
Why Does Work Start At 9 A.M.? - FluidDjango
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2012/01/18/why-does-work-start-at-9-a-m/
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secoif
> For instance, it’s well-established that men perform more effectively under
> routine and structure.

\- Citation needed.

Blaming "men" for the 9-5 workday is easily one of the most ridiculous things
I have ever heard. Come on.

~~~
caw
I agree, there was a whole lot of "citation needed" in that article. The
underlying assumption with that statement, is that women do not work best in
rigid structure. Now we have 2 pieces of really dubious information. There's
no data for either.

And wasn't 9-5 a banker thing? There are a lot of professions that don't work
9-5 that were established a long time ago, like farming. They don't start at
9am, they start when it's light out so they can stop when it gets hot and
resume later.

And the 2 weeks notice? That's because it's reasonable to find a McD's
employee in 2 weeks after they post a "Help Wanted" sign. I hear tech
employees can and will give longer notice in order to ease transitions.

~~~
sce
In Norway the standard hours are 8-16 (8am/4pm) which includes half an hour
lunch. I believe that in Sweden it's 8-17 (8 hours work, 1 hour lunch).

It's also normal to have three months of notice (and it's not optional for the
worker). It's not uncommon that they'll let you leave with a shorter notice if
you ask for it, unless they really need you during that time (for e.g.
training new staff).

~~~
devolve
Don't forget that Sweden also has 25 days minimum of vacation time annually.
USA is, from what I gather, one of the few countries in the world that does
not have a legally required minimum annual leave.

To be let go earlier is not only a problem of asking, it's also that you are
entitled to three months of salary. So, most of the time, they would like to
keep you in order to not have triple the salary costs (one for you, one for
the new guy and (virtually) a third for whomever is occupied with training the
new guy instead of doing their regular job).

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cobrophy
> Who decided 14 days is the proper amount of annual vacation time?

Worth noting that this is a fairly uniquely American standard and would be
illegal in most of Europe.

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knz
Adjusting to two weeks of vacation/sick leave was a challenge when I
immigrated to the US. After five years with my current employer I now get four
weeks.

It's a symptom of the belief that "you should feel lucky to have a job" - you
should be grateful to have two weeks of leave, not expect more like most other
OECD country. I am also constantly amazed at how many coworkers don't use the
small amount of leave they get.

It'll be interesting to see if changes in employment patterns will eventually
push the US towards a mandated number of vacation hours.

~~~
endersshadow
It's not a symptom of the belief that you should feel lucky to have a job.
We're talking about the same country where people who go to college expect
jobs to be handed to them.

Instead, it's a complex cause rooted in a country built on entrepreneurship
and a strong belief in the "free market" (whatever that means). This is why
it's not regulated by any government (federal, state, or local). The US has a
lot of factors that lead to its vacation policy, but, "You should feel lucky
to have a job" is not one of them--that sentiment is a more recent attitude.

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yummyfajitas
I'm not sure the claims of the article really stand up to scrutiny. For
example: _They [women] aspire to different goals — relationships over status;
they communicate differently — collaborative over top-down; and thrive in
different work environments — open-air over individual cubicles._

If true, women should flock to tech startups and academia and avoid big
banks/corporates/government. In reality, the opposite occurs.

Similarly, consider the "routine and structure" that men supposedly require.
It seems that stereotypically female professions (teaching, HR) have lots of
structure and thrive on enforcing it, while stereotypically male professions
(programming, sales) are characterized by an individualistic "get shit done"
attitude. The article more or less agrees with this - it's women, not men, who
work hard at squashing changes and making the system remain as rigid as a
1900's factory.

Overall, this is a fairly weakly reasoned article that should at least
acknowledge where it differs from reality.

~~~
aeeeee
> If true, women should flock to tech startups and academia and avoid big
> banks/corporates/government. In reality, the opposite occurs.

Maybe you missed the part where she said she comes in a little before 9am and
leaves by 5. :)

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plam
Same as why everyone is using QWERTY keyboard when there's no scientific
evidence that this particular keyboard setup is king.

The benefit of everyone using Qwerty, though, is apparent.

So same with 9am starts. So that the team is together at around the same time,
for example. This can be overcome with proper communication channels as in a
remote worker setup, but that's a special case.

Sometimes the effects can justify the means.

~~~
cobrophy
It's also not just about internal communication it's about other companies and
partners you deal with being available at the same time. While email can allow
people to offset communication due to its asynchronous nature, a lot of
businesses are still run primarily over the phone.

If you're a service provider, there's a big advantage in being available at
the same times as your clients.

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fleitz
tl;dr: the patriarchy.

For the real reasons you'd want to look to the industrial revolution and
Taylorism.

PS. Women we're allowed to work when we standardized start times so everyone
would arrive at their station at the right time. You can't run a mill with
only half the workforce, so during the industrial revolution it was extremely
important for everyone to show up on time. That's the real reason and it has
nothing to do with men's inputs and everything to do with the needs of the
means of production. Before that you started work as the sun rose because we
had no need for standardized start times.

The 9 to 5 thing is more an evolution of a whole bunch of inputs, the final
input being primarily Henry Ford and the 8 hour day / 40 hour work week that
finally allowed everyone to actually consume all the goods they were
producing. That is up until now when production has again outstripped
consumption.

PPS. I really get annoyed with revisionist feminist history.

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savramescu
Actually this is something that I've ran into with my girlfriend. We both work
in multinationals that have offices close to each other so we leave and come
together.

Her boss is in another country and doesn't enforce a starting hour for her
schedule. But I'm having trouble convincing her to start earlier (I want 8 AM)
in order to leave at 5 PM. Her reason: she doesn't want that the other girls
in her department (Recruitment) mistakenly consider her a slacker behind her
back. She thinks that sometime down the road, when asked, somebody will answer
that she doesn't work hard enough because she's leaving earlier than 6 PM
without mentioning that she's coming in earlier.

~~~
peacemaker
I hit exactly the same problem in an old job I had. We had flexi-time and most
people would work 10am - 6pm or so yet I decided to work 7am - 3pm.

The same hours, the same amount of work but you should see peoples faces when
you walk out the office at 3pm...

~~~
bahadden
My experience is the opposite. Our department recently changed flexi-time
start from 7am to 6:30am, leading to moaning in other departments where they
want the same (mainly because the car park is full by 7am).

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lolcraft
Um. So, I've read the article. My TL;DR:

There is no scientific research on the adequacy of the current working
schedule, as it was adopted arbitrarily by managers. Furthermore, it was
established by men for men, without asking women for input, which makes
juggling family, career, relationships... difficult for women.

Yeah, there's a wonkish phrase in the middle of it, which reeks of pseudo-evo-
psych. I'm talking about "it’s well-established that men perform more
effectively under routine and structure." So what.

~~~
sp332
_which makes juggling family, career, relationships... difficult for women._

Working 9-5 makes this hard for men too.

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Hominem
I work 11-7. Oddly, everyone thinks you are working your ass off when you send
out emails at 7pm and never even realizes you are never around before 11.

~~~
knz
The downside of this is when people only see you coming in "late" and never
see you still working at 7pm.

~~~
Hominem
Well, I am in a cube farm, my "team" is distributed so I am lucky that nobody
every sees me.

Besides, you ever notice the more important the person the later they come in?
None of the SVPs at my company are ever in before noon.

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sopooneo
My biggest issue with all of this is the very notion that you can make policy
decisions "scientifically". Having a study to back up every major corporate
standard is neither realistic nor even advisable. Many of these things are too
nuanced, and include way too many variables to pretend you can get an outcome
that is "right" based on data.

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wofser
Is 9 - 5 (9-17 for me) common?

Are lunch and breaks included in that?

9 - 5 is 8 hours and a normal workday is 8 hours?

~~~
ghaff
No--really sloppy article. I'm not sure when and how the "9 to 5" phrase
entered the lexicon but, wherever I've worked, the "official" workday has
always been 8-5 or 8:30-5 with an hour or half-hour respectively for lunch.

~~~
peacemaker
In the UK and most of Europe it's usually 9-5. The US likes to stretch out the
workday to get more out of its wage slaves :)

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zeroonetwothree
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_game>

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girishmony
Not all work starts at 9 A.M!

~~~
seqastian
Confirming. This week I am round 10 last week I managed to pull off getting
here before 8 two times. Flextime is great. Tomorrow I am gone at 3pm.

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atirip
At Artemy Lebedevs Design Studio work starts at noon.

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jaequery
things must be going real slow over at forbes these days :/

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batista
It's called the "8-hour day", and it was the result of decades of struggle
(including a lot of deaths after police/national guard intervention) from
overworked factory workers and employees, in many countries.

It was established to be 9-17, historically in most countries.

There had to be some compromise, in order to co-ordinate a lot of things: the
start/end of the school day. The start of services such as buses and the
subway. 9 o' clock was a nice compromise.

Probably it also had something to do with, well, electric light not being
available at the time (not everywhere at least). And people of course has to
wake up before 9 o' clock in order to go from their home to work.

The 8 hour day was before idiocies such as "my work is my life/passion" were
uttered by mere employees. It was a time that people struggled to work _less_
and have a more balanced life.

Hackers are especially bad at understanding this, because they tend to have
little personal life (citation: judging from a lot of people I know, hacker's
blog posts, the typical stereotype --which must have some basis--, and most
hacker's cultural artifacts), and because they work with interesting problems
tend to think that everyone must equally strive to work as much as they can
and that "if you love your job, you won't have to work a day in your life".

Well, it doesn't hold for most people, the very people that provide all the
infrastructure you use everyday. Few ticket collectors in theaters want to
work _more_. Few burger flippers. Few mailmen. Few policemen. Few grocery
store employees. Few gas station attendants. Few pilots. Few truck drivers.
Few farm workers. Few nurses. Few iPhone or Android phone builders. Few
accountants. Few office workers. Few garbage collectors.

