Am I going crazy or is the 40hour workweek completely inane and morally reprehensible. I have two jobs one very part time (9ish hours) and one of which only requires 20 hours but I can work more if i want to. I get paid for travel time and gas stipend as well. Overall between these two jobs I work about 35hrs per week making OK money. Obviously I’d be making more if I chose to work more hours but it does not seem mentally feasiable. As a note, I am nearing 30 and live with my parents and pay a little rent as well as my other general expenses (phone car insurance etc) It is an incredibly lucky life that I get this opportunity to save money that I know I would not get to have if I had to fend for myself. Personally I would never leave lol. Rent prices are insane there’s no way I wouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck even if I did my job fulltime.
Anyway, i am the only one in my social circle who seems to think 40 hours is nuts. I mean I get it, in the current system 40 hours with good pay is the bare minimum to get by. But anybody I talk to thinks its an immutable fact of the universe. Like the world would implode if not for the sacred 40 hour full time work week. People think i’m crazy for suggesting that it is possible and practical to have 20hour work weeks with the same standard of living. People get offended when I suggest that this is the same argument people were making 100 years ago when the owner class was trying to keep people working 80+ hour weeks. Everyone I know has drunk the coolaid. A better world is possible. But its like nobody seems to care.
Coolaid :big-cool: But seriously, those 40 hours don’t even take into consideration preparing clothes, preparing meals, commuting, unpaid overtime,etc. Even working “32” hours a week would do wonders for my health.
Nah 40 hours is too much, iirc if we reorganized the system a little bit we could be doing 20 hour weeks and considering that full time. I’m doing 60 hour weeks right now and the only thing holding me together is knowing I’ll have like the next 8 months off
What really irks me is how much of those 40 hours is literally nothing at all. For example, I am currently getting paid to shitpost. There’s literally nothing for me to do. But god forbid I leave, or even work remotely without a “good” reason.
There comes a point where it’s less about squeezing out profit and more to keep the workers ground down and miserable.
I think all office job type work could be easily done with 15-hour work weeks. Blue collar workers also deserve a 15-hour week, so it would necessitate hiring more people in those fields
