Saturday, April 16, 2005

Follow Up.

One of the trends that emerged from that last set of questions is that some of you (myself included) aren't overly keen about society's defined 9-to-5-and-beyond routine. That begs another question: what would be the ideal workday? Would you go 10-to-4 and sacrfice 25% of your pay? Or would you cut out Friday, and lose 20%? Or, given the option, would you go for a completely atypical routine?

5 Comments:

At 1:04 p.m., Blogger Kelly said...

Work 1-9. Or 12-8 or something like that.

Actually, not work at all, but since that's not going to happen....

Shorter work hours. Ideally something like 1-6.

 
At 5:18 p.m., Blogger Wandering Coyote said...

I think a 40 hour work week (and 60 is legal now in Ontario) is good for no one except big business. The negative effects of this on our bodies, souls, children, society in general are quite a shame. I think a 4 day work week, without chopping 20% of our pay off, would be acceptable.

Also, if we're talking ideals here, we should be working towards a world in which our natural sleep rhythms are respected. We are constantly hearing about sleep debts, yet no one's doing anything about it.

 
At 10:48 p.m., Blogger Channing said...

It would be rather nice if employers gave you flexible hours based on whether you got your work done or not. There were a few bosses I had while working for the army that lived by this mentality, however, most were locked in the "We're all robots, we must work 8-4 even if there's no work to be done" mode.

My hours in Korea are pretty nice... I work a 29 hour work week and get a great salary for it too. However, the paid vacation aspect is lacking here... 4 days a year on my current contract. Yeesh.

 
At 10:30 a.m., Blogger Ryan said...

This is a hard one. Wanting kids (and not yet having them) it's hard to say how much time I'll need. Truth be told, I'm quite partial to the government's 8-4, good amount of vacation time, etc. policy. But I'd rather start earlier and have Friday off, given the option. Banking time would be great as well.

I've been tempted to try my hand at writing professionally before, and that's something I might do at some point down the road. And when I retire, I plan to open a cigar bar down in Costa Rica. Hours aren't such a big when your work is a crazy, never-ending party.

 
At 3:15 p.m., Blogger Ryan said...

Really, the problem is that the job market is pretty well saturated at the moment. But, in a few years, when the baby boomers start retiring (ie. are spending and no longer working) there are going to be some serious jobs available.

Right now, the problem is that everyone is convinced that they want things that they don't really need. People end up in stupid amounts of debt, and have to work crazy hours to keep themselves afloat. This is why, even if taking a day off may make us more productive in the long run, business won't do it. Because there's always some poor slub who's willing to put in crazy hours, even if you aren't.

That is, until the baby boomers retire and there's a serious labour shortage. I give it five years.

 

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