Thursday is the new Friday

While riding the elevator up to my office yesterday, I was stunned to see this headline on our news screen: “Utah mandates four-day work week”. Yes, it’s true, government workers are now required to work four days rather than five at most Utah state institutions (with the exception of things like prisons of course… I guess they didn’t want to make Fridays get-out-of-jail free day).

I’ve been advocating a four-day work week for years (okay, well, at least for the two years that I have been working five days a week). Obviously, from the worker’s perspective, I know very few people who would turn down a three-day weekend. But I’m also convinced that from a management perspective, a four-day week would not necessarily decrease productivity and might even increase it (in the short-term at least). Think about it. How much time do you waste during the average work day?

15 minutes scanning the New York Times headlines
5 minutes emailing article to your mom about how regular exercise prevents aging
5 minutes chit chatting with cubicle neighbor
20 minutes morning Starbucks run
5 minutes bathroom break
5 minutes complaining to coworker about lack of soap in bathroom dispensers
10 minutes personal phone call to insurance company
5 minutes watching hilarious youtube clip sent by friend
5 minutes composing hilarious email reply to said friend
10 minutes arguing with coworkers about where to order lunch
5 minutes deciding what to order on menupages

See? It’s only noon and you’ve already managed to waste an hour and a half! And this doesn’t even include gmail chat, AIM or facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that there is anything wrong with wasting 1/3 or more of your working hours. In fact, quite the opposite. But these types of time-wasting techniques are generally a response to the ennui of office work (analogous to the “slow-down” techniques factory workers used to oppose industrial production). After all, salaried employees get paid the same amount regardless of whether we’re actually working for eight hours straight or working for three and idling away the other five. (Things are different, of course, for freelancers and the self-employed, who possess a kind of self-discipline I do not aspire to.)

So here’s the question: if you were given the choice between wasting your time sitting at your desk or wasting it not sitting at your desk, which would you choose? I know the internet is fun and all, but I have to say I’d rather be at the beach. I think that most people would have no trouble accomplishing the same amount of work in four days rather than five, if given the proper motivation.

Now, it should be noted that Utah is not actually reducing the number of hours in a work week (they are just breaking it into four 10-hour days rather than five 8-hour days). I am not a fan of longer hours under any circumstances, and if you are literally working a 9-5 job, then working from 8 am to 6 pm would be unpleasant. However, in most workplaces, 8-6 is already the new 9-5! In my office normal hours are 8:30 – 6:00 with no lunch. Nonprofits might be a little more relaxed, but it’s not unusual to work until 7 pm and/or come in on weekends.

Whatever happened to the 40-hour work week? Answer: we think we’re too good for it.

For most upwardly mobile young people in New York, the 40-hour work week applies to the blue collar workforce, not to us. We turn up our noses at anything that reeks of manual labor, including lunch breaks and overtime. Instead, we slave away at jobs that give us the dignity of using our brains rather than our hands (although anyone who thinks working construction doesn’t involve a brain hasn’t framed any houses lately) and compensate us with fancy resumes and a sense of superiority.

This is not a call to go back to the factories – for one thing, they’re hard to come by in this day and age. But we’re not gaining anything by disassociating ourselves from the folks who got us the 40-hour work week in the first place. We may not be wearing overalls and carrying a lunch pail, but as long as we’re selling our labor for cashmoney, we’ve got the same chips on the table.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that our blue collar brethren have fought successfully for shorter hours and higher wages, those of us in finance, technology, nonprofits, the arts, and the nebulous “information” sector are working more and more, for less payoff.

According to this study, when compared with workers in 1965, the least educated and least skilled workers today work far fewer hours, but the most educated and most skilled are working the same amount or more (source). When you take into account that productivity has more than tripled, that means that workers today should theoretically be able to earn the same standard of living in one-third of the time.

So why are we working as hard or harder than our 1965 counterparts? Well, for one thing, we have gotten it into our brains that more work = more money. To some extent, this is true. The folks who are working fewer hours are also making less money overall. But by the same token, when you divide your average i-banker’s salary by number of hours worked, it may not be quite so impressive. Time is money, after all, and we seem to have to choose one or the other.

Some people have responded to this dilemma by eschewing materialism in favor of “voluntary simplicity,” defined as a “non-consumerist life-style based upon being and becoming, not having” (source). Now, I’m glad there are people out there who enjoy harvesting corn in their backyard and milling their own grain, more power to them. But I do not enjoy organic farming, and I have a number of materialistic vices that I rather enjoy, thankyouverymuch! (Interestingly, many in the self-professed “simple living” crowd seem to have no problem with shopping either, if the proliferation of stores specializing in organic cotton and hemp sandals is any indication).

What I want to know is how can we maximize the amount of money we make while simultaneously minimizing the number of hours we work? This is why I think the four-day work week is genius. Sure, it’s still a fringe idea, but I think this is an opportune time to push for it. After all, with the economy tanking and costs rising, companies are looking for ways to cut corners. Sometimes this means encouraging people to work from home, which can be a good alternative and possibly a step toward the four-day work week. When you subtract the time it takes to get ready for work and commute, you probably just bought yourself an hour and a half. Plus, who doesn’t like to work in their PJ’s? A word of caution, though – keep in mind that when you work from home, your employer is just outsourcing more of its costs to you. If you are going to be subsidizing your employer’s rent and utilities, you may want to consider what form of compensation you’d like in return.

Moving from the shop floor to the office cubicle has signified a variety of changes, but in most places it does mean more autonomy for employees. Your boss doesn’t make you punch a timecard because s/he trusts you to manage your own time. Internalizing the timekeeper role can be severely damaging, but it doesn’t have to be. It seems silly, but something as simple as leaving your desk every day for an hour can truly be an act of workplace resistance. Or, if you’re working through lunch anyway, figure you might as well work a half day every Friday. And if you can, do both.

Happy three-day weekend!