8 hours a day, five days a week of your life...

[tastebud]

like i just said... to work part-time.

i actually quite like my job/colleagues but just want to be here less. as i say, this is frowned upon in our current society.

 

[Sunspots]

Everyone tends to live up to their means don't they.

Unfortunately, from what I can see, there's a hell of a lot of people living waaaay beyond their means nowadays.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/business/borrowing_debt/default.stm

 

[zenie]

Sorry guys but be realistic

i can't help but think that we get it drummed into us really early on - work! work! work! i mean - given that we start the 9-5 thing when we're about four years old!
taking career breaks, taking time off to do other things, even taking sick days ffs, is frowned upon.
people might say that they enjoy working for eleven hours a day, but i can't help but think they simply can't think of other stuff to do with their time- due to conditioning/societal norms, in regards work.

Yeh cos we live in a capitalist world. It's all very idealistic to say we shouldn't have it drummed into us but what about financial security? What are you gonna do without any money to buy the things you want or need at the end of the month?

Maybe my background says to me that when I have kids or 'make a home' with someone, I want to be able to give my children more choices than I was given, because we didn't have any money. I'll have to do this by working and getting up the career ladder of course now while I'm still young-ish so when I take maternity leave or whatever I am not stacking shelves in term-time @ tesco for 6 quid an hour

I loved being off work for 3 months last year, and I'd love to be able to take a few months off and go away or just spend my time doing something else and work part-time and I think it's patronising to say people can't think of other stuff to do with their time.

Though I guess there will always be a few people who want to work for the sake of working, it is definitely a culturally induced thing at the moment. And it's rubbish.

Whose culture?

It's all very well to us to be 'debating' part-time work and career breaks and the like, but go to a third world country and see what life is like for them, and what choices they have.

We're very priveleged in being able to choose any of this stuff.

 

[tastebud]

anyway, the basic point is, that i'm sure our world* would still function as it does if people that wanted to work less could.

look at how much of the working day is wasted, for example.

*the west

 

[Badgers]

Monday morning and Friday afternoon are 'admin time' for me anyway.

 

[zenie]

anyway, the basic point is, that i'm sure the world would still function as it does if people that wanted to work less could.

look at how much of the working day is wasted, for example.

Even in the third and developing world?

I can completley understand your reasoning as to *why* you want to work part-time and I'm sure if you looked really hard you could find a job paying part-time couldn't you?

I'm just not convinced that a part-time culture or society would work.

 

[Brainaddict]

Whose culture?

It's all very well to us to be 'debating' part-time work and career breaks and the like, but go to a third world country and see what life is like for them, and what choices they have.

Western culture specifically was what I meant. I don't see how other countries' problems with not being able to produce enough stuff should be an argument for us continuing to produce more than we need (which is exactly what the current work culture sustains)

 

[EastEnder]

anyway, the basic point is, that i'm sure our world* would still function as it does if people that wanted to work less could.

look at how much of the working day is wasted, for example.

*the west

In theory, quite possibly. In practice, I doubt it.

People waste time, we're very good at it. It's what I'm doing now.

If someone's at work for 8 hours a day they may only be engaged in productive work for 4 of those hours - a 50% work/faff ratio.

If the same person drops down to working 4 hours a day, their w/f ratio is unlikely to change - so they'd end up with only 2 hours of productive work a day.

 

[tastebud]

i think i disagree.
if we worked less, they'd be less desire to waste time.
i think we waste time because we're here, in the same seat, within the same four walls, for too long.

 

[Crispy]

Too right. If I left work after ulnch every day, I'd get all my work done in the morning knowing that I had the afternoon to play in. But I don't so I just waste time all day.

 

[tastebud]

Too right. If I left work after ulnch every day, I'd get all my work done in the morning knowing that I had the afternoon to play in. But I don't so I just waste time all day.

yep.

 

[zenie]

Western culture specifically was what I meant. I don't see how other countries' problems with not being able to produce enough stuff should be an argument for us continuing to produce more than we need (which is exactly what the current work culture sustains)

'Other country's problems'?? Brainaddict!!

So what's stopping you do it?

1. you cant find a part-time job that lets you earn the same as your full time one
2. your industry doesn't allow for part time work
3. your job actually needs someone their 35 hours a week

If you can do it then go for it...

 

[Brainaddict]

'Other country's problems'?? Brainaddict!!

Well okay, but it was just shorthand to make the point that what you were saying didn't seem to make much sense

 

[EastEnder]

i think i disagree.
if we worked less, they'd be less desire to waste time.
i think we waste time because we're here, in the same seat, within the same four walls, for too long.

Perhaps the problem lies more with your dissatisfaction with your own employment arrangements?

You're no doubt not alone, but equally I'd question your justification for assuming many others feel the same.

I get more done by working long hours and taking lots of mini-breaks along the way - such as this. It helps break up my train of thought, stops me developing tunnel vision when thinking through a problem.

Horses for courses, we're all different.

 

[dolly's gal]

i'm planning to resign on full pay soon. then i get the best of both worlds

 

[Gromit]

I have a mate who works 4 days a week in stead of the usual 5.
No reason. Not because of kids or anything like that, just because he wants to.

He says its the best decison he ever made.

Will make a huge difference to his final salary pension but he'd rather live life more now whilst he has the ability to enjoy it.

Doesn't the UK work more hours than anyone else in Europe with a 37 standard hour week compared to the continent's 30 hour week?

 

[onemonkey]

It does worry me whenever I hear anyone saying that they couldn't wait to get back into work after being off sick, etc. because they were so bored sitting around at home!

My job is one of the coolest and most entertaining you could have but I still enjoy skiving off whenever i get the chance

 

[Gromit]

It does worry me whenever I hear anyone saying that they couldn't wait to get back into work after being off sick, etc. because they were so bored sitting around at home!

Well of course its boring being off sick because you aren't well enough to enjoy it.

If I could stay at home on full pay and loads of other people were doing the same I'm sure we'd all be out and about meeting each other. Places that are normal only full at night would be buzzing with happy people.

 

[Crispy]

Hmmm. A 4 day week. I could get used to that. Monday or Friday off though?

 

[tastebud]

i think wednesday would be better, otherwise people would just waste the day with a hangover/comedown.

 

[onemonkey]

EastEnder - Stop posting on the internet and get back to work

 

[EastEnder]

Yes mum.

Haven't you got babies to torment???

 

[Crispy]

Maybe I could pretend I'm doing a course. hmmmmm

 

[weltweit]

Yes we work 8 hours a day 5 days a week.

But what is more important is that there are only 24 hours in a day, we spend about 8 of them sleeping, about 8 of them working which only leaves 8 hours more per day, part of which we spend getting to and from work, for what we want to do.

We simply spend too much time at work not to enjoy it and find it fun.

imo if you are able then you owe it to yourself to find work that you enjoy. In the week you spend more awake time working or getting to and from work than anything else.

Some people have given up looking and are working their lives away in jobs that they do not enjoy, such people are easy to spot, permanently grumpy, demotivated and sullen etc they can be a real pain for everyone else because their heart just is not in it.

Its your life, you do have options, if you want them.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Perhaps people like the security of the 9-5 'cos it provides them with some sense of meaning?

All very well having extra time off work, but what would you do that didn't end up costing loads leading to an inability to live off your means? I'm sure this will encourage the "read a book, visit a museum!" brigade, but in reality there are only so many museums in the world, and they'd be shut more anyway thanks to the 3 day working week.

The current system works for me, yep, I'd love more free time, but I don't need it. I doubt it would be good for me. Humans are designed to labour to provide life's necessities. Now this extends to luxuries as well, but the premise is the same.

I think there probably is an element of conditioning and a perhaps OTT disregard for 'laziness', but I don't think this is anything new. I doubt tribes people struggling to get by tolerated a member only doing half of his/her contemporaries work load.

 

[jbob]

All this is privileged bollocks. Most people work to live. I think some people on here have lost track of the fact they have a degree of 'choice'; most people in this country, like most places in the world to a greater or lesser degree, don't have any choice. There seems to be a lot of sneering, particularly with this 'brainwashing' bullshit.

Anyway, how the fuck anyone can complain when they get paid to seemingly spend all day, every day, for years, on here chatting to their mates, is beyond me.

 

[ChrisFilter]

All this is privileged bollocks. Most people work to live. I think some people on here have lost track of the fact they have a degree of 'choice'; most people in this country, like most places in the world to a greater or lesser degree, don't have any choice. There seems to be a lot of sneering, particularly with this 'brainwashing' bullshit.

Anyway, how the fuck anyone can complain when they get paid to seemingly spend all day, every day, for years, on here chatting to their mates, is beyond me.

I'd tend to agree with this if I'm honest.

 

[tastebud]

i'd like to know what you mean by "privileged" though? do you mean people here, or us as compared to third world countries or something?

and how does the desire for a shorter working day/a day off, make you "privileged"? i'm confused, it's almost like you're saying that people who want to work less hours are privileged.

 

[kyser_soze]

Tell ya what, we should thrw off the shackles of the 9-5 and go and live free and off the land.

So then we'd be tilling the soil from 5am til sundown (no lighting since we've thrown off industry), maybe some of us would be smithys, stone masons, maybe a few monks and nuns, maybe others would be poulterers...

Or go back even further and mebbe spend every day trying to scratch out an existance by hunting and gathering? Go without food for possibly long periods...

Humans work to survive, and we've always worked to survive. There may be a more spiritually uplifting side to being a hunter-gatherer (for about 10 minutes until the Ray Mears fantasies have run dry), but at the end of the day there's a trade off being security and freedom I guess.

 

[Brainaddict]

All this is privileged bollocks. Most people work to live. I think some people on here have lost track of the fact they have a degree of 'choice'; most people in this country, like most places in the world to a greater or lesser degree, don't have any choice.

You've completely missed the point. The point is that in a society with vast amounts of excess wealth (such as ours) there ought to be far more of a choice than there is regarding how much you work.

In poorer countries people have no choice because of necessity, in this country we have no (or little) choice because the whole system is geared towards pointless and neverending economic growth that produces huge amounts of shit we don't need. I wouldn't resent having to work lots out of necessity - I do resent having to work lots in order to play along with society's addiction to consuming.