Now it is costing 120 billion... and basically, there is no more money, nor any sign of that rise stopping anytime soon.

And here I don't particularly care about left or right politics -- the politics of how to fund that bill is hardly relevant when the main problem is that the bill is crippling, whether public or private. Neocons can bang on about the NHS being "inefficient" and meanwhile the socially-conscious can go on about "cuts" -- but if everyone in the country is sick, who is going to look after them? Half of NHS workers are obese.

Heart disease is linked to stress. Diabetes, obesity, and dementia are becoming more linked to diet (a diet full of processed cheap carbs and seed oils for the profit of multinationals).

And we work ourselves to a miserable decrepit age. Instead of dying healthy, we drag our our remaining years at incredible expense to society.

I mean, I could go on.

Doctors are starting to say that the NHS needs to become about health, wellbeing, and prevention, rather than trying to cure the results of bad lifestyle with expensive interventions and drugs.

Labor Participation Rate

[Anonymous Coward]

1997-10-01 67.1%
2007-10-01 65.8%
2017-10-01 62.7%

Fewer Americans working means Americans are working less on average.

Mission Accomplished!

Re:Labor Participation Rate

[sheph]

That may not be by choice.

Easy to say, not so easy to apply

[CustomSolvers2]

If you are working/living under favourable conditions, surrounded by practical, sensible and properly understanding people, with high freedom/resource availability to do whatever you want at any point, that advice might be somehow helpful for those not realising that being too concerned about work (or on anything else) isn't precisely positive. On the other hand, if your conditions are harder and/or your expectations can only be accomplished via a relevant amount of over-effort and/or in that moment you aren't able/have the resources to do what you really enjoy and/or you perform better under pressure, that wouldn't be too accurate. Similarly to what happens with everything else, it is a matter of perspective and, in this specific situation, personal priorities, interests, type of work you do, etc. Some people might enjoy being at work much more than doing what others consider amusing.

The record for non-stop push-ups is over 10,000

[Nova Express]

In fact, it's 10,507 by Minoru Yoshida of Japan in October 1980. After which they stopped keeping track of that record.

So maybe you should start out with an analogy that isn't demonstrably false...

Re: And this is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost per head healthcare in the uk is 1/4 that of US and acheives better outcomes and 100% coverage of the population. Inefficiency is what you get when you slap a layer of insurance admin and marketing on top.

It's all about the love man...

[Anonymous Coward]

People working 80 hours a week on a job they love and are passionate about probably isn't too much of a stretch. They start the day with "Today I get to..."

On the other hand, slogging through 80 hours of someone else's bullshit is killer. They start the day with "Today I have to..."

Re:It's all about the love man...

[PPH]

This is a good point. And when you go home, you engage in some activities that you enjoy. Odds are that many of them include some level of intellectual or mental engagement. So one is not shutting down one's brain*. Mental effort continues to be exerted, just on an activity that interests a person.

*Aside from some millennials who just want to take their paycheck, go home and light up a joint.

Re:It's all about the love man...

[PPH]

Not everyone gets the privilege of doing a job they love.

Learn to love the task you are doing. Every special snowflake thinks they are CEO material. Many are destined for a career of busing tables.

Re:It's all about the love man...

[david_thornley]

The real question is, would the person putting in the 80-hour week produce more or less with a 40-hour week? They may say they accomplish more, but we've found self-reporting to be unreliable.

Re:It's all about the love man...

[david_thornley]

If you work an 80-hour week, that's approximately half your time at work. Assuming you sleep eight hours a night (seven is probably too little), you're working and sleeping 136 hours a week, leaving 32 left for everything else. You're going to have to fit commuting, meals, etc. into that 32 hours. You're not going to be doing all that much that's stimulating with what's left.

Re:It's all about the love man...

[tehcyder]

Not everyone gets the privilege of doing a job they love.

Learn to love the task you are doing. Every special snowflake thinks they are CEO material. Many are destined for a career of busing tables.

Self-delusion is not the key to happiness. You can learn to accept things without having to love them.

Re:And this is why...

[stabiesoft]

The point about dragging is the main reason health care cost explodes. People are "saved" from dying by drugs, procedures, and vegetative states. Of course in the end they still die, probably not even knowing they were alive for the last couple of years of their life. But the family could go visit the body once a month at the nursing home. Another big cost driver is people are fat and do not exercise. I saw the UK is starting to delay care for extremely obese until they lose some weight. Probably a good start. Medicine cannot fix 500lb people.

Showing off...

[QuietLagoon]

The editor just wanted to use the word "apotheosis" in a sentence. :)

The idea should be to work more at work

[urbanriot]

I've been reading western topics like this for a good 15 years now and, quite frankly, I don't believe North Americans are actually working more but rather they're occupying more of their time with work because they're working less.

For a good span of my life I had worked in IT and had to spend a good chunk of my time evaluating web logs for management and I would easily say that the majority of office workers with PCs would waste a huge chunk of time browsing Facebook, forums, baby sites, wedding sites, stock sites, local news sites, sports sites, dating sites, etc., etc. Hell, plenty of people paid their electric, gas, credit card, etc., bills at work as though they didn't have the internet at home... and the porn. I can't count the number of men that had porn stashes on their computers.

Certainly the amount of time wasn't consistent across the board and for some of these folks it was only 15 - 30 minutes a day on someone else's dime devoted to personal browsing but for many it was up to 2 hours. I'd say the average was an hour. And what else could they be doing at work? Are they conducting personal affairs over the phone?

The point I'm making has less to do with how pervasive internet slacking is in work environments that use computers but to question how many people are suffering because they're doing too little work at work?

Re:The idea should be to work more at work

[apoc.famine]

I'm lucky to have a job where I'm judged based on shit not going wrong, and if it does, that getting fixed quickly. What that means is that I can and do blow off at 3pm sometimes when I'm brain-dead or nothing is on fire. In exchange, when things are on fire, I'm generally a lot more useful than if I was putting in 60 hrs a week.

Could I be more productive at work? No. I could be less effective at my core duties, while more productive at busy-work. But my core duty is to make things not halt and catch on fire. The trade-off is just not worth it for the business.

I wish there were more managers in the world and more jobs set up like this. Lets do great work and go home early. Lets not just slog along for hours and hours in between posting to slashdot.

Re:The idea should be to work more at work

[cppdicksucker]

Where have you been working? Every high tech company (software shops) I've worked for in the past 15 years has looked nothing like what you describe. Sure, I see people paying bills or goofing off after a release on rare occasion, but the counterpoint is that the same people were up until 1am the night before and/or all weekend troubleshooting various bullshit. Work impinges so much on home that it's difficult for me to enrage myself seeing some personal stuff at work. But yeah, pr0n at work is not cool. I hope they were all fired.

Re:The idea should be to work more at work

[Khashishi]

Is it really any better in other continents?

Re:The idea should be to work more at work

[urbanriot]

Where have you been working? Every high tech company (software shops) I've worked for

Part of corporate IT consulting gigs evaluating security concerns for various industries ranging from manufacturing, large health care facilities, engineering firms, etc.. The majority of employees did not work on their own time outside of a few engineering managers that did it because they loved their job.

However I've been at some firms, often legal, medical, or engineering, where minimal time wasting occurs (outside of people conducting job searches prior to asking for a raise or leaving their employer for another job). I feel these locations have employees with an appropriate level of allocated work, where there's no time to waste browsing Facebook. I expect these locations have effective managers or actual managers whereas the sites occupied by time-wasters are poorly managed.

However like you I have worked unnecessarily late hours when I was in IT and I think we do experience situations that are entirely unlike what most people experience and this is not common, nor should it be expected unless people are paid more. I feel with how managed services and globalization has blown up that this is going to happen much less as IT is available on-the-clock in a different time zone.

Re:And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

Even TFS makes the detriment to health very clear, and I have zero fucking desire to hand over half a century of retirement nest egg to the Medical Industrial Complex. I guarantee that maintaining good physical and mental health will become your most valuable asset later in life.

So much depends on the individual. An 8 hour day to me is just like getting started. I've always been this way. Hell, I'm retired now and work more than 8 hours a day. Actual work - not puttering.

Wanna know what I find stressful? Not doing stuff.

This will probably drive people nuts, but I work in my dreams. I dream solutions to problems I'm working on. Nothing to start your day off on a high note like figuring out a solution

And I sleep 5 hours a day, and that's my limit, which for some reason enrages some people.

Now I have no doubt that there are bad physical effects for those who's jobs consist of all hard physical labor. That's a lot of physical wear and tear. But from a lifetime of working with so called normal people, what I believe is harming them is stress brought on by mental boohooing about how rough they have it with being put upon to work extra.

The only stress I ever felt when I was working extra hours was when there was a possibility that the work wouldn't be finished on time. I think that happened maybe once every 10 years. A lot of people want to work as little as possible, and find every day stressful. And that's a shame.

Besides, humans better start accepting a 20-hour workweek as normal, especially as automation and AI march on to decimate human employment.

I agree on the basic premise. I wonder though - would new studies come out declaring that a ten hour week is healthier as the stresses of the 20 hour work week is "shown" to kill people? Meantime, I'm going to do stuff like I always did stuff, because I gotta do stuff - I derive happiness from it.

Re:Hard work is not a four letter word

[omnichad]

"thanks to the indoctrination from government education" many of us have crippling debt. Working hard isn't nearly enough to dig yourself out. I don't know who you think you know, but your generalizations are false.

Work you sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

As a surgeon in training I worked ~120 hours a week nonstop for 5 years!!!
Thatâ(TM)s what it takes to be good.
It didnâ(TM)t âoedestroy my lifeâ but it was tough. So what.
I now work much less. But still it is about 80+ hours a week and I take multiple vacations a year. Because I can afford it and âoerenewâ my batteries.
Multiple studies showed that surgeons do not make more mistakes after doing surgery while being awake and working for 36 hours.
I guess either surgeons are aliens or most other folks are lazy, built differently and / or lack the capacity to concentrate for long periods of time?
As to life expectancy, most physicians live longer than average, go figure?

Re:Work you sissies

[hyades1]

I wonder how many people have died because you made bad decisions. If you're a doctor, then you know the research about fatigue and human error is irrefutable, and it indicates that over time, tired people make more mistakes.

Re:And this is why...

[SirSlud]

Don't you have people in the real world who will listen to you talk about yourself?

Re:A wish for more work

[kilfarsnar]

There is an old saying in the IT field [..] we are the highest paid people in the building.

Don't you ever get tired of deluding yourself?

Try working IT in a law firm, trading firm, hospital, or school. Then see who is the highest paid in the building. Not you.

IT is shit work and it pays shit. Get the fuck over yourself already.

You used that ellipses to cut out the bulk of his post and connect two phrases that were not connected. Then you used that to challenge a point he didn't make. Well done!

Re:And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

Don't you have people in the real world who will listen to you talk about yourself?

No.

Re:Hard work is not a four letter word

[GameboyRMH]

Hopefully you haven't reproduced, that could explain how you know nothing about how hard Gen. Y/Z'ers work. Here's a hint: Which generation was it that was commonly able to afford homes working jobs that don't require a degree again?

You should thank FSM every day that you weren't born a few decades later, or your hard work would leave you poor, and your elders would mock you for it to add insult to injury.

Re:And this is why...

[Bongo]

A small quibble over the "don't exercise" point: after decades of being told we get fat due to not burning it off with activity, people are starting to change their minds. South African sports scientist Tim Noakes who wrote The Lore of Running says he could run 120K a week and he still put on weight and he still got diabetes -- it was the food, not the activity, which was to blame, he came to realise. He now says you cannot outrun a bad diet. But the sugar industry likes to promote blaming laziness to draw attention away from all the sugar that goes into its products. Anyway, small point. Main point is people need a healthy lifestyle so they can avoid the long, expensive, chronic conditions.

Re: And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

Finally someone who makes sense. Most people who don't commit themselves to mastering their profession become masters of the couch and tv universe. You do not master much working a few or 6 hours a day.

And just watch how what I wrote enrages some folks. Someone already was pissed enough to write asking me if I didn't have someone to talk to in real life.

Rather than my simple "no" answer, I simply go to Slashdot every morning when I'm out to breakfast. I allow that entertainment while I eat.

I guess the missing detail here is most people posting have horrible jobs, with only a pay check and barely the authority to take a piss on demand.

That is very likely true, and they have my sympathy.

Every single person I've crossed in employment and business who bring up this cliche are filling their free time consuming media and or food. They are typically not very intelligent or ambitious. Thus no surprise they recon 6 hours of productivity is scientifically reasonable.

For all intents and purposes most people are simply just that..most people, not much going on up top, so makes sense for them to protest to ridiculously short amounts of commitment to employment.

Yes couch jedi master the iced tea and cookies are strong in this one.

Yeah, that's pretty sad. What I think is a problem is that we have allowed a lowest common denominator approach to life. Somewhere, somehow, productivity has become bad, and the goal is to be as unproductive as you possibly can. Thinking is bad, and success is measured as how little you think. I can only imagine how Thomas Edison would be crucified today for his work ethic.

And this reality Television approach to life and living is showing.

Re:Hard work is not a four letter word

[TheInternet01]

Today's 30s are working 50+ hour work weeks with mandatory overtime and are still living paycheck to paycheck.

The difference is what hard work got you in the 1960's isn't what it got you today. You could own a home etc. Most of the time now people are told they can give up 90% of their free time, including travel time etc, and maybe you'll be allowed to have a car.

With inflation etc, people are earning a lot less. And companies are like whaaaat, you don't want to work more? Come on, if you work even more hours, in 3 years we'll give you a dollar raise. No? My god what is wrong with this generation...they don"t know what hard work is.

Re:And this is why...

[Opportunist]

Yes, we have way fewer billionaires.

Granted, we also have way fewer working poor...

Re: And this is why...

[Opportunist]

The private sector can by definition not reach the same level of quality for the same price as a nationalized service can. Because they have to slap a profit on top of the cost.

To a private business, the product is the means to the end, the necessary evil to make a profit, while for the nationalized service, the product IS the end.

Then why is a private business more efficient? Well, it isn't. It just doesn't have the same goals and hence can easily be profitable.

Let's stay in the medical sector. The private businesses' goal is profit. So what do they do? Take everything that is profitable and simply cut the rest. And if liposuction is more profitable than saving the fingers of a worker so he can stay productive, someone's gotta learn to order five beer with only a finger left while Mrs. Flabby will find herself weigh a lot less.

Healthcare as a national service has a different goal. Here, the worker will get his 3 fingers back because while this means higher medical expenses, it also means lower unemployment expenses because he can stay employed. Mrs. Flabby will stay fat though.

And now you know why you have so few fit women in Britain.

Re:And this is why...

[Opportunist]

Find a better barber.

Re:And this is why...

[Opportunist]

What exactly are you complaining about? The Americans think they live in the best of all worlds and couldn't imagine living in that European hellhole...

I wish more people on this planet thought like that!

Re:GTFO faggot!

[Opportunist]

Well, it doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth. And you needn't work your ass off.

Re: And this is why...

[rock_climbing_guy]

Have a nice day.

Re:And this is why...

[EndlessNameless]

An 8 hour day to me is just like getting started. I've always been this way.

You realize you are an anomaly, right? Public policy shouldn't be guided by the outliers.

And I sleep 5 hours a day, and that's my limit, which for some reason enrages some people.

Most people wish they could sleep less, but that is generally not possible. You got a lucky roll of the dice. Be grateful for it. Do not expect other people to catch up to you on this---because modern science indicates that it's just not possible.

Meantime, I'm going to do stuff like I always did stuff, because I gotta do stuff - I derive happiness from it.

This is interesting. You appear to enjoy your work in the same fashion as most people enjoy their hobbies or past-times. Perhaps this explains why you experience little stress or mental fatigue while working.

Still, most people do not have jobs like that. I don't know if there's ever been a formal study, but based on my personal experience I'd estimate that fewer than 1/10 people have that level of job satisfaction. I believe it would be best to change things so that most people feel the same way about their work as you do, but that's a whole different problem.

Re:And this is why...

[mccrew]

You sound like a case of "love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life."

Re:And this is why...

[Anne Thwacks]

Tim Noakes who wrote The Lore of Running says he could run 120K a week and he still put on weight and he still got diabetes -- it was the food, not the activity, which was to blame, he came to realise

There is very strong evidence that at least some "type 2*" diabetes is due to bad gut bacteria deliberately manipulating your metabolism to make more sugar available to itself.

Someone with undiagnosed/untreated diabetes is unable to metabolise sugar, and will crave sugar, putting on weight - correlation is NOT causation - but the tabloids don't know.

* There are two totally different mechanisms referred to as type 2 - (a) insufficient insulin production, and (b) your cells ignoring the insulin that is available - probably due to insulin receptors in the cells being blocked by something. (It is not impossible to have both problems.

places have the balls to say enjoy working home fr

[Joe_Dragon]

Some places have the balls to say our employers enjoy working at home in there free time on work stuff. Now how true is that realy? or is more like we have so much work that they are pressured to do that / are so back logged that is only way to get lesser things done.

and marketing drives to hard and we get buggy game

[Joe_Dragon]

and marketing drives to hard and we get buggy games rushed out just to be patched later with fixes and even at times content that was not finished in the 1st release. and the later can be weeks to months.

Re:And this is why...

[ceoyoyo]

It's also important to point out that this is not a binary choice. If you have a bad diet and exercise you will probably be unhealthy. If you have a good diet and don't exercise you will also probably be unhealthy.

Re:And this is why...

[WallyL]

Find a better barber.

I'm bald, you insensitive clod!

Re:And this is why...

[Opportunist]

What kind of cheap excuse is this to deprive a barber of his income? Imagine everyone thought like this.

Re: And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

Have a nice day.

Most always do.

Re: And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

I can only imagine how Thomas Edison would be crucified today for his work ethic.

Patent other people's ideas as your own and make money off of them?

Edison didn't invent a damn thing on his own.

Nope, not getting into a Tesla Versus Edison argument.

Re:And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

It's funny how people who are obsessive compulsive workers don't ever realize they have a problem. Not trying to be insulting, but you sir have obsessive compulsive disorder.

What I am is driven. I have a much higher drive than most people. Obsessive compulsive Disorder doesn't remotely fit. Obsessive behavior involves often repeating the same task over and over again, Some of us joke about it a bit and call them "toaster checkers". In fact, people with OCD usually have a specific task they repeat, like washing hands, did the lock the house when leaving - and obsessive thoughts. OCD gets well in the way of productivity.

And before you go to Obsessive personality order, my "magic" is being able to function in very chaotic environments.

If I have any issues with thought process, I can get way too analytical, about thinks others just accept, trying to analyze why say, I find Sophia Vergara so incredibly hot, while I tend to find tall slender women attractive. I'm going to stop that line of thought now.

Its just that in American culture, yours is the only type of obsessive compulsive behavior to not be labeled that way by most people. People even brag about having this condition, lol.

I could be a lot of things, but that just doesn't fit.

1. Repeat your post verbatim to a psychologist and ask him/her if they think you might have a problem. I think you might be in for a surprise.

Aren't people with mental disorders usually kinda unhappy about their lives? Or is that the problem - I need to see a shrink so I can lose my drive? What's in that for me?

2. Ask yourself if this is the way you want your children to live. You might be telling yourself you're doing all this for them, but if they take your example and live life like you do - chances are they'll be miserable. (assuming they are not also OCD)

People are all different. I do what I do because I am happy doing it. My son isn't like me, and that's fine by me. He's living his life, and getting reasonably far ahead in his way. I don't hurt anyone or myself, and am a fully functioning member of society. Anyone having a problem with that is beyond my ability to help.

Re:And this is why...

[Bongo]

I'm not trying to blame individuals, or use a right-wing "personal responsibility" notion.

I gather the 20 billion figure is indeed inflation adjusted. And the UK population is not 5 times bigger now, far from it.

The problem is that diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and obesity are growing like epidemics. It is not the natural state of affairs to have so many sick people.

There is also what they call the "food environment" (and lifestyle pressures like stress and pollution), and people do not have much choice in what they eat, if the food industry is only making certain kinds of products.

As for modern medical tech, yes there are the wonders of CT scanners, but there are also the big drug companies and "overly cleverly spun research findings" which get those drugs adopted and which cost the tax payer billions. Acute care is terrific, but chronic conditions are well, if it is chronic, it isn't cured is it?

Basically there is the model of "ancestral health" and what your great great great grandma used to eat, and it has little resemblance to what people eat today.

I think most people, given the choice between modern crap and health food from earlier generations, would choose the healthy food. Nobody really wants to eat crap. And the healthy stuff like butter, actually tastes better. We are sold lots of crap, and sugar is addictive. But take that out of the picture and people can eat good food which won't make them chronically sick and then you can probably wipe a large percentage of the health care bill away.

As well as the propaganda of personal responsibility, there is the propaganda from food companies that sugar laden low fat yoghurts are good for you, and that eating 20 teaspoons of added sugar in your food everyday is "normal". That's the propaganda we should be worrying about. Or the propaganda that people want to eat highly processed bread. Or the propaganda that saturated fat is bad for you.

I agree the people really are the victims here. But nobody wants to be sick and die sick.

Re:And this is why...

[michael_wojcik]

What I am is driven. I have a much higher drive than most people. Obsessive compulsive Disorder doesn't remotely fit.

Yes, GP was making a foolish, reductive, and uninformed diagnosis.

And there are other reasons why someone might be happy working more than 40 hours (or whatever other arbitrary number someone wants to pick) per week. I wouldn't describe myself as "driven", and there are a number of ways I like to spend my time - interacting with my family, reading, walking and riding my bike, etc. But I also enjoy working. Even when I'm on vacation, if I don't do something productive each day, I get restless and discontented.

It doesn't have to be working on my job. I have projects of my own. I do a lot of work on my houses. I help friends with their projects.

But the job's a convenient option, because there are always multiple interesting projects there, and I have a community of coworkers to share them with, and I know the results are useful to someone. I don't feel pressured to put in time at work; I rarely feel pressured by work at all. It's an interesting way to spend my time.

And as for "work/life balance": It's pretty much precisely where I want it.

Maybe that makes me an anomaly too. But I do get tired of hearing J. Random Slashdot Idiot pontificate on how "everyone" has particular needs, and failing to perceive those needs is self-deception or a mental disorder.

Re:And this is why...

[Ol Olsoc]

What I am is driven. I have a much higher drive than most people. Obsessive compulsive Disorder doesn't remotely fit.

Yes, GP was making a foolish, reductive, and uninformed diagnosis.

I have found in over 30 years in the workforce, that a person with drive is often a pariah among some folks. There is a common attribute. They are lazy. They are upset that a more productive person has come along and forced them to work harder just to try to keep up.

But I do get tired of hearing J. Random Slashdot Idiot pontificate on how "everyone" has particular needs, and failing to perceive those needs is self-deception or a mental disorder.

Another thing I've found is that people with actual mental disorders aren't often very productive.