
Productivity and the Work Week (2000) - jacquesm
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/
======
jofer
I very, very dearly wish my employer would let me take unpaid leave or
purchase vacation... Supposedly we can take two weeks unpaid once every three
years, but I've never heard of anyone who was allowed to do it.

Honestly, it would be a _huge_ perk. I don't understand why a reasonable work-
life balance is such a taboo. Money is useless. Give me my weekends back and
the occasional day off and I'll happily take a 50% pay cut.

First world problems, I know... (Most of my family is semi-unemployed and
barely scraping by. I really shouldn't be complaining...)

~~~
cm2012
Most companies do give software engineers weekends and at least 2 weeks paid
vacation a year. I don't know your circumstances, but you might consider
switching jobs.

~~~
jofer
Unfortunately, I'm not a software engineer. I could fairly easily switch jobs,
but the choices are all other major oil companies. The work environment is
essentially identical at all of them.

Supposedly, we have lots of nice perks like a 9/80 schedule (every other
Friday off), etc. It's just difficult to take advantage of them.

~~~
sp332
Every other Friday off is 26 days off per year, the equivalent of 5 work
weeks. Edit: oh I missed that part where you still work 80 hours in the 9
days. :(

~~~
jofer
It's not the equivalent, as you're still required to work the same number of
total hours. (You work 9-hour days -- 7-5 instead of 8-5.)

The main problem is the culture of working through those Fridays off and many
weekends. You may not be "required" to, but you're certainly expected to.

~~~
endzone
what area do you work in? i don't know any (office bound) petroleum engineers
that regularly work weekends

~~~
jofer
Exploration. I'm a geologist, rather than a petroleum engineer. It's a
different culture than development or production. (Though there are crunch
periods in those, as well. Plenty of situations where you're on-call 24/7,
which doesn't happen in exploration.)

In development and production, you're typically involved in smaller business
decisions at regular intervals. In exploration, you do work to support very
large (100's of millions to billions) business decisions with longer
timelines, but very inflexible deadlines.

Normally, you'd have a couple of months of crunch time before a bid
round/prospect assessment/etc. You work 12-16 hour days for 60 days straight,
and after that there's a period where no one cares if you head out early every
day for a few weeks. During the crunch time, though, there's an expectation
that you're "all in".

However, I'm more of an internal contractor (I prefer the term "mercenary
interpreter"). I rotate between teams that are understaffed and help out
during the "crunch time". The downside to that is that I rotate off of one
understaffed team and on to another with no down time in-between. It wouldn't
be as bad if I were actually on a particular team long-term. (The upside is
that I get to see a lot of neat geology.)

Most of this is just me griping about my current role (I'm hoping to move to
R&D soon). It's not quite this bad outside of the specific teams I've been on.

However, there's a strong culture of working crazy weekends and long hours
that I really wish we could change. I've worked for three of the majors. There
are differences, but this part of it is the same.

Overall, I just don't understand why salary is negotiable in a job, but time
off isn't.

~~~
juanplusjuan
Consult. If you're valuable to your employer they'll want to keep you on-- esp
since you know the understaffed teams so well and can fit in seamlessly (read:
they don't have to train someone else). You should be able to charge more
(50-100%) to cover health insurance et al. and will have more control over
your schedule.

I don't know your industry though so it would behoove you to make friends with
someone else who consults for your company and figure out what arrangement
they have. If the company has done it once they'll do it again.

------
herge
The problem in the United States (where mit is based) is that a lot of
benefits like health insurance and job security are tied to you working a
full-time job with your employer.

It would be more interesting to look at more socialist countries, where
benefits are provided more by the government instead of the employer. For
example, France has experimented implementing 35 hour work weeks by giving
extra days off in the month to white collar workers.

~~~
nickff
Health insurance is only tied to employers in the US because of IRS tax rules;
I find it very strange that one troublesome government intervention can be
used to justify further meddling. Why not simply give all Americans the same
tax benefits which are currently given to those with employer-sponsored health
benefits?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Health insurance is only tied to employers in the US because of IRS tax
> rules

No, that's part of how the employer-centric market got started; its now tied
to employers for a number of other reasons, including cultural expectations,
and the fact that employers as large purchasers can get better prices per
covered individuals than individual purchasers, meaning that even without a
tax advantage, an employer can provide greater value to employees by providing
them a group plan than providing them money with which they can then by an
individual plan.

~~~
nickff
So... if it wouldn't do any harm, why not give all Americans the same tax
benefits which are currently enjoyed by those with employer-sponsored health
benefits?

Would you not agree that treating all citizens equally, and giving them the
freedom to choose how and where they get their healthcare would be an
improvement on the current system?

~~~
georgemcbay
"why not give all Americans the same tax benefits which are currently enjoyed
by those with employer-sponsored health benefits?"

Because large companies have a hugely skewed amount of political power due to
campaign finance and lobbying and while I don't think they (large corps)
engineered the current system purposefully, I do believe they recognize that
it is beneficial for them to maintain it as it helps to keep the wage slaves
in line.

------
onan_barbarian
My strong suspicion is that if everyone worked 11 hours, we would wind up in
ferocious competition for:

(a) positional goods (I can have a house on the best street if I just work 22
hours, not 11) and (b) the scanty resources now provided in fields where
average productivity growth has been lower.

To use Baumol's example, the string quartet will still have to play 40 hours a
week while everyone else works 11, as string quartets have not become more
productive.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease)

~~~
jacquesm
String quartets have trouble enough finding an audience that is willing to pay
as it is.

This has been plaguing the arts for many years, but it is mostly because art
is not valued for the time that went into the production of that art.

~~~
nucleardog
The only time someone is paid for the time that went into something directly
is when that time _is_ the product. Essentially, when you're paying for
someone to apply specialized skills at your direction rather than the result
of an application of those skills.

If we both write an app and I take twice as long I don't get to charge twice
as much. The only effect adding additional time has on the value is when it
creates a better product (maybe the quartet is able to play more demanding
pieces and becomes more well-known and prestigious).

Even in the arts when you're selling the application of your skills rather
than the end result you charge for time spent. I knew an accompanist. She
charged for all her practice and rehearsal time.

------
zxcvvcxz
A lot of people don't understand why we still work so hard, and a reason
wasn't suggested. Let's try breaking it down:

The author made an interesting point about choosing between the following:

\- work 11 hours for 1950-level productivity

\- work 23 hours for 1975-level productivity

\- work 29 hours for 1990-level productivity

But the following option isn't discussed:

\- work 40 hours for 2014 (or current) level productivity

The first 3 options representing increased productivity over the past means
that we can "cash out" at any time, i.e. pick a defined level of wellness, and
work at that pace. This means we can stop trying to push the boundary and
enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Now, viewed this way, is it any surprise that we still work 40+ hours? We
don't collectively agree that we should cash out. If we cash out, we won't be
curing diseases; going to Mars; making the next Snapchat. Don't get me wrong,
resources are definitely (in an idealized sense) misallocated; I don't think
so many people should be engaging in digital marketing and social media
business pursuits. But it is what it is, and we'll keep going.

Regarding working >40 hours/week, this is simply because as technology creates
scale of productivity, the middle class finds it harder and harder to keep up
with increasing costs of living and commodities. People think America got
something wrong after that golden period of the 50s - 70s. Yeah, after that we
decreased taxes on the wealthy (Mitt Romney paid 13% in 2011 or something),
but the capacity for people to do useful stuff has just gone down due to
technology and automation; unions disappeared; globalization happened.

tl;dr - productivity will continually increase, but we'll never get out of the
rat race.

~~~
torrance
Maybe you missed it, but he did suggest a reason why we do work so hard still:
income inequality. ie. the bulk of productivity gains have gone only to a
minority of the population.

~~~
jjoonathan
Or all of them. Or more than all of them.

------
enraged_camel
The problem is entirely cultural. As long as Americans continue to equate hard
work with strength of character, work hours will continue to go up.

------
kwhitefoot
I get a 403 Forbidden on that link.

