Society's Acceptance of the 40-Hour Work Week

[BooG690]

DanArong posted this in the tilt thread:

The fact that people have it worse than me does not make what I experience right or any less tilting.

I wanna work 4 days per week, 10 til 3 with an hour lunch break for the equivalent of a full time wage.

Luco rebuttled with:

Move to Japan imo

On Being Late to Work in Japan | 遅出 | This Japanese Life. | 生命を外面九天ã� �§ã™

Deep Japan Report: Thoughts on the work ethic in Japan

Then complain about your piss-weak 9 to 5 job

I know, for one, that Koreans work a 60-hour work week which is just preposterous. Additionally, they have one of the highest suicide rates in the world along with the highest binge drinking rates in the world (Koreans get FUCKED up on weekends).

The income gap (at least in America) and taxes on the middle-class has made it difficult to accept a 40-hour work week for less money (compared to, say, the 1950s). Basically, I agree with DanArong here.

Your thoughts?

[bikes]

what americans call drinking the rest of the world calls lunch.

[d0zer]

lunch is my favourite meal of the day.

[supa]

American society accepts the 40hr work week because the 80hr work week with no OT sucked.

[wufwugy]

40 hours work week is substantially higher than is necessary. The problem, as usual, is a subsidization of the unbearably rich, who are running on colossally negative effective work weeks. One of the best ways to combat unemployment is to reduce the work week, but also means rich people can't be as rich since workers have stronger bargaining power. The more advanced economies have loads of holidays and shorter work weeks than other countries. They're also the most productive, highest living standards by far, and have all but eradicated things like homelessness

The normal work week for humans is actually pretty low. It is only in this crazy civilization where everybody has been brainwashed into being the tools for the royalty, do we need to labor so much yet get so little back

Only in this world can the people who actually make a product get paid minimally while people who developed an artificial ownership of the product reap as high of benefits as possible. Numbers just came out that 88% of the last few years of growth have gone to the richest while only 1% has gone to median wage increases. This is why the work week is so huge. If you're not one of the chosen ones, you're squeezed for all you're worth

[BooG690]

The more advanced economies have loads of holidays and shorter work weeks than other countries. They're also the most productive, highest living standards by far, and have all but eradicated things like homelessness

Have any references with this information? I'd be interested in reading a good summary of this and I'm too lazy to Google.

[wufwugy]

what americans call drinking the rest of the world calls lunch.

That is largely true, but the reason it's true is still due to oppression for profits.

As much of the world economy that can plays by this simple model: create a slave class that gets paid as little as possible for as much work as possible (China), sell those products to people who can buy them (US), but also reduce their compensation as much as possible for shareholder profits, then extend them credit to go into debt to buy those products.

This is the business model of globalization, and is pretty much the main reason for great inequalities and crushed economies. Social and economic advances have come mainly through technology and commodity trade, not any economic theories or labor crunches.

The entire globe should be working less and less over the years, but that would also mean that the established wealthy don't get to own jets and multiple houses, and don't get to oppress entire societies through huge imbalances in the producer/consumer dynamic

[wufwugy]

Have any references with this information? I'd be interested in reading a good summary of this and I'm too lazy to Google.

I don't, but I might be able to find some specifics if I look later

Over the years, I've heard from many different sources about how places like Germany, Finland, Norway, etc operate on these sorts of things. It's always quite a bit of vacation time, lots of maternity/paternity leave, shorter work weeks, and a response to recessions is to shorten the work weeks even more so as to not have to fire people

And all of this goes with universal health care, really strong safety net/welfare systems, free higher education, nearly to completely full employment, etc. In countries with less economic strength than the US, even

Most of what we hear about this sorta stuff is all lies dumped on us by the sociopaths or greedy who have risen to the top. The resources and technology already exists for life to be very good for everybody alive. That would just mean a restructuring of the world's system of wealth distribution, which is heresy to those it already favors


An anecdote, my brother lived in Garmisch, Germany about ten years ago, and I remember him telling me that they had a ton of 3 day weekends. It seemed to him that they tacked on lots of different drinking "holidays" to the weekends. Also, his two closest friends from there worked regular ol jobs, yet had enough time and money to travel to places like the US and Argentina for weeks to snowboard each year

[supa]

I've always heard France and Spain have the best work schedules in the world. Personally I like my 0hr work weeks but I'm starting to get fat and bored.

[Monty3038]

From my strategic finance class I'm enrolled in, France apparently has some pretty lenient work scheduling, 4 days a week for most people, and they take about a month off each year at one time (meaning 30 days in a row off) yet I don't know if I'd say their standard of living is better than the US.

It is an interesting topic, I'd rather work 4 10 hour days than 5 8s, but I also drive an hour each way to/from work. So an 8 hour day for me is immediately 10 hours. But working fewer days would not work with my college schedule... so I'm caught right now...

I do think that we are not productive the full 40 hours a week... at least not in my job. BUT... there are weeks where we are overly productive in 70+ hours, so it balances out to probably about an average of 40 or so productive hours a week for 50 weeks a year...

And I'm paid pretty well... but I'd prefer to be paid better and work slightly less... thus back in college for my Masters.

[StarGrinder]

4 - 10s or 3 -12s + fuckoff friday works for me

[wufwugy]

Some indexes (like the worthless GDP per capita) claim that US is higher in living standards than France, but the more accurate ones (like poverty index) say otherwise. In the US, if your have a high skill profession and no health problems, your living standards are better than pretty much the rest of the world, but everybody else in this country are not

The crazy thing is that countries that outperform US by a mile in median living standards and social mobility do not pay higher taxes than US. I don't know exactly, but what I've looked at suggests they even pay lower taxes than we do. The difference is that their wealthy pays and they don't waste all the money on wars and prisons.

We could all have free health care, free higher education, and a social security system if we simply didn't let the overlords get away with bombing people and not paying taxes back into the system and crushing unions while outsourcing and importing cheap labor

[wufwugy]

And none of this addresses the real issue that health and happiness of people within in a society are mostly based in their relative status to others in the society, not absolute status. Above a certain level of necessary sustenance, that is

Y'all probably really enjoy this TED presentation on the subject.

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies - YouTube

[wufwugy]

If you guys are thinking to skip over that TED video, don't. It's extremely good, one of its kind, not too long, and thoroughly demonstrates that social status inequality is a health and happiness problem in and of itself

[!Luck]

If you are single, don't have kids, or have to take care of your relatives you can work a hell of lot less.......Plus, most professionals may spend 40+ hours at work, but work 30? maybe 25/wk......

[Penneywize]

3 years later and 2/3rds the way through my MA I still can't understand, justify, or defend anything wufwugy says about economics..

[wufwugy]

3 years later and 2/3rds the way through my MA I still can't understand, justify, or defend anything wufwugy says about economics..

It's that way due to design.

Instead of typing up a huge post, look at it like this: economics is a science. In all other sciences, you don't find a contrast between competing theories like you do in economics. However, this contrast in economics is actually fake because the data bears the fruit. But the politics of the matter is that treating economics like a religion in many stages (even in academia) produces the kinds of results that are being looked for.

Economics accepting much of the data societies have birthed is more blasphemous than a spherical earth once was. That's why Scandinavia is "evil socialism" yet their real world results are brilliant, it's why the national debt is a problem yet there is zero evidence to support this whatsoever, and why income inequality has a strong correlation with the sickness of an economy yet the powers that be brainwash us otherwise

Only in economics could we have done trickle-down for decades, have everything crash, have the data show us exactly that trickle-down doesn't work, but then keep thinking that we need to do more trickle-down. Only in econ...

[Luco]

[Luco]

Of course I'd like more pay for less work, who wouldn't?

Of course I'd like to see the system rebuilt a-la V for Vendetta and for inequality to disappear.

But when it comes down to it, I'm just glad I don't work in Asia

[boost]

Of course I'd like more pay for less work, who wouldn't?

Of course I'd like to see the system rebuilt a-la V for Vendetta and for inequality to disappear.

But when it comes down to it, I'm just glad I don't work in Asia

Imagine if the American Colonists were simply content in the knowledge that they at least weren't cotton picking West Africans.

[BooG690]

Imagine if the American Colonists were simply content in the knowledge that they at least weren't cotton picking West Africans.

I was just going to reply with something of that nature. The "at least we don't work in Asia" (even though I actually do) seems to have been ingrained in us through the media and such.

[Luco]

So am I wrong for being content in my job (the hours, the people and the pay), or being grateful for the lifestyle that this country affords me?

Outside of the working environment, I'm also glad I have clean water and shelter and I don't have to share my toilet with 500 other people and yes, I got that gratitude from seeing poverty stories via the media.

Also Boost, could you elaborate as I don't understand your analogy

[BennyLaRue]

40 hours work week is substantially higher than is necessary.

At the macro level, sure, but you lose me here because we're talking about individual attitudes. "Necessary" is subjective. And variable. And probably highly misunderstood and overstated.

What is necessary is dependent upon where an individual chooses to live, what an individual chooses to consume and how they choose to define and value dignity.

I wanna work 4 days per week, 10 til 3 with an hour lunch break for the equivalent of a full time wage.

Dana, if that's what you truly want, you can. You're just obviously doing it wrong.

[BennyLaRue]

If you are single, don't have kids, or have to take care of your relatives you can work a hell of lot less.......Plus, most professionals may spend 40+ hours at work, but work 30? maybe 25/wk......

Some of the ppl I work with? Try 0, or possibly a negative contribution.

[!Luck]

Some of the ppl I work with? Try 0, or possibly a negative contribution.

Those are called mangers.........

[rong]

I recently.listened to an economist discussing the wider effects of wealth distribution on society. He looked all over the world comparing the top 20% and bottom 20%. Those countries with large gaps had far worse problems in education levels, crime, teen pregnancy, violence in general and even metal illness. He was so amazed by the clarity of the link that he looked further and starting looking at things on a slightly smaller scale by looking at different US states and found the exact same results. The better places included Scandinavia and japan, some of the worse included the US and UK. Can't find a link to the research or I'd poet it.

Don't know if you foreign folk can access it but BBC radio 4's the today program is fantastic every morning without fail. John Humphreys terrorizes politicians, CEOs etc with great effect and they cover interesting topical issues every day.

[wufwugy]

Sounds like you're talking about the link I put up

[rong]

Ah yeah, same dude. Interesting topic.

[boost]

So am I wrong for being content in my job (the hours, the people and the pay), or being grateful for the lifestyle that this country affords me?

Outside of the working environment, I'm also glad I have clean water and shelter and I don't have to share my toilet with 500 other people and yes, I got that gratitude from seeing poverty stories via the media.

Also Boost, could you elaborate as I don't understand your analogy

If your job's qualities intrinsically make you content, then this is obviously fine, and I am happy for you. If you are content, simply because you know there are people worse off than you, then no, I don't think it's alright. I also don't think it is truly possible to be content in this way, but instead you would only be pretending-- essentially lying to yourself.

As for my analogy, I'm not sure how it could be much more clear. But I'll try... how about, "being content is the enemy of forward progress."?

[surviva316]

@Lucco: As a perspective on life, yours is admirable and on some level, you're right that any other perspective on life from people of our status is any number of bad adjectives.

As a policy discussion, everything you said is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, political discussion is weighed down so heavily in rhetoric, so that very vague, relative terms like "fair" and "necessary" and "good/bad" get twisted into all sorts of bends so that a ton of contradictory yet somehow-true-on-some-level statements come out of it.

If it's possible for citizens of a country (complete hypothetical based on no statistics whatsoever because my point is about rhetoric and not policy) to work half as many hours (let's say 20) and for the society to otherwise operate the same, except for maybe even allowing citizens who decide to work twice as hard (40 hours/week) the social mobility to move up in the world and be rewarded for their hard work, then it seems like that should be preferred regardless of how many hours people work in India.

I'm not as wont to go into conspiracy theories as wuf, so I won't say that "those people" have succeeded some sort of campaign to make middle-class first-worlders feel bad about trying to improve their conditions through policy, but it does seem like that guilt does exist and distracts from the factual nature of some of these discussions.

But, again, if it were proven that people working less would in fact hurt society, all of this is irrelevant; that's beside my point.

[surviva316]

@ the rest of the discussion:

1) I think work hours should be far less static.

2)I think that employers should be vastly more cognizant of the fact that "hours worked" is not nearly as simple to define as they seem to think. As far as I can see from my small handful of friends who have salaried jobs, "working" means sitting at a desk in a set location. "Work" can just as well be entering figures into an Excel sheet as it can be looking at cat pictures. Also, from what I can tell, copy and pasting figures into an Excel sheet and emailing your boss to say "Okay" are both seen as exact equivalents of doing the parts of your job that are actually difficult. Actually, brainstorming how to present a proposal (or whatever it is business people do) while at home at their dinner table can actually not be recognized at all as work, while just reading the memo that says "there's a meeting at 1 today" can be recognized as work.

Not that I can imagine how any revisions to the current system could actually HELP workers, but I think that the whole system is kind of ridiculous. I just think that it's ridiculous that the same structure exists for a receptionist (where being available to answer phones and greet people who walk through the door and etc is actually your job so just sitting at your desk between 9-5 seems like the best way to fulfill your job description) as it does for writing for a magazine (when I was working for a magazine, if I just could've given people my cell phone number, then wait for them to call me back and then come into work for like the one workday it would take to turn those interviews into a story, good god would I have been at my desk getting in arguments on FTR a lot less) as it does for an engineer as it does for any other number of things.

I think if people got salary for doing work when there are projects (or whatever) for them to work on, sometimes working 65 hours in a week when something really needs to get done and other times working 25 hours in a week), and the first priority was to put people in a position where they can best fulfill these projects, instead of just having the static, "You work from 9-5, Monday-Friday, you must ALWAYS been here those days and you're not allowed to work on any other days or at any other hours of the day," then the whole system would make a lot more sense.

A lot of run-on sentences, but I just don't understand the system. I guess it's just a hold over from when everyone worked in factories?

[Penneywize]

It's that way due to design.

Instead of typing up a huge post, look at it like this: economics is a science. In all other sciences, you don't find a contrast between competing theories like you do in economics. However, this contrast in economics is actually fake because the data bears the fruit. But the politics of the matter is that treating economics like a religion in many stages (even in academia) produces the kinds of results that are being looked for.

Economics accepting much of the data societies have birthed is more blasphemous than a spherical earth once was. That's why Scandinavia is "evil socialism" yet their real world results are brilliant, it's why the national debt is a problem yet there is zero evidence to support this whatsoever, and why income inequality has a strong correlation with the sickness of an economy yet the powers that be brainwash us otherwise

Only in economics could we have done trickle-down for decades, have everything crash, have the data show us exactly that trickle-down doesn't work, but then keep thinking that we need to do more trickle-down. Only in econ...

I don't think you know what gets taught in Econ tbh. To give you an idea I'll just read off the topics from my graduate macroeconomics course.

General Equilibrium Theory
Elements of Dynamic Economies in Continuous Time
Elements of Dynamic Optimization
Elements of Stochastic Processes

I must've missed the chapter about taking trickle-down as gospel. I can honestly tell you I've never been taught at any point anything to do with this supposed phenomenon; only independent study has taught me anything about it at all. And, it might surprise you, the vast majority of what I've heard about it comes from non-academic sources - it really is, like most things political, not an objective topic at all.

As for your bit about the data bearing fruit etc etc. I'd like to know where you're getting all this from. If all you're doing is:

- Look at grafs
- Draw conclusions

Then you're doing it wrong. Despite what correlations you may find between, say, socialist-leaning states and whatever outcomes you believe to be favourable (whatever it is you were talking about before), this is almost never the entire story. Unless you're getting this from really legit apolitical academic sources I really can't give it any weight. The reason for this is simple, unless you can show causality, then your argument is meaningless. Learn to econometrics.

That is all.

[Penneywize]

Also I just realized you turned my indifference of your arguments into a criticism of the study of economics as a whole. Well played sir

[rong]

I don't think econometrics is a verb. Maybe econometricise?

[wufwugy]

I don't think you know what gets taught in Econ tbh. To give you an idea I'll just read off the topics from my graduate macroeconomics course.

General Equilibrium Theory
Elements of Dynamic Economies in Continuous Time
Elements of Dynamic Optimization
Elements of Stochastic Processes

I must've missed the chapter about taking trickle-down as gospel. I can honestly tell you I've never been taught at any point anything to do with this supposed phenomenon; only independent study has taught me anything about it at all. And, it might surprise you, the vast majority of what I've heard about it comes from non-academic sources - it really is, like most things political, not an objective topic at all.

As for your bit about the data bearing fruit etc etc. I'd like to know where you're getting all this from. If all you're doing is:

- Look at grafs
- Draw conclusions

Then you're doing it wrong. Despite what correlations you may find between, say, socialist-leaning states and whatever outcomes you believe to be favourable (whatever it is you were talking about before), this is almost never the entire story. Unless you're getting this from really legit apolitical academic sources I really can't give it any weight. The reason for this is simple, unless you can show causality, then your argument is meaningless. Learn to econometrics.

That is all.

I'm referring to the highly politicized issues

[JKDS]

Hi, Im Penneywize!

[Monty3038]

I don't think econometrics is a verb. Maybe econometricise?

I think wuf's signature is econometricising.

It gets a raise from me anyway.

[Monty3038]

@ the rest of the discussion:

1) I think work hours should be far less static.

Agree for some jobs. For others though, the point is to be there, in case... for example, firefighters, police, computer support... you normally need them when you need them... so they have to be around.

[Penneywize]

I got a one-liner reply from wuf when I wrote a few paragraphs. I'll take that and call it a win any day!

[rong]

I don't know why I watch lectures like that, they just leave feeling angry, frustrated and impotent.

[boost]

surviva hit the nail on the head. Sure, like Monty (as well as surviva himself) pointed out, there are a lot of jobs where being there is a necessity, but even so a lot of these jobs could stand to be more flexible. For example, teachers obviously have to be in class to teach the students... but (using Chicago Public Schools as an example) they are required to clock in and clock out at very strict times. This is absolutely absurd. It ends up rewarding people who are willing to play the system instead of people who are actually good at their jobs. Furthermore, every teacher takes their work home with them, yet they are not compensated for these hours that go beyond the 40 hour work week. How is this fair? And if you are not one of the people abusing the system, how inspired are you going to be to do work hard and do a good job?

Essentially we have built a system which encourages the reproduction of the "juke the system" mentality, instead of the spread of the "natural police" mentality (go watch the wire if you aren't familiar with these phrases.) What we seem to end up with in most cases is lower productivity as well as lower collective happiness. Not only does this system seem to show itself to be counterproductive, but it has the added negative of making everyone fucking miserable.

[Jack Sawyer]

NVM 40, fuck 20 hour workweeks!

[!Luck]

@boost,

All systems can be gamed. Do you really think the US is that bad? I'm obv a sociopath, but i never understood why people would allow themselves and their family to suffer to change a system the will be abused by someone eventually anyways. Why not abuse the system yourself and make yourself and your family better off?

[rong]

luck, I think you just described the American dream.

[eugmac]

This was meant for the randomness thread. ahahaha.

[drmcboy]

Some of the ppl I work with? Try 0, or possibly a negative contribution.

didn't read whole thread, but this is a huge problem, most of the people in corporate america (and I assume elsewhere) ime are incredibly stupid and just can't actually do anything useful. I am not sure if most people are just useless, or if it is ingrained from the culture. Most of the good people are handcuffed by morons or policies made by morons or spend most of their time managing stupid people or cleaning up stuff the stupid people 'worked' on.

In general the best way to get something done was to put less people on it.

At my old job after 9/11 we laid off 8 people out of a 16 person team, was as big as 20 around 2000. I still remember going out to lunch with the other 7 and all of us saying "how will we get anything done?". Answer? We got more done than ever and we did it much better. One good IT guy was given low level tasks that 3 people used to do, and he automated most of them in about a week. People who had been made 'team leads' which amounted to mostly baby sitting the morons got back to work and started contributing again. Everyone was less bitter - it's hard to care when you watch someone get paid more than you while they do 5% of what you do - so we put more effort in. etc etc. Similiar stuff happened on other teams that worked with us which again improved our process.

All of this happened while we knew we couldn't get raises or promotions, although to be fair we were very motivated by the fact that there were no job anywhere in the industry and the axe was looming.

Sadly, it could not last. Eventually once head counts started opening, they were filled with the remaining rejects from other departments. I vividly remember getting a new team member and sitting in my bosses' office 3 days later while she lamented how useless he was. He had been passed around from dept to dept for years, I have no idea who he was sleeping with. This was in a company that was nearly bankrupty for a 3 year stretch.

By then time I left in 2006 we had bloated back to two depts of 10 each with 3-4 useless people in each.

No one wants to fire idiots, for these reasons:

1) the stupidity is across all levels, so you have to 'save' people to lay off. If we had fired 5 of those idiots in 2000, we'd have probably ended up having to can 2-3 good people when the big cuts came in 2001. Arguments like 'but our people are good' just don't cut it.

2) your status as a leader is largely measured by how many people report to you.

3) hiring someone is a huge process that costs money and takes a long time. Not only is all that 'wasted' if you fire the person, but then everyone else has to do the job they were supposed to be doing. this then proves that you didn't really need the headcount to begin with. It is much better to have someone else do two jobs and carry the moron. In almost every case where we added a person to my team, our team & company would have been MUCH better off giving someone a 25% raise to do the extra work and not hiring someone. This never happened, or was even discussed afaik.

4) you might get sued.

so the idiots all stay until the next round of layoffs come. Any departments that are staffed appropriately are punished, and the big winners are groups that have a bunch of useless people sitting around.

I don't know how you fix it but until it happens people will still be sitting at desks all march working on their brackets and fantasy baseball drafts. It's the only real way to 'beat' the system. For me, stealing as much time as I could was the only thing I could do to maintain some semblance of self respect.




TL/DR:

most people are dumb and ill suited for their profession

fire them when you figure this out

most jobs would then pay so much you could work for 5-10 years and then retire young at 30-50 hours per week

or you could just work 10-20 hours a week with tons of vacations until you turn 60 or w/e.

[Luco]

BBC News - Are Greeks the hardest workers in Europe?

[BennyLaRue]

BBC News - Are Greeks the hardest workers in Europe?

Only if the job is anal.

[wufwugy]

I don't know why I watch lectures like that, they just leave feeling angry, frustrated and impotent.

Try this. It'll make you feel the opposite of those things

Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work | Video on TED.com

[Monty3038]

Furthermore, every teacher takes their work home with them, yet they are not compensated for these hours that go beyond the 40 hour work week. How is this fair? And if you are not one of the people abusing the system, how inspired are you going to be to do work hard and do a good job?.

This ends when they stop doing it. If they are that strict about the time clock, you better believe I'm only working when on it. Sure, it isn't productive for the children, which would be why you go into teaching, but if I'm not getting paid for it and they want to be that big of an ass about it, I'm not working beyond clocked in hours.

[Monty3038]

Try this. It'll make you feel the opposite of those things

Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work | Video on TED.com

Thanks for this, actually found it pretty interesting.

[boost]

*sigh* Monty, you can't actually think that's the solution. That line of thinking is tantamount to "let's just drop nukes on all those sand-n*****s"

[wufwugy]

FWIW, Finnish and Norwegian schools and students perform waaaaay better than US, and their system is 1) free, 2) teachers are paid very well and highly respected, 3) and the structure revolves around socialness and construction, not competitiveness.

[Monty3038]

*sigh* Monty, you can't actually think that's the solution. That line of thinking is tantamount to "let's just drop nukes on all those sand-n*****s"

Hmm... well... nice racist response.

Anyway... no, it isn't the total solution. BUT... isn't it the solution that Unions represent?

I'll go back and look, but really, why do we have to make every issue so stinking complicated, just to keep up with wuf (who does make me think, but really, are you a friggin economist or what wuf?)

Alright, let's examine this in a little more detail, at least my post. So, we were talking teachers, who work say 50 hours a week during school sessions. In Ohio, where I live, and I can only base this on here, our teachers are off for approximately 12 weeks each summer (maybe 11). Anyway, so they are paid a starting salary in my school district of approximately 30k to start.

Figuring on the salary method, they work (let's be generous) 42 weeks a year (not nearly, but ok). At 40 hours per week, that amounts to 1680 hours per year. Now, divide 30k by 1680 gives you 17.85 an hour.

So, not paid very highly, but why do they do it? Well, first off it takes a lot of heart and balls to be a good teacher... but then they expect you to coach a basketball team, or run after hours programs, or something else. They expect you to grade papers on your own time, etc. etc. etc. So say all in all you work 60 hours per week. Now you are working 2520 hours a year for 11.90 an hour. Is that worth it? Are YOU willing to work for that?

No you say? No the average teacher says? So what is stopping them from unionizing (oh wait, they already are, and the dues cut into their salary as well) and walking out to get paid for those extra hours?

What would happen if the teachers went to start teaching and working 8-9 hour days instead of the 10-12 now? Sports might suffer, no after school programs, teachers would have to be allotted grading time in their class schedule... So say they get two periods a day and their lunch to grade in?

Would they be able to grade effectively then? Well, probably not, but it might be better. Would they be happier and do a better job? Sure.

Or, on the flip side... should they get paid better for the hours they work outside the classroom?

And again, why isn't it that simple that they stop working beyond the 40 hour work week? Most salary people I work with that discuss this type of scenario (granted, not many) agree that the company is paying you for 40 hours, normal weeks should consist of 40 hours. So why are teachers any different?

Sure, I spout a generality, but aren't we all? Isn't every situation different and we can argue them till blue in the face? Really what solution is there to make it all better, that can actually be implemented?

I'm sure wuf, boost and others will have great examples that show how near sighted I am on these things, and I'm not the most learned, but give me something that doesn't bore me to tears as an explanation, something that might actually work to resolve it, and maybe it will be something I can get behind.

For now though, since I'm not happy in my salary job, I'm doing everything I can to limit myself back to 40 hour weeks. Gone are the normal 60 hour weeks I was putting in because I wanted to help out the company, gone is the extra effort above and beyond my job... screw me over and I'm sorry, you get a disgruntled employee.

Ok... have at it... I'm sure my argument has lots of holes... after 3.5 hours working on a strategic finance paper for school, my brain is fried.

[Monty3038]

FWIW, Finnish and Norwegian schools and students perform waaaaay better than US, and their system is 1) free, 2) teachers are paid very well and highly respected, 3) and the structure revolves around socialness and construction, not competitiveness.

Wuf, I hear an awful lot from you about these countries, but in reality, when do you expect any of this to come to fruition in the US. There are a lot of differences between cultures and I just don't see it happening anytime in my generation here in the states... regardless of how effective it is.

[wufwugy]

Well, some has been coming to fruition under Obama. Broadening and cheapening health care, reducing tax burden on the middle class, increasing funding on education, stuff like that.

But no, not in our lifetimes will the US imitate some place like Norway fully. We could, technically, but the culture to do so isn't there. Scandinavia has particular advantage for progress due to being small, isolated yet modern, homogenous, and several other reasons

That's why I wish the US would break up into like six/seven different regional nations. Much more would get done due to not subsidizing the federal government from state activity and culture clashes between North/West vs South/Midwest


And no, I'm not econ. Sociological issues are just my favorite hobby for some reason

[boost]

your solution is retarded, because you are putting the blame on the people who are being screwed.

Also, teaching, despite all the drawbacks mentioned, is a pretty decent job for someone who doesn't give a shit. And because of how teachers are evaluated, and how hard it is to fire a teacher, you end up with a minority of really good teachers who want to make a change, and a ton of complacent and content shitty teachers who don't want to rock the boat. The system is the problem, not the people working at the bottom who actually want to make things better.

[Monty3038]

your solution is retarded, because you are putting the blame on the people who are being screwed.

Also, teaching, despite all the drawbacks mentioned, is a pretty decent job for someone who doesn't give a shit. And because of how teachers are evaluated, and how hard it is to fire a teacher, you end up with a minority of really good teachers who want to make a change, and a ton of complacent and content shitty teachers who don't want to rock the boat. The system is the problem, not the people working at the bottom who actually want to make things better.

And you are putting the blame on the person taking advantage of the person willing to be taken advantage of.

So how is mine more retarded?

Isn't revolution about people standing up for what they believe in/changing the system? If everyone is complacent, there is no problem with the system.

[Luco]

The last two posts itt have got 'know your enemy' by RatM stuck in my head. Nice job guys.

[boost]

I can't tell if I'm being leveled at this point.

lol@those cotton picking slaves, look at them being taken advantage of, look how docile and complacent they are. Clearly there's nothing wrong with this system!

lol@those altar boys, look at them getting molested, it took them decades to finally speak up. Clearly there was nothing wrong with that system until recently!

lol@that abused woman, look at her black eyes, he already told her twice, why doesn't she get it yet? Clearly there's nothing wrong with spousal abuse, since so many abused spouses stay with their abuser!

But really, do I even need to be making this argument? It should be self-evident why the blame falls on the abuser, not the abused. And it should be clear that revolution is not a good thing, but is simply the best course of action when all other options are exhausted.

[!Luck]

The world will always have victims, we as a society just have to be comfortable with how shitty we treat those victims.

[wufwugy]

The world will always have victims, we as a society just have to be comfortable with how shitty we treat those victims.

Will it always have victims? Probably. Must it always have victims? Absolutely not.

The capacity already exists for humans to impose no victimization on all mammals, but it happens because to be human means to be a chimp with more brain cells

[rong]

The problem is the majority of people who a drastic change in society would benefit lack the time, intelligence money, and effort it would take to make it happen.

Also societies are to big and segregated. Most people don't even know their neighbours and it would take a large combined effort to make a difference. Political parties and the media keep us all bogged down with less important problems which focus our attention in the wrong places. Ideological changes will never happen as too much is required of the masses than can reasonably be expected to actually take place.

So as an individual you can either get on with playing the game and make choices that optimize your short term life or spend your whole life trying to explain to disinterested folk why the game is fucking them and end up with nothing yourself.

[boost]

So as an individual you can either get on with playing the game and make choices that optimize your short term life or spend your whole life trying to explain to disinterested folk why the game is fucking them and end up with nothing yourself.

This is a very cynical view, yet I find myself feeling this way more and more :-\

[rong]

It's depressing if you think about it. But you can justify it with the intent to help others once you and yours have long term security. But the problem there is the more you have the more you want and the more you need, as proven by the posts in this thread (i think) from bankers on 300k+.

[rong]

I blame Edward burnayes (spelling?) For his work 60yrs ago when he turned us into consumers with the first ever pr company. Watch an awesome dovcumentary on you tube called the century of the self if you're interested in it.

[!Luck]

Will it always have victims? Probably. Must it always have victims? Absolutely not.

The capacity already exists for humans to impose no victimization on all mammals, but it happens because to be human means to be a chimp with more brain cells

I think this is where you and I fundamentally differ. Humans will remain the same for a long time. I say there must be victims. That's how the world is set up. As society we love competition and that love among the many other things that make us human is what produces victims.

[wufwugy]

I think this is where you and I fundamentally differ. Humans will remain the same for a long time. I say there must be victims. That's how the world is set up. As society we love competition and that love among the many other things that make us human is what produces victims.

I didn't say anything different than this.

You're right that it won't happen for a long time, possibly ever. But this is not technically mandated, and with enough technological development, it will become easier to go beyond victimization.

Personally, I do not think it will ever be done, but it *can* be. BTW, there are huge differences in victimization in different world cultures already. Huge ones

[!Luck]

I didn't say anything different than this.

You're right that it won't happen for a long time, possibly ever. But this is not technically mandated, and with enough technological development, it will become easier to go beyond victimization.

Personally, I do not think it will ever be done, but it *can* be. BTW, there are huge differences in victimization in different world cultures already. Huge ones

We agree. Hard to care about US victimization since it is LOL ez game here vs. many other countries......

[wufwugy]

We agree. Hard to care about US victimization since it is LOL ez game here vs. many other countries......

Depends. Among modern nations, it is only easy here if you have a STEM skill set. Compared to virtually every other modern nation, US lags in virtually every way. Compared to some like in Scandinavia, US is way behind.

However, compared to places like Russia, US is much better. In other ways, US is worse than any nation other than places like Liberia where shit is just unbearably bad. An example is that US imprisons more people than Stalin did, and we have 5% of the world's population, yet 25% of the world's prison population. So if you're black and poor in the US, shit is reeeeeaally bad for you compared to white and educated

[rong]

Happiness advantage, I like that.

[Micro2Macro]

just move to canada. we dont discriminate cuz u like penis and our government isnt entirely made up of crazy bible hugging morons. we also never make the news for anything ever, so clearly there is nothing wrong up north

we work about 35hour weeks

[!Luck]

I hate to even think about the US prison system. It's so freaking awful with perverted for profit incentives.

[rong]

just move to canada. we dont discriminate cuz u like penis and our government isnt entirely made up of crazy bible hugging morons. we also never make the news for anything ever, so clearly there is nothing wrong up north

we work about 35hour weeks

It sounds greeat at first, but then you remember all of those Canadians are there and it kinda puts you off.

But in all seriousness, I'm surprised the yanks haven't popped over the border and spoilt canada some how.

[Jack Sawyer]

I hate to even think about the US prison system. It's so freaking awful with perverted for profit incentives.

And its even spilled into education, arresting 6-year olds for profit
The US schools with their own police | World news | The Guardian