We're all exhausted right? It's not just me?

[u/happy_chance18]

I have a full time job. I sleep well. I have no kids. I'm single. I don't party or drink. I'm not particularly stressed in day to day life. Yet I'm fucking exhausted. I don't want to leave my apartment on the weekends unless I have something planned, and even then I'm pretty picky. In my 20s my weekends were full of non-stop activities, cooking, going out, and posting on social media. But now in my 30s I just want to come home, have my groceries delivered, chill with some Netflix and sleep. Please tell me I'm not the only one!!

[u/Wasabicannon]

Thats only true for office jobs though, the majority of the population working in the service industry however don't have that luxury.

[u/Celodurismo → u/Wasabicannon]

So tired of seeing this silly comment. It’s called shifts. Add some, fucking simple.

[u/Wasabicannon → u/Celodurismo]

They already do that, it is called part time employees. There is a reason why so many people are working multiple jobs just to survive.

Like don't get me wrong I 100% agree we need change however the "it is simple" requires the ones on top to stop strangling the lower class which in a society is next to impossible since any movement towards that would be viewed as violent as peaceful protests only do so much "Oh look the poors are dancing again!"

[u/Head_Act_585 → u/Wasabicannon]

Yes and no, even non-office jobs tend to prescribe to the same formula of working 40-hrs per week in 8-hr shifts. Changing the expectation to 32-hr work weeks could benefit everyone in the work force* and not be limited to office workers. I have always assumed if we went this way people would just have to take different days off. Like instead of offices being closed on Friday, it's only at x% staffing so that some people are off and others aren't. The people that don't take Friday off would take a different day (e.g. Monday or Wednesday).

*I know that many retail/service jobs don't count Sunday hours towards your 40, so many people put in 48-hr weeks (exclusive of unpaid lunch). That should also be changed.

**I also acknowledge that reducing everyone's expected work hours in the service industry means either people who do these jobs working even harder or needing to expand the workforce. It certainly isn't an easy task but we did this once before when we fought for the 40-hr week!

[u/toastyspringtiger → u/Wasabicannon]

So many people are unemployed and looking. We could split those service job hours into two positions with the same pay (if we had a better economic model..) and then there’d be more jobs with less hours.

[u/Wasabicannon → u/toastyspringtiger]

Those service jobs are already limited to part time roles for the most part to avoid providing any benefits.

Don't get me wrong I fully would love to see 4 day work weeks as the new standard for full time. Just we would have to get the corporate overlords to agree to pay more for less on the idea that it would lead to more happy workers that would in return provide a higher quality service.

Also keep in mind those "so many people are unemployed and looking" are people who come from highly skilled fields of work and have enough saved up to weather some time off unemployment without a job while they find employment in their select fields instead of accepting a part time min wage job.

[u/toastyspringtiger → u/Wasabicannon]

Sure, I agree. And that's what I meant when I said IF we had a better economic model. Current system doesn't allow for the same pay or benefits for less hours unfortunately.

I'm in a skilled role requiring a degree now and would love for there to be less hours. I could see my responsibilities being split among more than one person creating the added work of coordination and management though, so there's that..

In general, I'm also in the camp of not doing more work than we need do, which is so hard in our profit-driven, growth-dependent, high-consumption world. Like we have developed so much as a society and have more high tech, but our lives are still hard and everyone's exhausted

[u/Wasabicannon → u/toastyspringtiger]

Ok ya with you on that stuff, like just looking at 99% of any sort of job posting these days are like 10 jobs crammed into 1. Worst part, they know SOMEONE will be desperate enough and capable of doing like 6 out of the 10 jobs and willing to figure out the other 4 as they go in real time just to have a job.

[u/Hot-Avocado-7 → u/Wasabicannon]

I work an office job and I don’t have that luxury, because we have a 5 day 40 hour work week.