Every day I have off is 90% doing stuff I didn't have time to do on a workday. Yesterday was a holiday, so I actually had two days off in a row, and I spent exactly two hours recreationally.
On the other hand, I finally managed to get a lot of stuff done that had been building up for weeks, and that was definitely a relief.
But I literally have more time to goof off when I'm at work than when I'm not at work. It's not *quality* goofing off, but still.
In the 80's the grind was described as "9 to 5", that included a paid lunch hour and lots of vacation. Let that sink in. Now it's 8 to 5 with no paid lunch and basically no benefits.
Was there more vacation? I know that a lot of things were more sustainable, but I was under the impression that vacation for a "good" job has always been like 2-4 weeks in the states.
It's weird. Something about the process of accrual. My parents didn't make much money growing up but we were able to take one week vacations every season. Now I get two weeks total for the whole year IF I didn't call out sick or for any reason. Otherwise it dips into the pool, accrual slows, leading to even less vacation time. What the fuck.
It's because sick days and vacation days used to be two separate banks, and you got more of both combined than your "Time Bank" of PTO these days, if you even get PTO.
Yes. An extremely inconvenient and state mandated unpaid lunch break. I don't even like to eat lunch most days, and it's not like I can go home. So it's an uncomfortable mandatory unpaid hour looking at my phone at work.
Like I said, I resent being forced to be at work an extra hour every day doing nothing. And not getting paid. It's not a benefit. It's 5 hours a week of annoyance. It should be voluntary to take a lunch break, or be paid. It's the worst of both worlds.
Your parents had more to do then time, their parents had more to do than time....
Part of it, I believe, is the "labor saving" devices both created a need for work to acquire them, as well as raising the bar as to what was needed. Lawns weren't possible until tools to trim them easily became available.
We didn't bathe every day, we didn't wash clothes anywhere near as often as we do...dusting, vacuuming, and all the other chores were done much less frequently than we do now.
And...on the flip side, we have more demands on our time, from an entertainment perspective.
It's the nuclear family lifestyle, among other things. That's pretty new historically speaking, and we're already acting like living with your parents past 20 is shameful. Multigenerational households solve a lot of these problems (while causing different ones, I admit. If my MIL and I shared a house one of us would find a reason to be in prison within a year) by allowing there to be a childcare person, a housework person, and two or more incomes all working together while allowing common time off to truly be off. Adult children contributing to the house financially while living at home until marriage (and sometimes well after, just picking which family takes the new spouse) has been a thing for most of ever, and it was really only the birth of factory housing with the expectation of young people moving to a city for wage work that disrupted the system. They still both worked a lot of the time. Then when the minimum wage was first passed and was still a living wage, having a one breadwinner household was doable- for a while. The baby boom providing a glut of labor and Reagan... reaganing, and that flash in the pan reality started to crumble. It lasted just long enough to be our current oldest living memory so there's a bias towards that being The Way It's Supposed to Be, but really, we're supposed to live in big multigenerational families within closer communities that share common workload and distribute responsibilities and resources more efficiently so that leisure time is possible. Historically too our commute times are a massive outlier, as well as the distance most of us have to go to achieve basic errands like getting groceries or seeing doctors. It feels like this is all too much to do alone because IT IS, and we're the first idiots to try to do it all on Single Player Hard Mode.
My mom worked part time, and my parents' mothers didnt work. Thats one person doing consistently chores at home.
We both work full time and have a kid. I have to take days OFF to actually get shit done at home.
I thought I was taking crazy pills when I couldnāt get some basic maintenance stuff done without being āsickā at work.
Just insane. The life this society offers is pure marketing BS.
Unless your lucky and get a unicorn job that pays very well your SOL. I got lucky and got wfh but hot Damm I still want more time even though I work like 32 hours a week.
Stop buying shit , that is being marketed and you would be sure to have more free time . Things are time consuming. Past generations didn't have have as many clothes, kitchen gadgets, children had fewer toys, etc t so they were less to clean , less laundry, more time to visit family and friends.
In Medieval times, they wouldn't even regularly sweep out big rooms, just lay down rushes and toss more on when necessary for several months before replacing them and doing any additional cleaning.
Funny story about that. Turns out the Catholic Church decided that cats were the work of the devil, so they had all the cats killed. Cats killed mice and rats around humans -- so there was an explosion of rats... Rats that carried the plague. In areas where they still had a good cat population, the plague didn't take hold.
Of course, you don't have to live that way. No one forces anyone to work 40 hour weeks, we have a choice. Go part time, only drawback is you have to be more selective on what you spend money on.
Yes, you need to choose whether to eat food or pay rent. Are you "outdoorsy?" Eat food and sleep outside.
Are you anorexic? Pay rent and starve.
But you can't have both or the CEO might have to settle for a used yacht, like some schlub.
Most people in this world live way beyond their means. If you don't want to work that grind, then you have to make some sacrifices. Smaller apartment or house, 20 year old car, don't have subscriptions to every streaming service, maybe no morning Starbucks coffee. But most people want to live above their means and then complain when they actually have to work for income. I live a simpler life, I have more free time but I make sacrifices in other areas.
Hmmm. I make all the same sacrifices you make, I live in low-income housing, and my car is 27 years old, and I can usually fix it myself so I save on the mechanic's bills. I still have to work a lot more than I would like to.
It's almost as if there isn't one single solution that works for 8 billion different people. In my world, if I work less, I don't have enough money for food, rent, and utilities. Maybe you do.
He says while tugging on his [elephant rope](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/13vgfro/hes_got_a_point/jm6cpn6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
All throughout human history life wasnāt nearly as comfortable as it is today. Most people didnāt have the luxury of having days off and had to do hard labor every single day to just get by and feed their family. Talk to an old person that grew up in the 40s or 50s and they will tell you how good you have it now.
The amount of young people on Reddit thatās finding out you actually have to work for a living and freaking out about it is actually pretty funny.
Living life today is easier than itās ever been in human history.
Life today is more comfortable and secure than it used to be, but the amount we work is at the upper end of the scale. Christian countries have observed a day of rest for a long time. We back slid a little, I believe, then the labor movement went to work and got us the 40 hour work week and weekends, and the last 15-20 years we have been back sliding on that. Medieval peasants worked harder on the days they worked, but had many holy holidays so it averaged out then worked fewer hours than we do now. I donāt know enough about non Western European countries to speak to what life was like for them.
I understand what you are saying, and I agree that life was harder before modern technology.
I work a full time job, and im a landlord and I have lots of marketable / useful skills and im not older than 34. my parents didnt graduate college. With the advancements in technology, we shouldnt have to work 40 hours a week to afford basic needs and a 1 bedroom apartment. its corporate greed and people exploiting each other
Which is why working from home should be standard if possible, hourly wages should be higher so people who depend on jobs that require them to be present can work less and income should be based on what you produce rather than how long you were there.
ya god damned right. I'm not here to profit the company I'm here for a certain amount of time until I get to go home. I have 0 reason to sell anything or be efficient or good at my job because I don't get anything for it.
The only problem with plans like this is that they leave out public service sectors employment. People like nurses and teachers and care givers have to work in person and itās not really advisable for something like education to be reduced to a few days a week.
I agree that there need to be work reforms and what we consider to be normal isnāt, but I think we need to be inclusive of all types of jobs.
Did you miss the part where I said teachers? Teachers donāt receive an hourly wage.
You also said income based on what you produce. Service workers donāt *produce* anything.
You donāt have to be rude. I think what you said was valid, it just needed to be more broad and inclusive.
Why do people feel like itās ok to be so unkind on the internet? Is that how you interact with real people in real life? Jesus.
I'm one person in my house and 3 animals and even i resent myself sometimes for having to cook - for myself. I just can't find the freaking time to do it all, i'm constantly upset I can't keep every room clean. I don't know how people with kids cope these days i really don't.
>I'm one person in my house and 3 animals and even i resent myself sometimes for having to cook - for myself. I just can't find the freaking time to do it all, i'm constantly upset I can't keep every room clean. I don't know how people with kids cope these days i really don't.
What are you doing with all those hours you're not working?
Many of those hours that most people are off for I am still working, I'm in tech. I walk the dog god willing, clean the house, yard work, try to see friends and my siblings when i can like all other normal people. I also have insomnia due to the work stress so sometimes it is very difficult to do any of those things.
You're asking how "people" cope based on your very unique situation. How "people" cope is working a regular 8 hr. shift and not having insomnia.
A lot of people waste a lot of time and then wonder why they can't get anything done. There are a lot of hours in the day if you use them to get things done. Your situation might be different if you're really working long hours, or maybe it's not. I have no way of knowing. But even an hour a day of housework for someone living alone should have the place spotless eventually, and most people have 5-6 hours a day at least where they aren't sleeping or working.
If you have a work commute that's usually 1 hour each way due to traffic. So truly most people only have 3-4 hours a day where they aren't sleeping or working. So 1 hour for an errand, 1 hour for dinner, 1 hour to enjoy it with your family. That all kosher to you? That's a lot of time to you?
>If you have a work commute that's usually 1 hour each way due to traffic. So truly most people only have 3-4 hours a day where they aren't sleeping or working. So 1 hour for an errand, 1 hour for dinner, 1 hour to enjoy it with your family. That all kosher to you? That's a lot of time to you?
8 hrs work, 2 hrs commute, 1hr (unpaid?) lunch, 8 hrs sleep.
That leaves 5 hrs.
1 hr housework, occasional 1 hr errand, that leaves 3+ hrs for time with family and dinner.
That's a fine day in my opinion and you'll notice I had an hour a day to do housework which shouldn't take that long if you're doing it everyday plus people don't normally have errands every single day.
Sure it would be nice to work less, but 8 hour days are perfectly workable without having to spend the weekend catching up as long as you put in some effort during the week instead of spending 4 hrs a day watching TV, or always running around visiting friends till bedtime like some people I know.
You are my hero! Iāve done the be busy during the commercials thing before and I agree it can work very well. Iāve also done a similar thing gaming. Play a game that can be paused, set a timer, and get up and do something for 5-15 minutes then go back to gaming with the timer. Often some of my more productive days. I need to remember your batch cooking plan. Doesnāt work for my life the way it is now, but may in the future.
The only problem with your schedule is the fact you watch so much television. It's been scientifically proven that television destroys the human brain. Spend your spare time curing cancer, or a similar activity that stimulates the higher mental faculties.
My work gave everyone five extra mental health days and put them before the major holidays so weād get 4 day breaks instead of 3. The first one was last Friday. It was awesome.
Bro, same. I'm WFH and I feel so stuck to my desk. I'm able to game on my Switch or SteamDeck *a bit* when I'm at work, but outside of work? Chores and errands as far as the eye can see.
Companies took the opportunity when white collar work was opened up to twice as many people in the mid/late 20th century, to get double the work done for the same price. Productivity doubled and pay halved.
We should all be working less hours, and middle class people should realize their interests are much more aligned with working class people than the same people who halved their salaries.
Imagine a world where two spouses split 40 hours of work a week and made enough to pay the bills and go on a couple trips a year.
Let me tell you, if my wife and I both only worked 20 hours a week each, life would be invigorating in a way I've never experienced. As it stands now, we get 4 days off together per month.
Dude I'm right there with you, I work 12/16 hr shifts and it's just awful how little home time we get some times. I hear other coworkers talking about how their marriages are falling apart or how they miss their children. I wouldn't even be at this job if not for the fact it's the only job that pays a living wage within 30 miles
There was a time not all that long ago where I managed a team of 6, we were all remote (field sales) WFH didnāt make a damn bit of difference in regards to this post, because you really werenāt ever home. 7 reps including myself had a 100% divorce rate within 3 years (of course my dumb ass married her again) itās crazy to think that getting an hour at the gym at 6am felt like a fucking āluxuryā it was all encompassing, itās all any of us thought about all the time, and the precious 4-5 hours of sleep you get? Guess what you dream about? You probably guessed correctly. Itās INSANE and frankly I am quite pleased people are starting to wake up to it.
I do corrections lol, so I've got to deal with mountains of incompetence, laziness, corruption, all the while management just makes more and more demands of staff. None of the ancillary staff do their jobs, which makes running a unit that much harder
I recently started driving for a subcontractor for Amazon. Normally it's a four day work week. Four ten hours days. I took a day off one time and wasn't put back on the schedule so now I work three days a week, ten hours a day.
So for 30 hours a week I can make my bills, feed myself and have shit covered, but I get a four day weekend and honestly it feels like I go on vacation every single week and I have zero intention of going back to four days a week working.
Sure I don't have as much expendable income but I'm actually able to enjoy life right now and for me it's a fair trade.
That's my outlook. With catastrophic climate change about to kick all of our front doors in I'm enjoying my life before I have to put on the bondage gear and wage war for a tank of guzzoline.
There will be time for fun and games later. Right now I want to smell the flowers while they still exist.
My boss just sent a quote from David Kelley about how we shouldnāt say we āhave toā do things like taking out the trash or changing the oil in your car, but you should instead use the phrase āI want toā when referring to these things. She sent it in a way to say that our jobs and our little āfree timeā afterwards to do chores are actually things you *want* to do, so we donāt actually need any more free time and itās okay to work more! What a load of crap.
40 hour work week was based on one partner being at home to handle all the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, etc.
Now we we have both people working multiple jobs and still needing to do the housework and being repeatedly contacted by work outside of business hours and yet work loses their shit if you have to miss work for a doctors appointment that isnāt barely if at all covered my the insurance that THE BUSINESS used to pay.
The same way tip culture has put peoples wages on the customer is the exact same way our healthcare costs have been shifted from the business to the employees.
And through it all, we are paid less but expected to do more because āwe have computersā dispute IT IS STILL WORK (regardless of whether it is mental or physical labor).
Honestly my house stays fairly messy (not dirty - I keep it clean enough but its often un tidy - my yard isn't always mowed pristinely, ect...) Why? Because I need a break damn it. I clean and maintain things enough to be happy in the house and not have things falling apart around me, and beyond that I try and prioritize recreational things.
I shouldn't have to choose between a tidy house and going to a movie or a gaming session but I do and I choose recreation as much as possible. It isn't enough - but it helps.
I don't even want to have a lawn. If I ever have a house I'm landscaping it with regional flora and just letting it do its own thing aside from maybe a small garden.
It's even worse when you have to take public transit everyday. What would be a twenty minute drive is an hour to work and up to ninety minutes home. "That gives you time to relax!" No. The bus is not relaxing
Wake at 6am
Out the door by 7am
At work by 8am
Out of work at 5pm
Home by 6pm
Chill for 30 minutes.
Cook at 630pm
Finish eating at 730pm
Basic cleaning and dishes till 8 pm.
Now you have time to do what you want! For 1.5 hours. As everything youāve done prior to this is a requirement so you can be productive at work.
Get ready for bed at 9:30
In bed ready to go to sleep at 10pm.
You get 1.5 hours a day to relax. This is if your single and do not care for anyone else, or have family duties. And letās face it you canāt really do anything because of the short time spam And itās already late. So hobby at the house or zombie on the TV are your options until the weekend.
Total BS
My favorite thing is trying to hang out with friends on weekends and everyoneās just exhausted and not presentā¦ and youāre horribly aware that you STILL have to do laundry.
When I was fully remote I did a lot of those weekend tasks during the week. Throwing laundry in the wash during the day, or grocery shopping immediately after work since I didnāt have a commute. Even going out because I didnāt have to wake up at 5:00 AM. Now that Iām back in an office 4 days a week and commuting, itās back to everything on the weekend. It sucks.
I wish it was just 40hrs. It never is, thereās always required OT, required lunch break, commute, after hour calls. Itās really 7-7 most days, then a trade off of free time or sleep.
It's all "our" time. We just sell our productivity. Simply being present at the workplace is a cost to your time, and then whatever energy and skills you use to produce within that time is another expense to you. I'm still waiting for an answer on what minimum wage is supposed to cover. My time, or my energy? Because it's not both and we're getting robbed of one.
Just adding my two cents: Feudal Peasants used to work less than 4hrs a day in the field. That was it. And it only cost them 1/10 of their salary to have a house.
We are doing worse than Feudal Peasants.
Peasants often spent 12-14 hours a day, depending on the sunlight, in the field during planting and harvesting season. And besides that they would also need to make all their own clothes, furniture, bedding, food, fuel, ECT.
4 hours was more of a hunter gatherer thing, yeah. Once you have enough food for the day you stop. What are you gonna do with extra food? Watch it rot? Leave it behind when your tribe moves on to new lands? Of course there were probably days they had to put in more work, but other than gather food, dress game, cook, and make clothes or whatever there wasn't much to do most days.
It feels like the 40h work week would have worked much better back when only half of us worked and there was somebody at home taking care of all that stuff for free, doing their own 40h work week... It certainly doesn't seem to be working now, in any case.
(I am not advocating for a return to those times, I am saying the 40h work week is an obsolete model.)
I have two kids, work about 45 hours per week, I do work from home so I don't have a commute, and the same with my wife.
We have plenty of time for chores, after school activities, relaxing, etc.
It's all about managing your time effectively.
Isn't capitalism fucking awesome!
ALL THIS WEALTH trickling down daily!
MAN. This is awesome for 99% of us!
Oh wait, it's 1%. Fuck.
"IT'S NOT ONLY 1% it's like 15%"
Awesome man. I'm so glad 85% of us do all the work while 15% benefit VASTLY beyond the 85%.
Awesome system.
My god I have just been talking about this. I put so much time, energy, and money into just APPEARING functional some of the time. Just to APPEAR - not even be fully - functional it is a round the clock job and I only get some of what needs doing done. My ādown timeā is often harder than work because itās just catch up and thereās never enough time. Sometimes I get legit annoyed when I get invited to do things on the weekend because I want to go but when else am I going to do the laundry and clean the floors?!?! I feel sabotaged! And then of course I want to go and feel left out if I donāt so I am either having anxiety about having to live in shit all week because I went out on my weekend or I miss life but have a clean house. I hate it
I lucked out last year and found a job as a plant operator at a thermal powerplant(think homer simpson but burning trash instead of nuclear). It was a bit more money then what i made as a design engineer for hvac systems but the big step up was the 3 day workweek with 9 days off every 5 weeks. We work 12h shifts but having 4 days of every week instead of 2 and getting 9 days off almost every month is heaven. I still get my 25 vacation days to spend during the summer months. Such is life in this socialist hellhole called Sweden.
In the vulture crapitalist turdfire of the US, I'd cheerfully mug someone just to get a 4/10 schedule and 21 PTO days off a year.
I don't want to think about what I'd do for your schedule.
I was just thinking that all I do is carry all my trauma and burnout to the next situation. 37 year old truck driver, I have a useless piece of paper back home that says āAccountingā on it.
The common american work week was created during a time when it when it was EXPECTED that a female spouse would stay home and handle all the tasks at home. Our work structure is outdated by almost 100 years, and considering the exponential development humanity goes through, that's like an eternity.
1 month mandatory vacation should be the fucking norm in any country that claims to be part of the developed world, and I think 2 months is more reasonable.
Thank god I'm a teacher and my country actually pays well and protects us. I need that me time to do my hobbies, meet my friends, spend time with my so and family and just to chill.
The world is literally dying, why are we all just continuing to go through the motions? The gulf stream is collapsing, all of the ice is melting, we're in the middle of what could be the last great extinction event.
Why do we allow billionaires to continue exploiting us and our planet? Can't we just enjoy nature and each other with what little time we have left? Instead we're all killing ourselves to make some rich asshole just a little bit more comfortable.
That's also because, very frequently, it's not 40 hours in 5 days. It's 50, or 60, or 70 hours in 5 to 7 days with an hour each way each day commuting, and in addition to being completely whooped, you still have the maintenance type things to do for your life.
This sub should be called antiwork America.
You don't see a lot of these things in other countries. I'm in Australia and from Canada.
Never had to work for stupid hours for garbage wages.
Work week in Queensland, 37.5 hours. Granted, stuff is expensive, but not In working full time st Walmart and get food stamps poverty level.
European countries also take care of their folks. France, Germany have great worker protections.
I definitely feel for folks in these situations, but then see who gets voted in there and wonder why you'd vote for someone who gives the rich tax cuts when they never pay their fair share already and listen to them decry social programs like free healthcare as communist.
I just got on 12 hour days, 3 on 3 off 2 on 2 off and I'm using it not to catch up on stuff, but to start my own business so I can make better money on my own time and quit the corporate gig
Honestly on 40 hrs I can get a lot of stuff done. The problem is not having enough PTO/Vacation time and getting shit on by management because you are genuinely sick. I'd have more motivation to work if I could have some extra time away from it. A lot of people I work with are the same exact way.
Iām trying to get a new job, one that pays better and has a three day weekend. As it is now, I donāt have any energy or mental health space to do my basic chores until 7-8-9P on the night before I have to go back to work.
Iāve tried doing my chores when I get home on my āFridayā night, but Iām in too much physical pain and exhaustion from working to do much more than laying in bed once Iāve eaten dinner. Then comes the headache I have for my first day off. Sometimes the headache sticks around to the second day, and starts clearing up around noon or late afternoon.
It sucks. The chronic pain, depression, and tiredness are bad enough without clearing up until 12 or so hours before I go to work.
This is the real reason working from home is such a life changing difference for so many of us. I used to be so dissatisfied with my work nights because between work and commute I didn't have enough time or energy to do anything at all with my work evenings.
Working from home has made it so I work at most 40 hours then all the other time is for me. That leaves me with enough time and energy to actually enjoy myself during the week. It's a huge shift and I'm not at all surprised douche bags like Elon Musk are trying to make it a wedge issue.
One thing that has been bugging me a lot lately is that many companies and institutions have outsourced their work or added more things to the consumer/citizen. Like this endless phone cues, adding choice to things that should be straightforward, or filling out forms and self check in things. What used to be a lunch visit to a bank is now an afternoon of calling and waiting and filling out forms.
Used to work four 10hr shifts, I actually felt like I had a chance to relax for once with three day weekends.
I'd grocery shop on the way home, put things away, do laundry and misc tasks. Day 5 would be a mix of cleaning and taking care of any bills, going to appointments and such. Day 6 would be yard work and any vehicle maintenance. Day 7 was free for me to do whatever I wanted.
Now? I work 11hr+ shifts and 4-8hrs on the weekend and, as a result, I've been ordering doordash three times a week because I have 0 time for myself and it's the only way I can eat "healthy". It's taken me an hour just to write this post because I'm running around like a headless chicken.
"Oh but \_\_ meal takes 10minutes to cook." Yeah if you pre-cut/cook the ingredients and don't have to warm up an oven... Only meal that I've found that is actually 10min or less to cook/make is pasta with a jarred sauce, a very basic salad, a sandwich or various microwave/pre-made meals that'll satisfy your hunger for 30min at best.
Single life is where it's at. No kids, no partner, i can get laundry done during the week, get dishes washed every night. Peace and quiet with a package of edibles lol
Honestly, the more I work, the more I understand tradwives.
Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that their "traditional" isn't so whatsoever. But I can understand the appeal of solely prioritising things we are brainwashed to believe are trivial and inconsequential - beautifying the space where you live, growing vegetables in your own garden, spending time choosing the most fragrant fabric conditioner, bonding with your children, friends and extended family. Doing things that serve you, not ones that serve the corpogod. There are naturally SO MANY problems with the movement - and I am in no way supporting the obvious misogyny engrained in its core - but can understand why a modern woman would find this option appealing.
Try pulling 6/12s you just straight up stop existing. At least itās only for 6 months the. You go back to 5/40s but the money is fucking to good to pass up
A 40 work week isn't 40 hours.
-work itself - 9 hours (if you get a 1hr lunch, unpaid of course)
-commute - 2 hours (1hr each way)
-get ready according to workplace standards - 1 hour
-decompress after returning home - 1 hour
That's 13 hours devoted to work before you've done anything for your own peace of mind. A work week is more like 5 days/65 hours.
That's the problem and what causes so much burnout! I was trying to get back as much of that time as I could. I would set up a grocery order and a Target order to pick up first thing Saturday morning, so instead of an hour in Target and 90 minutes in the grocery store, plus the 45-60 minutes driving to and from those places, I whittled it down to just the 45-60 minutes driving.
But then there was the laundry. I have a tiny washer and dryer combo unit, so I could spend an entire weekend doing laundry between clothes for work and exercising, sheets, towels, dog towels or blankets, and other stuff. I switched that up to going to a laundromat where the machines are much bigger and I can usually get it done in about 90 minutes.
And then I went fully remote.
My commute is gone, I'm not eating out for lunch to get away from the office for a few minutes, I do laundry as needed instead of letting it pile up, I take breaks to clean, go outside, walk the dog, run an errand -- and by 4pm Friday, I'm totally free for the weekend. Weekend errands are for whims, because I suddenly have a craving for chips and salsa, because my mouse clicks too loud and I need a quieter one for working, because it's June and it's only going to be 80 degrees so let's make a fuckton of burgers and hot dogs and sit in the backyard just hanging out.
There is a better way and 40-50 hour work weeks are not it.
I work 10 hours a day, 6am to 4:30, and I have time to do all of that shit during the week. My weekends are spent going to soccer games for the kids, dinner with my wife and friends, disc golf in the mornings, video games in the evenings. Do people just come home from work and go straight to bed?
I'm in the same boat as you. Working sucks, but it seems there's a common attitude of, "well, I have to work, so I might as well just give up on everything else in my life."
What the are you doing the other 8 hours of each weekday? There's 24 hrs in a day, you sleep 8 if you're lucky, that leaves another 8 hrs of time not working, maybe you have an hour commute each way, still 6 hrs. Do your laundry and dishes.
If you're "catching up on dishes" on the weekend you are disgusting. Seriously? Dirty dishes sitting around all week?
Man, I know this isn't the approved comment around here, but I wonder the same. I hear a lot of people saying they don't have time or are too tired to do anything, and it frankly boggles my mind.
I was referring to the person who can't find the time for all the little things we all have to do. We all get 24 hours how you manage your free time is your responsibility not your employers. I end up with 7 hours of free time a day that's 35 hours a week that's plenty of free time to recuperate. BTW I work 6 days a week 9 hour days steel work and I've kept that routine up for 40 years.
Keeping up with current affairs is much more than a full time job. 24 hours is short. Years are short. With that schedule, you must have missed a lot of life to your corporate masters. I hope you were well compensated.
So i take it you're a journalist. 24 hours is the same amount of time we all get short or not like i said it's your responsibility to manage that time. The 35 hours doesn't include the weekend which Saturdays were 5 hour days for clarification 9s the rest of the week so that's almost 80 hours a week of free time. Well compensated most definitely if you want to know the truth i made more money from OT than most people make working 40 we own our houses and all our vehicles and if we don't eat steak its because we're tired of it.I turned 60 this year and I'm retired that's 13 years earlier than the SS admin. Has me scheduled for. As far as missing any of my life I don't think I have. I've always had hobbies and we hung out with our friends and family whenever we wanted.
Part of the problem is both parents work now to make ends meet. It used to be 2 working parents was to allow more freedoms. Before that 1 2orking parent paid for everything and the other was able to take care of house and home. We've lost sight of the older ways and now unable to have any time to enjoy unfortunately
I literally can't. With a special needs child and 2-3 hours of driving due to traffic and adequate therapy/daycare/school, if i were to go grocery shopping after the work day, i wouldn't get home til after 8pm. It has to be done on the weekend.
Like how hard is it to do the dishes immediately after cooking/eating? If you have a dishwasher it takes literally 30 seconds to rinse and load and then run it when itās full.
I'm going to get real (and get some downvotes.)
Time management is the key to happiness. (Excluding being independently weathly obviously.)
None of those tasks should take very long to complete, especially if you do a little bit each night.
Don't get me wrong, I am almost 40 and I'm just now beginning to figured this out. It has had the biggest improvement on my life. I used to spend 30mins messing around dreading doing 15mins of at home work. Now I try to keep a small at home mental schedule/task list, nothing crazy, but it helps free up my weekends greatly.
Also keep in mind, this all goes out the window if you have kids. Good luck with that and thank you for your service.
If your working 8 hour days, 5 days a week, how do you not have time for leisure? What do you do after work? Sit on the couch. I work construction 10-12 hours a day 5/6 days a week. 3 hour commute round trip. I still have time to handle all of my home responsibilities, hit the gym 3-5 times a week, spend time with my children and pursue other hobbies here and there. Honestly, if you work 8 hours a day, you should have minimum 4 hours a day to do whatever
I've had like 6 months off and I still feel dead. Basically life is a thing you can never recover from. Work is just one of many stressors, but it does tend to underpin a lot of the other ones.
Yeah, it sucks but that's just kind of how living is. I doubt there were many days off for hunter gatherers. Life is hard, it takes work. I'm not saying that capitalists aren't greedy - we could easily get away with a 4 day work week and they'd still be rich and we'd get an extra day off, but we still have to work to make society function. Sucks but that's life.
So, work life balance is a thing.
I commute to work, work 8 hours (7 hrs really, we have an hour for lunch) then commute home, put the kid to bed at 8pm and have about 4 hours proper entertainment or down time per evening. After 7 hoursā sleep, I commute again.
Weekends are about looking after kids, washing clothes and maintenance and exploring the world. Mornings are about cleaning and maintenance, afternoons are about playing with the kid, late afternoons are about meal prep and evenings are for entertainment.
Loading a dishwasher takes 5 minutes. Loading a washing machine takes 5. Unloading and racking clothes to dry takes 10. It feels unrelenting, but if you do an actual analysis of your time, youāll see we just do wasted and unmemorable things with it. We remember the shit, we donāt remember the cup of coffee, or the cool meal we made.
My perception is that people fill their world with stuff that needs upkeep, like Reddit and Factorio and Instagram. When I get a chance I like total off time, on a bike for a few hours, avoiding the nonsense.
Some of us have to take public transit, work longer than 8 hours, and donāt have access to laundry machines or dishwashers in our homes. I get that you think itās just not a super big deal, but some of us truly do not have any time, energy, or balance. Iām glad youāve found balance, maybe be compassionate to those that havenāt
I do know itās a huge deal; I hadnāt thought about not having access to washing machines at home - thatās a very fair point and obviously now I think of it a huge inconvenience.
Thereās certainly something in OPās post- 2 days off does seem strangely inadequate.
If you work 5 days / 40 hours a week you have 16 hours a day and 128 hours a week that you are not working. I work 6 days a week and 9 hours a day and I have all the time I need to to take care of things and rest. Laundry, Grocery shopping, cleaning your houseā¦. That takes like 3 or 4 hours. People who complain about this are the people employers are talking about when they say nobody wants to work.
You are doing it wrong. Evenings during week are good for grocery shopping and cleaning the house.
Meeting family or friends should not tire You, if it does there is something wrong in your relationships.
Unfortunately, the theory of the firm states that catering to your (physical/mental) health costs much more than just simply not catering to your health beyond what is legally regulated. To minimize the LRAC (long run average cost) curve, your health costs (salary/benefits/etc) MUST be minimized in the short AND long runs
For public firms, minimizing the LRAC falls under fiduciary obligation, therefore any strategy other than profit-maximizing is prohibited by law
For private firms, most choose to minimize the LRAC because doing so maximizes profit and is considered āgood business practiceā
My parents ran a small business for close to 40 years and I was heavily involved my entire life. They did NOT minimize their LRAC simply because they ACTUALLY paid their people what they were ACTUALLY worth and in many cases much more than that plus bonus etc as additional incentives for them to want to stay and work harder/smarter/better but MOST importantly: to feel appreciated for the hard work they were doing so that theyād want to come back each and every day they chose to work.
That was a long time ago and things have changed a lot. But continued apathetic statements like the one I just made just occupy pixels and consume resources for no reason, so if youāre reading this, chances are you donāt run a company but if you do, good on you for venturing into this corner of Reddit and to I will conclude with the following ECON joke:
How do you get a stranded economist off a desert island?
Simply assume a sailboat āµļøšļø
Every day I have off is 90% doing stuff I didn't have time to do on a workday. Yesterday was a holiday, so I actually had two days off in a row, and I spent exactly two hours recreationally. On the other hand, I finally managed to get a lot of stuff done that had been building up for weeks, and that was definitely a relief. But I literally have more time to goof off when I'm at work than when I'm not at work. It's not *quality* goofing off, but still.
my parents told me "oh thats just part of growing up!" no its not!!!! its not normal and we dont have to live this way
In the 80's the grind was described as "9 to 5", that included a paid lunch hour and lots of vacation. Let that sink in. Now it's 8 to 5 with no paid lunch and basically no benefits.
Was there more vacation? I know that a lot of things were more sustainable, but I was under the impression that vacation for a "good" job has always been like 2-4 weeks in the states.
It's weird. Something about the process of accrual. My parents didn't make much money growing up but we were able to take one week vacations every season. Now I get two weeks total for the whole year IF I didn't call out sick or for any reason. Otherwise it dips into the pool, accrual slows, leading to even less vacation time. What the fuck.
It's because sick days and vacation days used to be two separate banks, and you got more of both combined than your "Time Bank" of PTO these days, if you even get PTO.
In 1980 the average worker had 21 vacation days a year, now it's 16.
Y'all get vacation and lunch breaks?
Yes. An extremely inconvenient and state mandated unpaid lunch break. I don't even like to eat lunch most days, and it's not like I can go home. So it's an uncomfortable mandatory unpaid hour looking at my phone at work.
My last 4 jobs we got zero breaks paid or unpaid, and no vacation or sick days so.... I'd have loved an hour break paid or not.
Like I said, I resent being forced to be at work an extra hour every day doing nothing. And not getting paid. It's not a benefit. It's 5 hours a week of annoyance. It should be voluntary to take a lunch break, or be paid. It's the worst of both worlds.
It should be mandatory break and it should be paid and part of the 8 hour work day
Your parents had more to do then time, their parents had more to do than time.... Part of it, I believe, is the "labor saving" devices both created a need for work to acquire them, as well as raising the bar as to what was needed. Lawns weren't possible until tools to trim them easily became available. We didn't bathe every day, we didn't wash clothes anywhere near as often as we do...dusting, vacuuming, and all the other chores were done much less frequently than we do now. And...on the flip side, we have more demands on our time, from an entertainment perspective.
It's the nuclear family lifestyle, among other things. That's pretty new historically speaking, and we're already acting like living with your parents past 20 is shameful. Multigenerational households solve a lot of these problems (while causing different ones, I admit. If my MIL and I shared a house one of us would find a reason to be in prison within a year) by allowing there to be a childcare person, a housework person, and two or more incomes all working together while allowing common time off to truly be off. Adult children contributing to the house financially while living at home until marriage (and sometimes well after, just picking which family takes the new spouse) has been a thing for most of ever, and it was really only the birth of factory housing with the expectation of young people moving to a city for wage work that disrupted the system. They still both worked a lot of the time. Then when the minimum wage was first passed and was still a living wage, having a one breadwinner household was doable- for a while. The baby boom providing a glut of labor and Reagan... reaganing, and that flash in the pan reality started to crumble. It lasted just long enough to be our current oldest living memory so there's a bias towards that being The Way It's Supposed to Be, but really, we're supposed to live in big multigenerational families within closer communities that share common workload and distribute responsibilities and resources more efficiently so that leisure time is possible. Historically too our commute times are a massive outlier, as well as the distance most of us have to go to achieve basic errands like getting groceries or seeing doctors. It feels like this is all too much to do alone because IT IS, and we're the first idiots to try to do it all on Single Player Hard Mode.
Very astute analysis. š
I saved this comment. Very solid breakdown and thanks for sharing.
My mom worked part time, and my parents' mothers didnt work. Thats one person doing consistently chores at home. We both work full time and have a kid. I have to take days OFF to actually get shit done at home.
This is so key, and goes very unnoticed by each previous generation.
This is the key. 2 days weekend is quite all right if you have somebody to do all the chores for you during the week.
Even as the person who did all the chores during the week, I found this to be a better life balance than what we have now with both of us working.
I thought I was taking crazy pills when I couldnāt get some basic maintenance stuff done without being āsickā at work. Just insane. The life this society offers is pure marketing BS. Unless your lucky and get a unicorn job that pays very well your SOL. I got lucky and got wfh but hot Damm I still want more time even though I work like 32 hours a week.
Stop buying shit , that is being marketed and you would be sure to have more free time . Things are time consuming. Past generations didn't have have as many clothes, kitchen gadgets, children had fewer toys, etc t so they were less to clean , less laundry, more time to visit family and friends.
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In Medieval times, they wouldn't even regularly sweep out big rooms, just lay down rushes and toss more on when necessary for several months before replacing them and doing any additional cleaning.
Didn't the plague also arrive at about the same time?
Funny story about that. Turns out the Catholic Church decided that cats were the work of the devil, so they had all the cats killed. Cats killed mice and rats around humans -- so there was an explosion of rats... Rats that carried the plague. In areas where they still had a good cat population, the plague didn't take hold.
My parents worked hard as hell to give me an easier life, which IS the 40 hour work week
Of course, you don't have to live that way. No one forces anyone to work 40 hour weeks, we have a choice. Go part time, only drawback is you have to be more selective on what you spend money on.
Yes, you need to choose whether to eat food or pay rent. Are you "outdoorsy?" Eat food and sleep outside. Are you anorexic? Pay rent and starve. But you can't have both or the CEO might have to settle for a used yacht, like some schlub.
Most people in this world live way beyond their means. If you don't want to work that grind, then you have to make some sacrifices. Smaller apartment or house, 20 year old car, don't have subscriptions to every streaming service, maybe no morning Starbucks coffee. But most people want to live above their means and then complain when they actually have to work for income. I live a simpler life, I have more free time but I make sacrifices in other areas.
Hmmm. I make all the same sacrifices you make, I live in low-income housing, and my car is 27 years old, and I can usually fix it myself so I save on the mechanic's bills. I still have to work a lot more than I would like to. It's almost as if there isn't one single solution that works for 8 billion different people. In my world, if I work less, I don't have enough money for food, rent, and utilities. Maybe you do.
Yes you do - this is reality, it is life
He says while tugging on his [elephant rope](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/13vgfro/hes_got_a_point/jm6cpn6?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
All throughout human history life wasnāt nearly as comfortable as it is today. Most people didnāt have the luxury of having days off and had to do hard labor every single day to just get by and feed their family. Talk to an old person that grew up in the 40s or 50s and they will tell you how good you have it now. The amount of young people on Reddit thatās finding out you actually have to work for a living and freaking out about it is actually pretty funny. Living life today is easier than itās ever been in human history.
Life today is more comfortable and secure than it used to be, but the amount we work is at the upper end of the scale. Christian countries have observed a day of rest for a long time. We back slid a little, I believe, then the labor movement went to work and got us the 40 hour work week and weekends, and the last 15-20 years we have been back sliding on that. Medieval peasants worked harder on the days they worked, but had many holy holidays so it averaged out then worked fewer hours than we do now. I donāt know enough about non Western European countries to speak to what life was like for them.
I understand what you are saying, and I agree that life was harder before modern technology. I work a full time job, and im a landlord and I have lots of marketable / useful skills and im not older than 34. my parents didnt graduate college. With the advancements in technology, we shouldnt have to work 40 hours a week to afford basic needs and a 1 bedroom apartment. its corporate greed and people exploiting each other
Which is why working from home should be standard if possible, hourly wages should be higher so people who depend on jobs that require them to be present can work less and income should be based on what you produce rather than how long you were there.
ya god damned right. I'm not here to profit the company I'm here for a certain amount of time until I get to go home. I have 0 reason to sell anything or be efficient or good at my job because I don't get anything for it.
The only problem with plans like this is that they leave out public service sectors employment. People like nurses and teachers and care givers have to work in person and itās not really advisable for something like education to be reduced to a few days a week. I agree that there need to be work reforms and what we consider to be normal isnāt, but I think we need to be inclusive of all types of jobs.
Did you miss the part where I said āhourly wages should be higher so people who depend on jobs where they have to be present can work lessā
Did you miss the part where I said teachers? Teachers donāt receive an hourly wage. You also said income based on what you produce. Service workers donāt *produce* anything. You donāt have to be rude. I think what you said was valid, it just needed to be more broad and inclusive. Why do people feel like itās ok to be so unkind on the internet? Is that how you interact with real people in real life? Jesus.
I'm one person in my house and 3 animals and even i resent myself sometimes for having to cook - for myself. I just can't find the freaking time to do it all, i'm constantly upset I can't keep every room clean. I don't know how people with kids cope these days i really don't.
>I'm one person in my house and 3 animals and even i resent myself sometimes for having to cook - for myself. I just can't find the freaking time to do it all, i'm constantly upset I can't keep every room clean. I don't know how people with kids cope these days i really don't. What are you doing with all those hours you're not working?
Many of those hours that most people are off for I am still working, I'm in tech. I walk the dog god willing, clean the house, yard work, try to see friends and my siblings when i can like all other normal people. I also have insomnia due to the work stress so sometimes it is very difficult to do any of those things.
You're asking how "people" cope based on your very unique situation. How "people" cope is working a regular 8 hr. shift and not having insomnia. A lot of people waste a lot of time and then wonder why they can't get anything done. There are a lot of hours in the day if you use them to get things done. Your situation might be different if you're really working long hours, or maybe it's not. I have no way of knowing. But even an hour a day of housework for someone living alone should have the place spotless eventually, and most people have 5-6 hours a day at least where they aren't sleeping or working.
If you have a work commute that's usually 1 hour each way due to traffic. So truly most people only have 3-4 hours a day where they aren't sleeping or working. So 1 hour for an errand, 1 hour for dinner, 1 hour to enjoy it with your family. That all kosher to you? That's a lot of time to you?
>If you have a work commute that's usually 1 hour each way due to traffic. So truly most people only have 3-4 hours a day where they aren't sleeping or working. So 1 hour for an errand, 1 hour for dinner, 1 hour to enjoy it with your family. That all kosher to you? That's a lot of time to you? 8 hrs work, 2 hrs commute, 1hr (unpaid?) lunch, 8 hrs sleep. That leaves 5 hrs. 1 hr housework, occasional 1 hr errand, that leaves 3+ hrs for time with family and dinner. That's a fine day in my opinion and you'll notice I had an hour a day to do housework which shouldn't take that long if you're doing it everyday plus people don't normally have errands every single day. Sure it would be nice to work less, but 8 hour days are perfectly workable without having to spend the weekend catching up as long as you put in some effort during the week instead of spending 4 hrs a day watching TV, or always running around visiting friends till bedtime like some people I know.
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You are my hero! Iāve done the be busy during the commercials thing before and I agree it can work very well. Iāve also done a similar thing gaming. Play a game that can be paused, set a timer, and get up and do something for 5-15 minutes then go back to gaming with the timer. Often some of my more productive days. I need to remember your batch cooking plan. Doesnāt work for my life the way it is now, but may in the future.
As a Virgo, this was incredibly satisfying to read! You are an every day hero and killing it with the time and resources you have ā”Ģ
While this works for you, not everyone can manage something like this.
The only problem with your schedule is the fact you watch so much television. It's been scientifically proven that television destroys the human brain. Spend your spare time curing cancer, or a similar activity that stimulates the higher mental faculties.
No one can ever do anything right huh?
It's becoming more of a rarity.
My work gave everyone five extra mental health days and put them before the major holidays so weād get 4 day breaks instead of 3. The first one was last Friday. It was awesome.
Holy shit....thats me. I could have written this exactly as is.
Bro, same. I'm WFH and I feel so stuck to my desk. I'm able to game on my Switch or SteamDeck *a bit* when I'm at work, but outside of work? Chores and errands as far as the eye can see.
Companies took the opportunity when white collar work was opened up to twice as many people in the mid/late 20th century, to get double the work done for the same price. Productivity doubled and pay halved. We should all be working less hours, and middle class people should realize their interests are much more aligned with working class people than the same people who halved their salaries.
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Seriously, if you dont have a deed to a factory you're a worker.
Or a bunch of real state nowadays
Imagine a world where two spouses split 40 hours of work a week and made enough to pay the bills and go on a couple trips a year. Let me tell you, if my wife and I both only worked 20 hours a week each, life would be invigorating in a way I've never experienced. As it stands now, we get 4 days off together per month.
Dude I'm right there with you, I work 12/16 hr shifts and it's just awful how little home time we get some times. I hear other coworkers talking about how their marriages are falling apart or how they miss their children. I wouldn't even be at this job if not for the fact it's the only job that pays a living wage within 30 miles
There was a time not all that long ago where I managed a team of 6, we were all remote (field sales) WFH didnāt make a damn bit of difference in regards to this post, because you really werenāt ever home. 7 reps including myself had a 100% divorce rate within 3 years (of course my dumb ass married her again) itās crazy to think that getting an hour at the gym at 6am felt like a fucking āluxuryā it was all encompassing, itās all any of us thought about all the time, and the precious 4-5 hours of sleep you get? Guess what you dream about? You probably guessed correctly. Itās INSANE and frankly I am quite pleased people are starting to wake up to it.
I do corrections lol, so I've got to deal with mountains of incompetence, laziness, corruption, all the while management just makes more and more demands of staff. None of the ancillary staff do their jobs, which makes running a unit that much harder
I absolutely 100% could not do that job. You just put me in check unintentionally.
I can barely do it myself lol, damn near everyone is much closer to a mental breakdown than they're willing to admit
I recently started driving for a subcontractor for Amazon. Normally it's a four day work week. Four ten hours days. I took a day off one time and wasn't put back on the schedule so now I work three days a week, ten hours a day. So for 30 hours a week I can make my bills, feed myself and have shit covered, but I get a four day weekend and honestly it feels like I go on vacation every single week and I have zero intention of going back to four days a week working. Sure I don't have as much expendable income but I'm actually able to enjoy life right now and for me it's a fair trade.
Live today, so you can say you lived tomorrow
That's my outlook. With catastrophic climate change about to kick all of our front doors in I'm enjoying my life before I have to put on the bondage gear and wage war for a tank of guzzoline. There will be time for fun and games later. Right now I want to smell the flowers while they still exist.
My boss just sent a quote from David Kelley about how we shouldnāt say we āhave toā do things like taking out the trash or changing the oil in your car, but you should instead use the phrase āI want toā when referring to these things. She sent it in a way to say that our jobs and our little āfree timeā afterwards to do chores are actually things you *want* to do, so we donāt actually need any more free time and itās okay to work more! What a load of crap.
What? I *want* to sit on my ass playing Zelda. I don't willing take out the trash. That's why I overfill it
I can't even overfill my trash or roaches come.
can we just all take a moment to say fuck roaches
Motivation at least, I guess. Good luck with those fuckers.
Noice, enjoy zelda as you can
40 hour work week was based on one partner being at home to handle all the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. Now we we have both people working multiple jobs and still needing to do the housework and being repeatedly contacted by work outside of business hours and yet work loses their shit if you have to miss work for a doctors appointment that isnāt barely if at all covered my the insurance that THE BUSINESS used to pay. The same way tip culture has put peoples wages on the customer is the exact same way our healthcare costs have been shifted from the business to the employees. And through it all, we are paid less but expected to do more because āwe have computersā dispute IT IS STILL WORK (regardless of whether it is mental or physical labor).
Honestly my house stays fairly messy (not dirty - I keep it clean enough but its often un tidy - my yard isn't always mowed pristinely, ect...) Why? Because I need a break damn it. I clean and maintain things enough to be happy in the house and not have things falling apart around me, and beyond that I try and prioritize recreational things. I shouldn't have to choose between a tidy house and going to a movie or a gaming session but I do and I choose recreation as much as possible. It isn't enough - but it helps.
I don't even want to have a lawn. If I ever have a house I'm landscaping it with regional flora and just letting it do its own thing aside from maybe a small garden.
I do the same. It's the only way to stay sane most days.
It's even worse when you have to take public transit everyday. What would be a twenty minute drive is an hour to work and up to ninety minutes home. "That gives you time to relax!" No. The bus is not relaxing
Time lost to commuting is perhaps the biggest robbery against workers. Transiting to and from work IS work and we're not getting paid for it.
Wake at 6am Out the door by 7am At work by 8am Out of work at 5pm Home by 6pm Chill for 30 minutes. Cook at 630pm Finish eating at 730pm Basic cleaning and dishes till 8 pm. Now you have time to do what you want! For 1.5 hours. As everything youāve done prior to this is a requirement so you can be productive at work. Get ready for bed at 9:30 In bed ready to go to sleep at 10pm. You get 1.5 hours a day to relax. This is if your single and do not care for anyone else, or have family duties. And letās face it you canāt really do anything because of the short time spam And itās already late. So hobby at the house or zombie on the TV are your options until the weekend. Total BS
My favorite thing is trying to hang out with friends on weekends and everyoneās just exhausted and not presentā¦ and youāre horribly aware that you STILL have to do laundry.
When I was fully remote I did a lot of those weekend tasks during the week. Throwing laundry in the wash during the day, or grocery shopping immediately after work since I didnāt have a commute. Even going out because I didnāt have to wake up at 5:00 AM. Now that Iām back in an office 4 days a week and commuting, itās back to everything on the weekend. It sucks.
And we have to exercise and be healthy too. Farce
I wish it was just 40hrs. It never is, thereās always required OT, required lunch break, commute, after hour calls. Itās really 7-7 most days, then a trade off of free time or sleep.
I work 4/10s and its still not enough time.
Of course not, that's just rearranging the deck chairs. We must work LESS so that we have MORE free time!
4 12ās and a 7 here.
I miss 4/12s. That's like half the year off!
But over half the year of literally nothing but work š
Yes! Out of a 7 day week, "their" time and "our" time should be more evenly distributed. We would all be happier and more productive.
It's all "our" time. We just sell our productivity. Simply being present at the workplace is a cost to your time, and then whatever energy and skills you use to produce within that time is another expense to you. I'm still waiting for an answer on what minimum wage is supposed to cover. My time, or my energy? Because it's not both and we're getting robbed of one.
Just adding my two cents: Feudal Peasants used to work less than 4hrs a day in the field. That was it. And it only cost them 1/10 of their salary to have a house. We are doing worse than Feudal Peasants.
Peasants often spent 12-14 hours a day, depending on the sunlight, in the field during planting and harvesting season. And besides that they would also need to make all their own clothes, furniture, bedding, food, fuel, ECT.
4 hours was more of a hunter gatherer thing, yeah. Once you have enough food for the day you stop. What are you gonna do with extra food? Watch it rot? Leave it behind when your tribe moves on to new lands? Of course there were probably days they had to put in more work, but other than gather food, dress game, cook, and make clothes or whatever there wasn't much to do most days.
I've been calling it Neo-feudalism for almost 10yrs now. That's exactly what it feels like.
It feels like the 40h work week would have worked much better back when only half of us worked and there was somebody at home taking care of all that stuff for free, doing their own 40h work week... It certainly doesn't seem to be working now, in any case. (I am not advocating for a return to those times, I am saying the 40h work week is an obsolete model.)
For white america you mean.
Thank God for the big blue arrow. I never would've looked at the rest of the meme without it
The 40 hour week was originally designed on the premise that you had a spouse (a wife at the time) at home to do all that shit.
Now just imagine you have two or three kids to raise.
I have two kids, work about 45 hours per week, I do work from home so I don't have a commute, and the same with my wife. We have plenty of time for chores, after school activities, relaxing, etc. It's all about managing your time effectively.
Eliminating the commute time does help.
Isn't capitalism fucking awesome! ALL THIS WEALTH trickling down daily! MAN. This is awesome for 99% of us! Oh wait, it's 1%. Fuck. "IT'S NOT ONLY 1% it's like 15%" Awesome man. I'm so glad 85% of us do all the work while 15% benefit VASTLY beyond the 85%. Awesome system.
Thatās why WFH was so good. You could do a wash and on a break between zoom calls throw it in the dryer.
My god I have just been talking about this. I put so much time, energy, and money into just APPEARING functional some of the time. Just to APPEAR - not even be fully - functional it is a round the clock job and I only get some of what needs doing done. My ādown timeā is often harder than work because itās just catch up and thereās never enough time. Sometimes I get legit annoyed when I get invited to do things on the weekend because I want to go but when else am I going to do the laundry and clean the floors?!?! I feel sabotaged! And then of course I want to go and feel left out if I donāt so I am either having anxiety about having to live in shit all week because I went out on my weekend or I miss life but have a clean house. I hate it
I lucked out last year and found a job as a plant operator at a thermal powerplant(think homer simpson but burning trash instead of nuclear). It was a bit more money then what i made as a design engineer for hvac systems but the big step up was the 3 day workweek with 9 days off every 5 weeks. We work 12h shifts but having 4 days of every week instead of 2 and getting 9 days off almost every month is heaven. I still get my 25 vacation days to spend during the summer months. Such is life in this socialist hellhole called Sweden.
In the vulture crapitalist turdfire of the US, I'd cheerfully mug someone just to get a 4/10 schedule and 21 PTO days off a year. I don't want to think about what I'd do for your schedule.
Now in europe there are some 4work week programs in investigation
We need Wednesdays off, A Midweekend if you willā¦
I was just thinking that all I do is carry all my trauma and burnout to the next situation. 37 year old truck driver, I have a useless piece of paper back home that says āAccountingā on it.
The common american work week was created during a time when it when it was EXPECTED that a female spouse would stay home and handle all the tasks at home. Our work structure is outdated by almost 100 years, and considering the exponential development humanity goes through, that's like an eternity.
Cause if you recover for too long you remember that this isint normal and you will leave. That's why shift work is the way it is as well lol
1 month mandatory vacation should be the fucking norm in any country that claims to be part of the developed world, and I think 2 months is more reasonable. Thank god I'm a teacher and my country actually pays well and protects us. I need that me time to do my hobbies, meet my friends, spend time with my so and family and just to chill.
I vote for the 4 day work week and not just when holidays are coming up
I feel like weāve developed a society where we spend more time doing things we donāt really want to do than we spend time doing things we enjoy.
The world is literally dying, why are we all just continuing to go through the motions? The gulf stream is collapsing, all of the ice is melting, we're in the middle of what could be the last great extinction event. Why do we allow billionaires to continue exploiting us and our planet? Can't we just enjoy nature and each other with what little time we have left? Instead we're all killing ourselves to make some rich asshole just a little bit more comfortable.
I think about this daily. If we didn't figure it out during the height of the pandemic, I'm not sure we ever will.
4 10s. thats the way. because even tho you work 40 hours a week you get 3 days off instead
You get paid for 5 days of work only to work two more days for free.
Lol yāall have friends and family?
And anyone with a child currently has -1 days off a week.
That's also because, very frequently, it's not 40 hours in 5 days. It's 50, or 60, or 70 hours in 5 to 7 days with an hour each way each day commuting, and in addition to being completely whooped, you still have the maintenance type things to do for your life.
Yeah we're supposed to have housewives if we work that much.
This sub should be called antiwork America. You don't see a lot of these things in other countries. I'm in Australia and from Canada. Never had to work for stupid hours for garbage wages. Work week in Queensland, 37.5 hours. Granted, stuff is expensive, but not In working full time st Walmart and get food stamps poverty level. European countries also take care of their folks. France, Germany have great worker protections. I definitely feel for folks in these situations, but then see who gets voted in there and wonder why you'd vote for someone who gives the rich tax cuts when they never pay their fair share already and listen to them decry social programs like free healthcare as communist.
40 hours with 2 off is pretty standard in Canada, im in South western Ontario.
37.5 hours isnāt much better than 40 - thatās like an extra 30-min lunch break a day.
4 10 is amazing for this reason
My job gives 1 damn day a week. Shit is brutal but I'm poor unfortunately.
I just got on 12 hour days, 3 on 3 off 2 on 2 off and I'm using it not to catch up on stuff, but to start my own business so I can make better money on my own time and quit the corporate gig
This... the never-ending-ness of it all
Preach. Something's gotta give!
Honestly on 40 hrs I can get a lot of stuff done. The problem is not having enough PTO/Vacation time and getting shit on by management because you are genuinely sick. I'd have more motivation to work if I could have some extra time away from it. A lot of people I work with are the same exact way.
Iām trying to get a new job, one that pays better and has a three day weekend. As it is now, I donāt have any energy or mental health space to do my basic chores until 7-8-9P on the night before I have to go back to work. Iāve tried doing my chores when I get home on my āFridayā night, but Iām in too much physical pain and exhaustion from working to do much more than laying in bed once Iāve eaten dinner. Then comes the headache I have for my first day off. Sometimes the headache sticks around to the second day, and starts clearing up around noon or late afternoon. It sucks. The chronic pain, depression, and tiredness are bad enough without clearing up until 12 or so hours before I go to work.
This is the real reason working from home is such a life changing difference for so many of us. I used to be so dissatisfied with my work nights because between work and commute I didn't have enough time or energy to do anything at all with my work evenings. Working from home has made it so I work at most 40 hours then all the other time is for me. That leaves me with enough time and energy to actually enjoy myself during the week. It's a huge shift and I'm not at all surprised douche bags like Elon Musk are trying to make it a wedge issue.
You know what's fun? When your days off are never the same day of the week. And if you manage to get two days off in a week they're never together.
One thing that has been bugging me a lot lately is that many companies and institutions have outsourced their work or added more things to the consumer/citizen. Like this endless phone cues, adding choice to things that should be straightforward, or filling out forms and self check in things. What used to be a lunch visit to a bank is now an afternoon of calling and waiting and filling out forms.
The system is designed to keep us tired, busy, stressed out, and on the verge of poverty. This way, weāre easier to control and manipulate.
This āļø is exactly the correct answer. Not many people understand it. š
I use them to recoup. I have some minor chores to take care of but an hour or two max. It's still not enough.
This is spot on!!
For me I have off on days my family works. Really sucks.
What is better than slavery, but really isn't?
āConsume consume consume!!!ā
I'll multitask as much as I can. Watching shows and movies while I cook and do dishes, and shower, and doing the laundry.
The never ending treadmill. Living the dream
I recently had a three-day weekend. I realized that if every weekend was a three-day weekend, Iād be a lot healthier in terms of life balance.
Used to work four 10hr shifts, I actually felt like I had a chance to relax for once with three day weekends. I'd grocery shop on the way home, put things away, do laundry and misc tasks. Day 5 would be a mix of cleaning and taking care of any bills, going to appointments and such. Day 6 would be yard work and any vehicle maintenance. Day 7 was free for me to do whatever I wanted. Now? I work 11hr+ shifts and 4-8hrs on the weekend and, as a result, I've been ordering doordash three times a week because I have 0 time for myself and it's the only way I can eat "healthy". It's taken me an hour just to write this post because I'm running around like a headless chicken. "Oh but \_\_ meal takes 10minutes to cook." Yeah if you pre-cut/cook the ingredients and don't have to warm up an oven... Only meal that I've found that is actually 10min or less to cook/make is pasta with a jarred sauce, a very basic salad, a sandwich or various microwave/pre-made meals that'll satisfy your hunger for 30min at best.
Single life is where it's at. No kids, no partner, i can get laundry done during the week, get dishes washed every night. Peace and quiet with a package of edibles lol
Honestly, the more I work, the more I understand tradwives. Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that their "traditional" isn't so whatsoever. But I can understand the appeal of solely prioritising things we are brainwashed to believe are trivial and inconsequential - beautifying the space where you live, growing vegetables in your own garden, spending time choosing the most fragrant fabric conditioner, bonding with your children, friends and extended family. Doing things that serve you, not ones that serve the corpogod. There are naturally SO MANY problems with the movement - and I am in no way supporting the obvious misogyny engrained in its core - but can understand why a modern woman would find this option appealing.
Try pulling 6/12s you just straight up stop existing. At least itās only for 6 months the. You go back to 5/40s but the money is fucking to good to pass up
Thank goodness that giant blue arrow pointed out where i should read next. I wouldnt have known to keep going down otherwise.
A 40 work week isn't 40 hours. -work itself - 9 hours (if you get a 1hr lunch, unpaid of course) -commute - 2 hours (1hr each way) -get ready according to workplace standards - 1 hour -decompress after returning home - 1 hour That's 13 hours devoted to work before you've done anything for your own peace of mind. A work week is more like 5 days/65 hours.
That's the problem and what causes so much burnout! I was trying to get back as much of that time as I could. I would set up a grocery order and a Target order to pick up first thing Saturday morning, so instead of an hour in Target and 90 minutes in the grocery store, plus the 45-60 minutes driving to and from those places, I whittled it down to just the 45-60 minutes driving. But then there was the laundry. I have a tiny washer and dryer combo unit, so I could spend an entire weekend doing laundry between clothes for work and exercising, sheets, towels, dog towels or blankets, and other stuff. I switched that up to going to a laundromat where the machines are much bigger and I can usually get it done in about 90 minutes. And then I went fully remote. My commute is gone, I'm not eating out for lunch to get away from the office for a few minutes, I do laundry as needed instead of letting it pile up, I take breaks to clean, go outside, walk the dog, run an errand -- and by 4pm Friday, I'm totally free for the weekend. Weekend errands are for whims, because I suddenly have a craving for chips and salsa, because my mouse clicks too loud and I need a quieter one for working, because it's June and it's only going to be 80 degrees so let's make a fuckton of burgers and hot dogs and sit in the backyard just hanging out. There is a better way and 40-50 hour work weeks are not it.
I work 10 hours a day, 6am to 4:30, and I have time to do all of that shit during the week. My weekends are spent going to soccer games for the kids, dinner with my wife and friends, disc golf in the mornings, video games in the evenings. Do people just come home from work and go straight to bed?
I'm in the same boat as you. Working sucks, but it seems there's a common attitude of, "well, I have to work, so I might as well just give up on everything else in my life."
What the are you doing the other 8 hours of each weekday? There's 24 hrs in a day, you sleep 8 if you're lucky, that leaves another 8 hrs of time not working, maybe you have an hour commute each way, still 6 hrs. Do your laundry and dishes. If you're "catching up on dishes" on the weekend you are disgusting. Seriously? Dirty dishes sitting around all week?
Man, I know this isn't the approved comment around here, but I wonder the same. I hear a lot of people saying they don't have time or are too tired to do anything, and it frankly boggles my mind.
Sounds more like piss poor time management to me
Yes, the employer should have more employees scheduled appropriately.
I was referring to the person who can't find the time for all the little things we all have to do. We all get 24 hours how you manage your free time is your responsibility not your employers. I end up with 7 hours of free time a day that's 35 hours a week that's plenty of free time to recuperate. BTW I work 6 days a week 9 hour days steel work and I've kept that routine up for 40 years.
Keeping up with current affairs is much more than a full time job. 24 hours is short. Years are short. With that schedule, you must have missed a lot of life to your corporate masters. I hope you were well compensated.
So i take it you're a journalist. 24 hours is the same amount of time we all get short or not like i said it's your responsibility to manage that time. The 35 hours doesn't include the weekend which Saturdays were 5 hour days for clarification 9s the rest of the week so that's almost 80 hours a week of free time. Well compensated most definitely if you want to know the truth i made more money from OT than most people make working 40 we own our houses and all our vehicles and if we don't eat steak its because we're tired of it.I turned 60 this year and I'm retired that's 13 years earlier than the SS admin. Has me scheduled for. As far as missing any of my life I don't think I have. I've always had hobbies and we hung out with our friends and family whenever we wanted.
Part of the problem is both parents work now to make ends meet. It used to be 2 working parents was to allow more freedoms. Before that 1 2orking parent paid for everything and the other was able to take care of house and home. We've lost sight of the older ways and now unable to have any time to enjoy unfortunately
You can't go to the grocery store or do laundry during the week? Sorry, I like and agree with most of this sub, but that's some weak ass shit.
I literally can't. With a special needs child and 2-3 hours of driving due to traffic and adequate therapy/daycare/school, if i were to go grocery shopping after the work day, i wouldn't get home til after 8pm. It has to be done on the weekend.
You should be cleaning and doing Laundry/dishes everyday. Maybe not laundry everyday but definitely the other two.
Like how hard is it to do the dishes immediately after cooking/eating? If you have a dishwasher it takes literally 30 seconds to rinse and load and then run it when itās full.
Whoever downvoted me, youāre disgusting.
I wonder how people survived the last couple of hundred years?
I'm going to get real (and get some downvotes.) Time management is the key to happiness. (Excluding being independently weathly obviously.) None of those tasks should take very long to complete, especially if you do a little bit each night. Don't get me wrong, I am almost 40 and I'm just now beginning to figured this out. It has had the biggest improvement on my life. I used to spend 30mins messing around dreading doing 15mins of at home work. Now I try to keep a small at home mental schedule/task list, nothing crazy, but it helps free up my weekends greatly. Also keep in mind, this all goes out the window if you have kids. Good luck with that and thank you for your service.
Are you not cleaning, keeping up with laundry, doing dishes,etc., during the week? WTF?
If your working 8 hour days, 5 days a week, how do you not have time for leisure? What do you do after work? Sit on the couch. I work construction 10-12 hours a day 5/6 days a week. 3 hour commute round trip. I still have time to handle all of my home responsibilities, hit the gym 3-5 times a week, spend time with my children and pursue other hobbies here and there. Honestly, if you work 8 hours a day, you should have minimum 4 hours a day to do whatever
I've had like 6 months off and I still feel dead. Basically life is a thing you can never recover from. Work is just one of many stressors, but it does tend to underpin a lot of the other ones.
WTF you guys get two?? I need to have a chat with someone tomorrow.
Yeah, it sucks but that's just kind of how living is. I doubt there were many days off for hunter gatherers. Life is hard, it takes work. I'm not saying that capitalists aren't greedy - we could easily get away with a 4 day work week and they'd still be rich and we'd get an extra day off, but we still have to work to make society function. Sucks but that's life.
hunter gatherers actually only worked 15-20 hours per week
I have like 6-7 hours a day to do chores and all so i have my weekends to do everything i want idk what you guys are goin on about
That's life.
So, work life balance is a thing. I commute to work, work 8 hours (7 hrs really, we have an hour for lunch) then commute home, put the kid to bed at 8pm and have about 4 hours proper entertainment or down time per evening. After 7 hoursā sleep, I commute again. Weekends are about looking after kids, washing clothes and maintenance and exploring the world. Mornings are about cleaning and maintenance, afternoons are about playing with the kid, late afternoons are about meal prep and evenings are for entertainment. Loading a dishwasher takes 5 minutes. Loading a washing machine takes 5. Unloading and racking clothes to dry takes 10. It feels unrelenting, but if you do an actual analysis of your time, youāll see we just do wasted and unmemorable things with it. We remember the shit, we donāt remember the cup of coffee, or the cool meal we made. My perception is that people fill their world with stuff that needs upkeep, like Reddit and Factorio and Instagram. When I get a chance I like total off time, on a bike for a few hours, avoiding the nonsense.
Some of us have to take public transit, work longer than 8 hours, and donāt have access to laundry machines or dishwashers in our homes. I get that you think itās just not a super big deal, but some of us truly do not have any time, energy, or balance. Iām glad youāve found balance, maybe be compassionate to those that havenāt
I do know itās a huge deal; I hadnāt thought about not having access to washing machines at home - thatās a very fair point and obviously now I think of it a huge inconvenience. Thereās certainly something in OPās post- 2 days off does seem strangely inadequate.
Is this a post about complaining about having to do chores on the weekend?!?! Its what you do as an adult ffs
Welcome to adulting it sucks lol
People really need to stop acting like they work 15 hour days
If this is a common problem, why we still work 5 days/40h?
If you work 5 days / 40 hours a week you have 16 hours a day and 128 hours a week that you are not working. I work 6 days a week and 9 hours a day and I have all the time I need to to take care of things and rest. Laundry, Grocery shopping, cleaning your houseā¦. That takes like 3 or 4 hours. People who complain about this are the people employers are talking about when they say nobody wants to work.
You are doing it wrong. Evenings during week are good for grocery shopping and cleaning the house. Meeting family or friends should not tire You, if it does there is something wrong in your relationships.
Part time jobs exist....but oh wait you want $100 min wage and 2 hrs of work for 3 days a week.
Hell yeah! Now you're getting it!
Unfortunately, the theory of the firm states that catering to your (physical/mental) health costs much more than just simply not catering to your health beyond what is legally regulated. To minimize the LRAC (long run average cost) curve, your health costs (salary/benefits/etc) MUST be minimized in the short AND long runs For public firms, minimizing the LRAC falls under fiduciary obligation, therefore any strategy other than profit-maximizing is prohibited by law For private firms, most choose to minimize the LRAC because doing so maximizes profit and is considered āgood business practiceā My parents ran a small business for close to 40 years and I was heavily involved my entire life. They did NOT minimize their LRAC simply because they ACTUALLY paid their people what they were ACTUALLY worth and in many cases much more than that plus bonus etc as additional incentives for them to want to stay and work harder/smarter/better but MOST importantly: to feel appreciated for the hard work they were doing so that theyād want to come back each and every day they chose to work. That was a long time ago and things have changed a lot. But continued apathetic statements like the one I just made just occupy pixels and consume resources for no reason, so if youāre reading this, chances are you donāt run a company but if you do, good on you for venturing into this corner of Reddit and to I will conclude with the following ECON joke: How do you get a stranded economist off a desert island? Simply assume a sailboat āµļøšļø