[heroineworshipper]

Well, in the face of another surge in outsourcing & ever more demand for "face time", a lot more people R going to need a lot more gas. The 12 hour workday and not telecommuting seems the more likely route to sustainable energy. Workers would commute 4 days & get 3 days off.

[mekrob]

Well, in the face of another surge in outsourcing & ever more demand for "face time", a lot more people R going to need a lot more gas. The 12 hour workday and not telecommuting seems the more likely route to sustainable energy. Workers would commute 4 days & get 3 days off.

And then after Mexico starts importing oil, we'll make it 14 hours 3 days a week; and then Iran starts to import and it can be 24 hrs for 2 days a week and then Iraq, etc starts to import and ..., we can just live at work. Psshh, who needs a home? That's just more expenses like rent/mortgage, gas, car payments, etc. Besides, work is like your second home anyway.

I hear they're already doing this in countries like China and Bangladesh so we know that it's safe and enjoyable for the workers.

[Twilight]

Four-day weeks and three-day weeks are not unusual in times of economic distress or political turmoil. They don't work. It is a stop-gap state of emergency measure which lasts maybe a few weeks before the system can be pronounced broken down permanently.

[aflurry]

how about four and then three day a week 8 hour days?

That way we address energy consumption getting to and from work as well as the energy consumption of the work itself. We need to produce less, which means work less. We'd all be wise to pick up a time consuming, but not energy consuming hobby. Say, wittling or card tricks.

[NeoPeasant]

Take the company bus to work, work 3 12 hour days with the 2 nights in between spent in the factory quonset huts erected in the former parking lots. Then take the company bus back home. Half work Mon, Tues, Wed and others get Thurs, Fri, Sat.
Assuming your job is still considered necessary in the subsistance economy of the future.

[peripato]

Well, in the face of another surge in outsourcing & ever more demand for "face time", a lot more people R going to need a lot more gas. The 12 hour workday and not telecommuting seems the more likely route to sustainable energy. Workers would commute 4 days & get 3 days off.

I think you've got it wrong. We need shorter work hours, (as well as fewer work days), not longer ones in order to reduce productivity, deflate economic growth and reduce consumption. Of course a nice long recession will do the same, but it's not as elegant.

[PeakOiler]

Well, in the face of another surge in outsourcing & ever more demand for "face time", a lot more people R going to need a lot more gas. The 12 hour workday and not telecommuting seems the more likely route to sustainable energy. Workers would commute 4 days & get 3 days off.

My employer offers a 4 x 10 hr work shift as an option. I've definitely considered it. I could reduce my direct gasoline consumption by 20% right away. But 10-hr shifts + commuting time is rough.

I can't telecommute since I work in a lab, and it's impossible for me to analyze samples that are sent to the lab, not my house. Sorry, I don't have a scanning electron microscope at home. Nor other microscopes, liquid chromatographs (LCs), GCs, etc...

[patience]

12 hour days drop productivity by themselves. After 8 hours, workers get progressively more tired, and efficiency drops big time. After 2-3 days of 12 hours , people pace themselves and get no more done in 12 hours than they would in 8-9. This is from industrial engineering studies, and proven in my experience during a stint of 2 years during a UAW strike. We proved it with production numbers. 9 hours was our optimum.

4x 10 is fairly efficient, but workers soon want to go back to 8 x 5 because they are too tired at night, and have no free evenings. This has been borne out in employee turnover records.

What we face with PO, however, may make all this irrelevant.

[Ludi]

I think you've got it wrong. We need shorter work hours, (as well as fewer work days), not longer ones in order to reduce productivity, deflate economic growth and reduce consumption. Of course a nice long recession will do the same, but it's not as elegant.

I agree. We all need to take a load off, kick back, and watch the plants grow.


(when we're not busy "slaving in the fields")

[Kingcoal]

In the US, a 10-12 hour work day is not uncommon for a lot of salary professionals.

[Tanada]

12 hour days drop productivity by themselves. After 8 hours, workers get progressively more tired, and efficiency drops big time. After 2-3 days of 12 hours , people pace themselves and get no more done in 12 hours than they would in 8-9. This is from industrial engineering studies, and proven in my experience during a stint of 2 years during a UAW strike. We proved it with production numbers. 9 hours was our optimum.

4x 10 is fairly efficient, but workers soon want to go back to 8 x 5 because they are too tired at night, and have no free evenings. This has been borne out in employee turnover records.

What we face with PO, however, may make all this irrelevant.

What hourly workers here would be willing to give up 4 hours pay per week to go to a 4*9 schedual? I certainly would because a free day would let me get a hell of a lot more done in terms of working around my house.

[SchroedingersCat]

There is probably more energy to be saved by staggering start times for major employers. Billions of gallons of gasoline are wasted each year in traffic jams. When the Olympics were in Los Angeles they got the major employers to do this. Drive times were cut in half. The smog lifted. It was amazing.

Imagine if your average commute speed was 15 MPH instead of 8. Pretty significant. The low-hanging fruit should be picked first.

[zoidberg]

my 2 cents:
the 4X10 work week is a great way to do a job, that extra day off a week lets you have long weekends, or if you need extra money, grab some sweet OT action. A 10 hour day feels entirely normal to me, working 8 hours now feels truncated, you really get used to it.
If it saves gas thats great, but it sells itself on its own merits

[vision-master]

Why must we all work 40+ hours a week in the 1st place?

[patience]

I'm on the fringes of the herd, having deserted engineering in the failing auto industry here several years ago to work in machine shops. Those, too, were auto-dependent, so I started a farm repair/machine and welding shop in 2003.

My shop hours are posted on a sign, but nobody pays a helluva lot of attention to it. The crux of my business is providing services when needed. With hay down in the field and rain threatening, the farmer doesn't want to hear that it will be tomorrow at 8:00 AM before you start on his baler. So, I see alot of long days in crop season. They are waiting when I get to the shop, or, knocking on the door during breakfast, and I quit when it is too dark/cold/wet/ late for me to work. In winter, I work 8 or 9 hrs a day, in summer, it's 10 to 14 hrs., 6 days, and some on Sunday to catch up.

My guess is that as times get tougher due to Peak OIl and economics, people will work when there is work to do, or be weeded out with the rest of the broken Big-Corp business model.

[patience]

Vision-Master,
Because we aren't nomadic hunter-gatherers. I've read that they got by on just a few hours a day for subsistence.

[vision-master]

No, I'm serious. I'm sure most peeps could do the same amount of work in 5 or 6 hours a day instead of 8+. I mean, many peeps have down / wasted time at work every day. Example: How many posters here are at work right now.

[patience]

Vision-Master,
Yeah, I'm sure you're right. People don't work a full day, no matter what the length of it. I think it's a mental regrouping they do when it looks like goofing off. At least in mostly "mental" jobs. Physical jobs is another story.

[FiniteQuantity]

Their is a work week called 9 x 80 where you work 9 hour days Monday through Thursday and work 8 hours one Friday and get the next off. That cuts commuting 10%. Not as good as the 20% drop of 4 x 10, but you don't get as much productivity dropoff from 9 hour days versus 10 hour days.

I have thought that companies should start doing this for their employees who are commuting from remote suburbs over an hour away - install "barracks" - places where they can spend the night. Or make it acceptable to have a cot in your cubicle.

Having an Internet connection at your desk has got to have reduced the productivity of the modern office worker. While it would have been unthinkable to read a magazine or newspaper at your desk during the day, now we will browse a newspaper or other web site during working hours.

[vision-master]

Great! More time off to go to the mall!