Clojurians Log v2

What Is the best way to shrink the 40 hr work week down to 30 ? I'm tired of the grind and feel like American companies work too much and don't offer enough vacation. Anyone have success with this?

I was only able to do that while I was freelance and choosing my own hours. Some companies are open to you working a shorter week (for shorter pay) but it's often more complexity than they want in payroll/HR (are you considered/paid as a full-time employee or a part-time one? how does that affect your non-monetary compensation? what are the labor laws in play?)

I had a friend in England who always negotiated for a four-day week but was happy to do four ten-hour days if the company wouldn't go for a 32-hour week (4 x 8 hour days). His main thing was having three-day weekends.

I have few friends in the UK that negotiated 4 day weeks, with accepting lower salary though …

Sweet thanks , Yea I don't care about making more money, software devs get paid well as it is. Time is way more important to me than money. So sounds like either contracting or negotiating 4 day work weeks for less money

I've heard of a relatively bold negotiation tactic where you go and find a 20% pay rise offer, and negotiate with your current employer based on keeping your current pay

I think I'd be worried it'd put me on the shortlist of "next to be let go", depending on who the employer was

@michael.e.loughlin I think that's actually how my friend got into the 4-day week thing in the first place.

But, yeah, if you have most folks on a five day week and only one (or a few) are allowed a four day week, that's going to cause problems. The company has to be willing to make that arrangement available for everyone, somehow.

there are a number of active 4 day workweek campaigns ongoing, both in the US and in the UK

https://www.4dayweek.co.uk/

Oh cool! I didn't know it was a "movement". Definitely a good idea.

If I accrued PTO faster, I'd probably work that way all the time. As it is, during this pandemic, I've been taking every other Wednesday off (mostly) as a way to have a 4-day week with a nice break in the middle 🙂

Looks like I have some wiggle room for negotiation then. We have people on out team doing 4 x 10s and my boss has taken the last 5 Fridays off on a row. I'm just not a fan of 2 wks PTO to start out. I've always had more. I'm going to wait for my 6 months probationary period to end and then try to renegotiate. And even see if I can get a week or two unpaid vacation

I worked for years with Wednesdays off, never working more than 2 days in a row is pretty good

My own mantra is 4-4-4, 4 months in a year, 4 days each week, 4 hours each day. This is not how much I want to work, but I think this should be the maximum someone should be expected to give to our corporate overlords 🙂. It would allow people to switch more often while also keep working at the same place for a long time. Lots of people already do something very similar to this, but needs legislative help probably to become actually the norm.

I worked 4-day weeks for a few years (always Fridays off), but I had to be a contractor for that (no one didn't want to deal with HR and explain it). I have a friend who was working 4-day weeks as a contractor and another bank wanted to hire him, so he was offered the 4-day week as a permanent employee, but it's not common.

A long time ago I was offered a big raise and I tried to get a day off and keep the same pay, but it was rejected. In my experience, you can just ask while negotiating a contract.

Was also thinking about this lately. Currently working 5x8, had been considering 4x10 - fridays off, but then it occured to me - wouldn't the wednesdays be better than fridays? I mean, no work more than 2 days in a row sounds pretty good as @mpenet pointed out.

I had that choice, Friday vs Wednesday, an at least for me the mid week break was way better, I felt more rested/efficient at work too as a result. I stayed 5 years at that company. It was 4x8 not 4x10

I can't remember where I started with PTO at World Singles but we have a very flexible system that rolls holidays, PTO, and sick days all into one bucket that you can use however you like, whenever you like. I think I get 26 days total a year at this point but short of wanting to take three or more weeks off occasionally (e.g., we'd planned a multi-destination trip to NZ/Aus before the pandemic nixed it), I pretty much never need to worry about counting the days.

The only "permission" you need is to just check whether your team mates might need you around for a specific planned feature or something, just so there's enough coverage most of the time. It should be no surprise I've been here a decade at this point -- it's a great place to work.

Oh, and everyone works from home, all the time. We don't even have an office now.

Aren't you guys in the UK? Sounds great