Whoever invented the eight hour five day work week is Satan.
Unions. Unions won the five day eight hour workweek after heavy, sometimes bloody conflicts with employers. Before that it was common for workweek to be 10 or 12 hours a day.
Too many people are ignorant of the role Unions played in American history. I assume they were brought up in places where the GOP controls the schools.
Before that it was common for workweek to be 10 or 12 hours.
10-12 hours per day*, dangerous typo
Fixed
Technically, if your shift is long enough and timed properly, you can have daytime going in and coming out.
God bless unions. Now can they negotiate a four day work week?
The bad news is their power has been systematically eroded for a long time. The good news is they’ve made a bit of a comeback in the last couple of years. Hopefully this trend continues.
Grieved something recently and won a 3K payout and a workload change. It was great.
And no weekend. Basically almost your entire life would be working
Op, you don’t seem aware that getting the work week down to this took a very concerted effort
While I agree, the amount of productivity that’s increased since the 5 day work week was established has made it reasonable to once again change the norm. That, or pay workers equivalent to the increase in productivity that has happened. It’s all going somewhere.
Source for productivity gains?
Thanks for backing me up
We can keep applying yet more effort. This is better than 6 day work week, but we can do even better
Sure, but it seems ignorant of said progress when op referred to it as created by Satan.
Not if you think of Satan as a questioner of authority and bringer of change. We could use another Satan
Lol yes but I don’t think that’s what they meant.
Keep in mind that once upon a time it was 6 days and 14 hours per day.
Keep in mind that before that, people worked much less in winter and still less than today in summer
Admittedly, they were completely at the mercy of disease, herd migration, had no plumbing, buried astounding numbers of their children, were not the apex predator, didn’t have mattresses and when injuries happened they often healed poorly and painfully.
And if I worked less hours in my office job, all that would return?
Your office job is incompatible with the pre-agrarian lifestyle you described earlier.
You don’t get modern luxuries AND the minimal hours required as a hunter gatherer, just as I can’t get the speed of my car AND the cardiovascular benefits of my bike simultaneously.
He’s not talking about “pre-agrarian;” even medieval peasants got more time off than we do today.
That’s mostly a silly meme that’s been seized upon.
When they worked, it was from dawn to dusk doing hard labour. And if the harvest wasn’t good, they died because the Lord took his tithe regardless.
And that’s not to mention the household labour, all of which we take for granted (consider chopping wood every time you wanted heat, mending clothes or the ridiculous process of cleaning them.) Or looking after farm animals etc. The only stuff that’s counted in that 150 days silliness is working the land which was only a portion of their real labour.
Yeah I don’t think so …
We can both acknowledge progress and an extreme lack of what that progress should/could have been.
All you have to do is look to countries like China and even Japan where people literally work themselves to death.
Should we be working 40 hours a week? No but let’s not pretend that the situation has only gotten worse…
With an ebike you can! 25mph (more if you jail break it) And all the pedaling your heart desires!
You can have both! Our insane productivity rises in the past century SHOULD have allowed us all modern luxuries and like half the current working hours. Corporate greed has robbed you of that while wages have stagnated
Pedalling while the engine is doing the work isn’t really the same cardiovascular workout.
You’re a crab in a bucket and so wrong.
If you need to work to afford to live, you’re being lied to about what’s possible for a healthy and functioning modern society to thrive.
Don’t forget that in order for capitalism to stay alive, it requires poverty, manufactured scarcity and obsolescence.
You should question why billionaires even exist in what you consider to be a just and modern society. You should also look up a visual representation of just how much larger 1 billion is from whatever your gross annual income is if you still think it’s reasonable that they do exist.
You okay? I wrote about pre agrarian societies and you went with a semi hinged rant about capitalism and billionaires?
If you meant to respond to my point though, I’m super curious how you think a society where almost everyone spends their work time getting food ALSO develops the luxuries of modern life, like a washing machine. Everyone work 2 jobs? That seems pretty against the whole free time thing. So, uhhh, help from Aliens or Jesus?
Your post was a view point that we couldn’t work less while maintaining modern conveniences and luxuries, at least that’s how it’s coming across.
If your point was simply that in pre-modern times they didn’t have what we have today and that it was due to working too much for sustaining life to develop, then ok I guess. Maybe I misread the thread. The main post was about the fact we’re working too many hours in our current society though so… yeah.
The person you’re responding to gave no reason to think this mountain of accusations
1 billion in pesos or rupees? Asking for a friend
That’s much debated, actually.
Labor unions are the Satan to which you are referring. Labor unions brought you many infernal things: the weekend, lunch breaks, paid vacation, social security, minimum wage, FMLA, 8-hour work days, OSHA, sick leave, child labor laws, etc.
Satan indeed!
They originally wanted a 4/4 work week.
“They”? Which shop? When? Was that part of contract negotiation/positioning or an actual demand?
Under my last labor union we had mandatory 10 hours days so yeah unions are so great
Yeah you’re right, I guess all the gains they’ve made don’t matter because of your shitty experience. Thanks for your wisdom.
You’re 23 and live with your dad. What shop are you a member of that was enforcing 10-hour work days?
Yeah whatever bro, my dad IS a labor union so you don’t know what you are talking about
🤣
The guy who made the 8hr/day 5day/week schedule was a saint
What a shitty take. Go learn what the normal conditions were BEFORE the 8/day 5/week standard.
Just because things were worse in the past doesn’t mean they can’t be better in the future.
You are very right, it’s just that saying “whoever invented the thing that’s better than what was before is Satan” is kinda unfair to be people who fought for the 8/8/8 system. The focus should be onto whom hinder or even regress progress
Yeah, a better sentiment would be “whoever is still demanding that we work the 8/8/8 system in the current economy is Satan. Our forefathers fought to improve working conditions, we should fight too”
Is anyone going to tell them what it was before?
What? Here in India it’s 12 hrs a day 7 days a week. One paid holiday per year, For the new year
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/07/india-debate-on-70-hour-workweek-illegal-or-road-to-greatness.html
Indians currently work an average of 47.7 hours a week — higher than the U.S. (36.4), the UK (35.9), and Germany (34.4), according to the International Labour Organization.
Infosys founder Narayana Murthy recently sparked a controversy on social media when he said young people should be working 70 hours a week to boost India’s economy.
Perhaps it’s common for the workweek to be that long in the informal economy, but the official data at least doesn’t reflect that.
Is it really? By God.
In factories at least
2 shifts of 12 hours each.
People working 12 hours earn about 24k INR per month
Working 8hr /day earn about 12k INR per month but the work is unskilled. ( Cleaning and stuff )
That’s unreal.
Greetings from Scotland, I’d gladly take a 40 minute workday 🤣
I waltz in one minute before my shift every day. Not working for free.
I had to bitch slap my ostensible boss with this when I first started my current job. He tried to tell me that he thought it would really be “best” if I showed up approximately 30 minutes before my scheduled start time. I responded him flat out that if he wanted me there half an hour earlier, he should schedule me to be there half an hour earlier. Alternatively, you could try biting my feathered ass. I know which one is bound to get you better results.
I clock in when I get here, I get paid for the time I’m here. This ain’t no charity.
I am now VP of the company. Make of that what you will.
… Feathered?
Are you really? How marvelous for you, and good for you for not putting up with it!
My CW shows up 1-2 HOURS early for NO reason at all as hers is a registration job and there is nobody there to register at 630 am. Drives me around the bend. She gets paid nothing for it and acts like a big martyr but how is that my problem? I show up, do my job and leave on time every day.
I live above the arctic circle, please don’t make me work 24/7 during the summer since the sun is always out.
I’d love the part where I wouldn’t have to work November through January though.
I don’t do it anymore, but I used to LOVE working overnight. No one around, I could get everything done, and I still had time for errands.
I wouldn’t want to work straight from Nov to Jan though
It used to be dawn till dusk 6 days a week, bro.
No wonder more people went to church back then
I don’t want my work day tied to length of sunlight in either direction. But I do want a four day work week!
And in 50-70 years someone can make an internet post about how people wanting a 4 day work week were satan
Yeah, I try to be grateful for the progress we have made, given that labor used to be even more exploitative than it is now. Still, we have miles to go.
I am not a religious person, but I’m sure that 40 working hours per week is not even close to what is attributed to Satan.
A video about the historical work-day one of my favorite YouTubers (Historia Civilis) released a few months ago, I think everyone should watch it: https://youtu.be/hvk_XylEmLo
His videos about Roman-era politics & important battles are also great :)
Thank you!
