4 ten hour days?

[Limper]

Looks like they are trying to change our hours at work to 4-10 hour days... I've not a clue as to what they are hoping to acccomplish by doing this though.

I know it will make a shambles of my life as I need sometime each day to do stuff and this would trash that... no gym, no time to collect myself... work, kids, sleep and thats it.

I don't want to give up my hour each day to do things... I had planned on working less OT next year so I could get back to the gym but if they shift the schedual then thats pretty much a no go as I'd have to work out three days in a row and it would fuck with my wife getting anything done herself.

Have I mentioned I don't like this job much?

[ROGAN GOSH]

I find the idea of 4-10s and having a 3 day weekend pretty appealing. But it would cause some issues with scheduling and drop off and pick-up of my children from school.
I still like the idea.

What ever happens, good luck!

[Dacke]

That's very strange. I would think that most people wouldn't be very productive in those last two hours. Then again, I suppose there's also a certain amount of "startup" time wasted each day, so maybe they think that will compensate?

[Limper]

That's very strange. I would think that most people wouldn't be very productive in those last two hours. Then again, I suppose there's also a certain amount of "startup" time wasted each day, so maybe they think that will compensate?

Our area needs 24/7 coverage all 365 of the year so this will mean all vacation and sick days result in 10 hours of OT for someone else.

They might be targetting shift overlap but there are easier routes to that IMO.

[Dawnstar]

I know that in some companies this makes sense because it might make scheduling easier. but it would suck.

[Ergeheilalt]

4/10 has been used in California universities during the summer quarter/semester for a few years now. It saves significant electricity costs. You can enter your weekend "set-back" mode an extra day and save some serious change.

Have you broached the subject of possibly being allowed to keep your 8 hour days and work 1 day from home? Is that feasible with your position?

[Name Lips]

It also saves you 2 commutes a week, and associated gas and milage on your car.

You work in IT so somebody always has to be there, right? So they don't get the cut costs from closing down the building an extra day of the week.

There's another alternate schedule where you stay a little later each day and get every other friday off. It's popular at Sandia - it made it difficult to subcontract for them because we worked every friday and they didn't.

[Limper]

It also saves you 2 commutes a week, and associated gas and milage on your car.

Good point the 99 civic might last another year.

You work in IT so somebody always has to be there, right? So they don't get the cut costs from closing down the building an extra day of the week.

That is correct no savings at all as we are 24/7/365.

There's another alternate schedule where you stay a little later each day and get every other friday off. It's popular at Sandia - it made it difficult to subcontract for them because we worked every friday and they didn't.

With having to pick the kid(s) up from care and otehr things I'd rather just work 5-8's like everyone else...

You know that might be the key to beating this if they do it... I'll talk about it to the in house people about how nice it is to have the extra days and all that. It will get mentioned to HR and odds are they will end it because it isn;t fair to the other employee's.:)

Talking to you guys always helps.

[Varaj]

We've been pushing for 4 10 hour days at our office but can't get management to sign off on it. All the IT folks want it.

[Harry]

Whenever I've heard news reports about 4/10 work weeks, it's always been mentioned as part of an energy savings initiative, both in electrical costs and commuter costs/environmental savings. The stories first started cropping up when gas hit $4.

[Dr_Avalanche]

People do drive significantly less days they don't work so in a macro perspective, it's probably a good thing. We measure weekend traffic as around half of that of regular work days (60% might be closer to the mark).

Personally I don't think I would like such a schedule permanently, but over limited periods of time I'd gladly do it. 10 hour days are a drag, but three day weekends are pretty nice, too. Though since I work rather irregular shifts anyway (two 8h shifts today for example, one regular 8AM-4PM, one night shift, 10PM-6AM), I frequently get those three day weekends anyway.

[Droid101]

I'd love to work 4/10. I loves me some three day weekends.

[Janos]

In California you have to have a vote of record to move a group to an alternative work week schedule. I don't know about local law, but it's worth looking into. It's also worth confirming that your state law allows overtime calculation based off that schedule, not all states support the Federal interpretation.

You might also want to look at doing a 9/80 as a compromise between the two options. I did that for years, and loved it. Having a three day weekend every other weekend was very helpful, and made things like doctors appointments a breeze.

I would love to go back to an alternative work week schedule myself.

[Atropine Mama]

I worked a similar setup from March 1997 to Sept 1999, called 9/80. It was 80 hours spread over 9 days with the tenth day, every other Friday, off. Workday started at 7:30 and ended at 5:30. Personally, since I was a single mom and had to scramble from daycare to work to daycare with those hours, it sucked. What made it even worse was the lovely tendency of my oh-so-thoughtful boss to require me to come in on that every other Friday, since the daycare wasn't closed. Salaried people don't get overtime pay.

Over those 2 and a half years I remember counting exactly seven Fridays that I actually didn't work.

I wouldn't agree to any variance in work schedule without the comp time written in stone.

[Limper]

In California you have to have a vote of record to move a group to an alternative work week schedule. I don't know about local law, but it's worth looking into. It's also worth confirming that your state law allows overtime calculation based off that schedule, not all states support the Federal interpretation.

I'm hoping for no change at all as it would be a pain in the ass for my life if they make the change.

Near as I've found so far Missouri has no laws protecting employee's at all.

You might also want to look at doing a 9/80 as a compromise between the two options. I did that for years, and loved it. Having a three day weekend every other weekend was very helpful, and made things like doctors appointments a breeze.

I would love to go back to an alternative work week schedule myself.

You can have mine if i get it.:)

[Janos]

I'm hoping for no change at all as it would be a pain in the ass for my life if they make the change.

Near as I've found so far Missouri has no laws protecting employee's at all.

http://www.sos.mo.gov/adrules/csr/current/8csr/8csr.asp#8-60
http://www.dolir.mo.gov/HR/

I didn't find much on a google of either one of those for AWS laws. I'll play around a bit more later.

[Morbidity]

As I work 5/10 and sometimes 6/10 and on rare and unpleasant occassions 7/12, you and your 3 day weekends can all bugger off! ;)

[Northcott]

If it ends up going through and you want to look at alternate workout patterns to keep up with your training, drop me a line. There's ways to make that work for you. It's not ideal, but we can do something productive.

[Andreas]

Just working 3/8 so i get a kick out of all your comments :)

[Mr SmokeTooMuch]

I'd love to work 4/10. I loves me some three day weekends.

I don't, I rather keep my 4/8. I do love the long weekends though.

Lazy It's

[shiningbrow]

I liked that schedule when I was working a set number of hours. I imagine that having children would complicate things considerably. Now, I just work until it's done, regardless of the hours involved.

[Schizm]

4x10 is a pretty common schedule type around my call center. I don't go in for it if I can possibly help it (the whole single parent thing makes schedules a bitch for me), but there are a lot of people who swear by it.

though, more common around our office it's 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off...

[Janos]

As I work 5/10 and sometimes 6/10 and on rare and unpleasant occassions 7/12, you and your 3 day weekends can all bugger off! ;)

I'm at 5/12s plus an hour and a half commute myself right now. I'll take his 4/10s myself.

[Northcott]

If we're bragging about being workaholics, I'll mention that I once pulled a 100+ hour workday. That's right, I did a full week awake, from Monday morning until I went to bed on Friday night.

And I get paid shit compared to the lot of you.

You need to be fucking insane to be an artist or an illustrator.

[Freedom Canadian]

I don't, I rather keep my 4/8. I do love the long weekends though.

Lazy It's

Ín a few years, I'll be doing this also. Right now, I need every dollar to help pay the new place, though.

[Pigs in Space]

So limper, you're going to be vocal in your complaints about this right?

Squeaky wheel...

[Xavier Lang]

I would love to do 4 10 hour days instead of 5 8 hour days. For the type of project based stuff I do as a programmer it would be very feasible.

Bella makes a good point, that you would want to make sure you weren't regularly getting called in or being asked to work from home that 5th day.

I"m so used to working an odd weekend or weekday night due to code uploads, hardware issues or something along those lines it wouldn't change that much.

[AZRogue]

Having worked a few different schedules, especially lately, I have to say that I love 4 10 hour days, if they actually let you not work for those three days off.

Seems a single guy's dream schedule. I can't imagine working that many hours in a day and still trying to maintain a relationship with a family. For a single guy, though? Bring it.

[Limper]

So limper, you're going to be vocal in your complaints about this right?

Squeaky wheel...

I have a couple of plans that could make it go away on the stealth... bragging to the 9-5 5 a week desk monkey's is the best route cause they will want it as well and a corporate shift to it would be next to impossible so HR will not be happy about it.:)

If I were still single or if I didn't have kids this would be the bomb. If I made enough so that my wife was stay at home it would be awesome. With a wife who is primary bread winner and a couple of kids and I need to bend to her work schedual this is nothing but a headache.

[Droid101]

I don't, I rather keep my 4/8. I do love the long weekends though.

Lazy It's

You make Uncle Sam cry.

[Mr SmokeTooMuch]

You make Uncle Sam cry.

It's all in a days work .. oh wait ... it isn't (well, not until Tuesday).

[Pigs in Space]

Do they actually require you to be availalble for a set period, because you're in a support role?

I don't see why the majority of people in IT can't have flexible work arrangements. As long as you are getting your 40 hours pw work done, and you're there for the "core hours" (10-3pm at our work, wednesdays excluded), you'd think folks could pretty much do what they want.

[AZRogue]

Do they actually require you to be availalble for a set period, because you're in a support role?

I don't see why the majority of people in IT can't have flexible work arrangements. As long as you are getting your 40 hours pw work done, and you're there for the "core hours" (10-3pm at our work, wednesdays excluded), you'd think folks could pretty much do what they want.

From my experience, mainly because people who aren't in IT think it's unfair, and your superiors don't know what you do anyway so they want you around to make sure you're doing something. It might as well be magic to stillborn suits who hire help to program their smart phones.

So, jealousy from staff who are working in roles that require a more strict schedule, and distrust from management, who aren't really sure what the Hell you're doing anyway.

Here's an interesting anecdote of mine: I started receiving more recognition and promotions lately, during the last year and a half or so, after I realized that I was busting my ass and my bosses and the doctors didn't think I was doing anything. It's like water; as long as some comes out of the faucet, they don't care or think about the work it takes to get it there.

So, I started NOT fixing things as I found them and waited, instead, for people to realize there was a problem and let me know about it. I worked less, in a way, not trying to get so much done when it wouldn't inconvenience the doctors, and got more recognition. It's not just, or right, but it's reality. You just get more praise and recognition letting their cars break down than you get fixing the problem beforehand and just letting them know about it, where they're going "yeah right," never realizing that you saved their ass.

[Freedom Canadian]

Here's an interesting anecdote of mine: I started receiving more recognition and promotions lately, during the last year and a half or so, after I realized that I was busting my ass and my bosses and the doctors didn't think I was doing anything. It's like water; as long as some comes out of the faucet, they don't care or think about the work it takes to get it there.

So, I started NOT fixing things as I found them and waited, instead, for people to realize there was a problem and let me know about it. I worked less, in a way, not trying to get so much done when it wouldn't inconvenience the doctors, and got more recognition. It's not just, or right, but it's reality. You just get more praise and recognition letting their cars break down than you get fixing the problem beforehand and just letting them know about it, where they're going "yeah right," never realizing that you saved their ass.

:lol: That sounds familiar !

Back when I had a bad boss, I lived through something like that. He had no idea what I was doing and what made it good or bad work. Basically, I was his advisor in management matters, but he thought he knew everything (he was studying for his baby MBA at the time :lol:) so he would (I'm simplifying the situation here) basically tell me which advice to give him. :D

So, first year, I bust my balls, yearly evaluation: Meh, you should do more. :grey: Also, I just got a monthly report and you should spend less time online. I don't know what those numbers mean, but yours looks pretty high (And that was after he forced me to spend two full days online looking through picture archives for a specific pic, too.)

So year 2, I decide that if my work is not recognized, why do it ? So I slack off and do the strict minimum to get by. Also, never go online at all. Year 2 evaluation: Wow, big improvement !

:rolleyes:

So the boss leaves (promotion; that's what happens when you spend all your time positioning yourself for a promotion instead of doing the work).

New boss gets in. Goes "hey, you're the expert here, do your thang. I'm just here to make the occasional decision and liaise with other managers". I was like :boggle: Sweet !

Best boss I ever had.

[bondetamp]

You just get more praise and recognition letting their cars break down than you get fixing the problem beforehand and just letting them know about it, where they're going "yeah right," never realizing that you saved their ass.

Same reason it's easier to get funding for prisons than it is for schools.