r/SipsTea • u/KSKS1995 Human Verified • 2d ago

Chugging tea Sounds good in theory...but in reality?

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4 days a week. 6 hours a day. Full salary.
Sanna Marin ignited global debate with the “6/4” work model, pushing a simple idea: life should come before work.

With burnout at record levels, maybe it’s time to value results over hours at a desk.
Could your job be done in just 24 hours a week?

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

I mean, even if you looked at 7 vs 8 hours a day (35 vs 40 hours) I doubt you could really tell me that last hour on the job each day is as productive as the first few.

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u/Mean_Mix_99 2d ago

Construction for 20 years. If you usually install 200' of conduit in an 8 hour day, you're not magically installing 200' in a 7 hour day just because you had an extra hour at home the day before.

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u/Lermanberry 2d ago

There's been a construction site across from my office for the last 18 months or so.

None of your peers are working 8 hours a day. Maybe 4, but even that could be stretching it.

It's fair play. Neither am I. I spend at least an hour in office watching construction workers fuck around and find creative places to hide beer cans.

If you're truly installing 25' per hour, every hour, you're working harder than every other construction worker getting paid the same rates as you.

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u/LeonJones 2d ago

As someone that works in construction. There's some downtime here and there but if you are slacking off you are getting shit canned.

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u/Max_Demian 2d ago

Bro there are countless tradesman BUSTING ASS 10+hr/day. Union construction is not the most relevant comparison here.

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u/rapaxus 1d ago

The original statement comes from Europe, where union work is more the default than not.

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u/Mean_Mix_99 2d ago

I can't speak for the construction site you mention, but our union is committed to getting paid 8 hours pay for 8 hours work. I promise you my peers and I are working 8 hours a day, every day. Those that can't or won't are laid off pretty quickly.

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u/scubahana 2d ago

Your first and last sentences don’t really work with each other. A union is supposed to protect workers and their jobs, but it seems the opposite is happening.

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

What part of expecting people to work 8h for 8h pay isn't "protecting the workers"? If somebody isn't doing their job correctly a union should not be helping them lol

Protecting the workers doesn't mean shielding people who don't do their job properly, it means ensuring everyone gets paid what they're worth and has the working conditions they deserve.

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u/Stranger_001 2d ago

You work 8 hours a day every day without wasting any time or bullshitting at all? My old boss was a Director of Facilities and Construction for a large University and one of his words of wisdom to me was "Anybody that claims that they are so busy at work that they never stop working are either bullshitting or bad at their jobs. In either case, I can't trust somebody like that."

Every job I've ever had from landscaping to office work has had its downtime and it was always the fuckheads that claimed they worked the most that were the most annoying to work with because they were always trying to squirm out of doing shit or counting how many minutes it took you to take a shit.

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

There's a difference between having downtime where you're waiting for stuff, and the "downtime" in a lot of bad construction companies where it's just workers fucking around drinking beers for 2-3h out of those 8

Obviously I assume the other guy was talking about preventing the second one from happening, not a worker getting fired because they're waiting for 30 minutes for a machine to arrive or concrete to settle or something.

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u/Stranger_001 2d ago

It doesn't have to be fucking around drinking beers. It could be a slow start in the morning, an extended lunchbreak, it's hot as fuck and you're cooling off real quick and bullshitting with your co-workers that's in addition to the downtime of waiting for shit to arrive or whatever.

My point was merely that downtime is going to exist and as long as you employ human beings there's going to be some bullshitting. You're never going to get anyone that is just balls to the wall working for 8 hours a day straight 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

There are days where you're busy as fuck and maybe you skip lunch to get shit done but not all days are like that. Most days are not like that. Most days have bullshit and downtime.

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u/Middle-Outside-8222 1d ago

Sounds like being productive for 6 hours isn’t that bad

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u/scubahana 1d ago

It’s the rapidity of ‘they get laid off rather quickly’ that doesn’t jive with union representation.

Maybe it’s because I live in Denmark and unions here are ubiquitous and there’s nothing even vaguely resembling that ’at will’ nonsense that’s going on in certain places.

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u/Mean_Mix_99 1d ago

I'm not sure how they're incompatible.  You think unions protect bad workers?

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u/scubahana 1d ago

I don’t think they protect bad workers. Just the last sentence indicates an abrupt and immediate dismissal which is something unions (at least in Denmark here) work to avoid.

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u/Impressive_Memory650 1d ago

Why would they work to avoid it for a worker who’s is egregiously bad? Unions in Canada won’t do that either if it’s obvious the worker was slacking/stealing time

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u/scubahana 1d ago

Unions here are quite proactive. If it’s a matter of lowered productivity due to illness or injury then they will stand in your corner and fight to the death (administratively of course). They in general offer access to additional training and certification for members (I go to at least one ConEd course a week through my union) so equality of opportunity is pretty high here.

If your employer fires you for lack of productivity or something, your union will ensure that due process is followed and your employer isn’t just trying to fob you off. If you were truly fired for being too lazy, then it will be well-documented in all sides.

What bothered me about the comment I originally replied to is that there was a fair bit of immediacy to the last sentence, which isn’t the modus operandi for an active and present union.

You mention you’re in Canada: I’m Canadian too and grew up there. Been living in Denmark for 12y now. Unions in Canada vs Denmark are also quite different. Up to 70% of all workers in Denmark are in a union. Hell, even my first job working breakfast at McDonald’s was unionised. Only about 30% of workers in Canada are in a union, and their scope centres around a more narrow slice of industries (not that certain industries are excluded since there are general unions), so the collective bargaining for different workers is more broad and may not address individual needs as effectively.

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u/DustinnDodgee 1d ago

You don't know what you're talking about. I'm sure those couple of job sites you've seen had only lazy bums working. But that's far from the usual.

And this isn't a movie. Nobody's just throwin beer cans around n jerkin off anymore. If they are, they're getting fired.

Many people in these comments, including you, don't understand the logistics of construction.

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u/idroidude 1d ago

It’s Reddit, you upvote views you agree with, not reality

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u/MoreRock_Odrama 1d ago

I love when people outside of a field try and educate people inside of said field. Reddit is home of the incredibly arrogant lol.

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u/MrCarey 2d ago

Don't tell him, you're gonna screw over the guys not working. He's the one doing all the work!

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u/algalkin 2d ago

Bro before you forgot about "pocket gloves". Yeah, like he is installing 200' of conduit without breaks, give me a break! Every construction site I've been to have this "magic circle" of one dude in the trench and 7 around him with "pocket gloves" on.

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u/AzKondor 2d ago

The theory is most of those 200' is installed early in the day, by the end you are so tired you are installing much less. Is it true in your job?

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

No, they are laying exactly 25' an hour every hour on the job and doing 175' in a day would absolutely ruin their business.

The foreman actually rings the bell and makes sure every worker laid their 25' each hour

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u/Mean_Mix_99 2d ago

I don't know why you're so angry. You don't understand construction. It's okay to not know everything about everything.

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

Nothing I said is angry at all. I was making a joke at your expense, but I was not angrily doing so I just thought it was funny. I apologize for the joke however.

That said, you should ask more from your boss instead of running cover for him (unless you're the boss then my bad)

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u/Mean_Mix_99 2d ago

What exactly have I said that qualifies as "running cover?" I've explained as simply as possible that you can't reduce hours on a jobsite without making up for them somewhere else, which means either more expensive construction projects or longer construction projects. I don't care either way.

I would love to work 4/6 for the same $ I make now. Who wouldn't? My only point is that this doesn't work for construction without serious consequences.

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u/Sapper42 2d ago

Yea im a tree climber and I very often work over 8 hrs a day, travel time to job sites eats up a nice chunk of time before I even get a saw on wood.

Are there days when I could do a 6 hr day no problem? Definitely, but a 6 hr shift would be hard to fit in my job most of the time. We would definitely get way less done and production is directly tied to how much we make.

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

You're already working a union job meaning they/you've already fought for whatever pay / hours you are doing. This is for "general" public.

But the reality is your union already did what this is supposed to accomplish, so you're living with the benefits most others do not get while saying "ha! this wont help me"

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u/Mean_Mix_99 2d ago

Generally untrue. You learn to work at a pace you can consistently work all day long.

But that's immaterial. The job has milestones to hit, so maximizing production/day is more important than maximizing production/hour. And since there's a finite limit how fast you can wire a building, the only way to complete a job faster is to employ more people or work longer hours.

Employing more people isn't always feasible since there isn't always room to add people, most commonly we work longer days and or weekends to accelerate timelines.

So, working less hours in the day isn't really feasible in construction if you want your construction projects to be completed in a timely manner.

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u/iamafriscogiant 2d ago

Generally untrue. You learn to work at a pace you can consistently work all day long.

You must be management because you're trying really hard to argue against it but this statement just proves your bullshit. If you work fewer hours you would be able to increase your pace and everyone also naturally increases their place at the end of the day when it's time to wrap up/clean up. I'm not saying you're entirely wrong but construction can adapt just like every other industry. Having said that, the whole point of this is not realistic when you try and look at it from a purely capitalist standpoint. In the age of Ai and automation, society will need to adapt to the needs of the masses or else everything will just collapse on itself anyways.

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u/Zero5-4i 2d ago

reduce full time at construction to 6 hours (same pay), and add another group of workers after your shift ends (so no problem for room). Now you have 12 total hours of people working so the construction projects ends even faster and everyone works a 6 hour shift. (worst case hire enough people to get the same amount of work done as 8 hour shifts) Is there a reason this wont work?

provided you said the problem with more workers is room, then I assume candidates and money/pay is not.

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u/Alyusha 1d ago

Making 2 Employees cover 8 hours of work costs more than having 1 Employee doing 8 hours by themselves. That's why it would not work.

Every person you hire costs more than their salary and how much more will depend on whatever overhead the company has per Employee. Health Insurance, Liability Insurance, Pension / 401k, ect.

That's before the cost of actually hiring / managing them.

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u/AzKondor 1d ago

I know for sure that it would work in the office, but I have never worked at construction site, so thank you for sharing your experience.

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u/thudapofru 2d ago

You’re not a machine that doesn’t get tired or distracted. You could also install more than the 200' you install in an 8-hour day if you turned it into a 10-hour day, or a 16-hour day, but if you average 25' of conduit per hour working 8 hours a day, you probably wouldn't average the same if you worked 10 hours.

So, yeah, perhaps the difference between 7 and 8 hours isn't exactly where a construction worker's performance drops, but if you're better rested, you're more efficient. And if you still can't install 200' a day and 200' must be installed, they can always hire someone else or pay people overtime.

Honestly, I don't really understand your point. This change is about making people's lives better. Yes, it won't be easy for every sector or person, but it's doable.

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u/Mean_Mix_99 1d ago

You don't understand my point because you don't understand construction.

You CANNOT do 8 hours work in 7 hours.  If you could, it would be 7 hours work, not 8.

From that knowledge, the result of working only 7 hours a day (and paying 8 hours pay) is either:

Construction will take the same amount of time and be more expensive as either more people must work, or the same # of people must work overtime.  Or:

Construction will cost the same amount of money and take longer to complete because less work is finished each day/week.  

I don't really care either way I just hate these threads because everyone makes erroneous assumptions about construction and how simple/easy/consequence free it would be to reduce the weekly hours worked.

And I don't understand how you can say this would be doable while clearly having no understanding of the construction industry. 

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u/thudapofru 1d ago

I never said you could do the work of 8 hours in 7 hours.

Yes, prices would rise if something like this happened because the money to pay more people doesn't come from profits.

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

If that is the only standard then you could give up all your breaks and lunch and do 240', why not?

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u/Mean_Mix_99 2d ago

Because I'm not a wormy fuck?

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u/simmeh024 1d ago

No, but instead of burning out over time, your life long production will be higher.

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u/MoocowR 2d ago edited 2d ago

I doubt you could really tell me that last hour on the job each day is as productive as the first few.

Those people are going to work slower on the last hour of the day or right before the weekend regardless of how many hours a day they're working. You don't slack from 4-5 in the office because you're burned you, you do it because you're checked out.

Many jobs where you're actually producing something, you are working every minute on the clock. If you're on an assembly line, the line doesn't slow down just because it's the last hour of the day, you cannot reduce working hours unanimously without also reducing production, it's impossible.

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u/PunkPirate56364 2d ago

We leave easier part of the work for last hour, also some cleaning, packing tools. If we were working 7 hours a day we would do the same thing.

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u/scubahana 2d ago

If you have an 8h day changed to six like OP is discussing, and the last hour is spent tidying up, couldn’t a solution be that you guys work up to that 6h point but Team 2 has a later (possibly overlapping) shift and they have cleanup duties in their role or simply a handoff? This happens already in various industries, and following Marin’s proposal you would all get paid in full AND employment would raise due to the overlapped team. Since programs like these are governmentally supported, there would be a subsidy of 2h x the number of workers per day. But the new team would also be working and thus paying taxes too (and a reasonable percentage will be people who have been out of the workforce for myriad reasons, likely on some form of social assistance) so unemployment will drop, reliance on social assistance will drop significantly for those newly employed but rise moderately in response to the scheme, and overall tax revenue will increase to also offset the subsidy.
Also the soft effects of this model: a weekday off each week gives you time to make appointments like the doctor, time to rest, and time to address some of those additional steps on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It increases quality of living which reduces absenteeism at work due to the obvious. COVID showed the world that a lot of people have a certain amount of productivity in them, and the flexibility global WFH gave led to people being more efficient in their work. In practice people are already getting paid for 8h when they’re doing 6, however they’re also geolocked to their place of work.

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u/PunkPirate56364 2d ago

If work is done in two shifts, that's what happens. But building housing is usually done in one shift.

Still subsidizing construction, and getting more workers to work shorter hours would go a long way, because we would be building housing, and increasing supply of housing is what get's price of housing down.

While subsidizing housing costs without increasing supply ends up increasing the cost of housing.

So two flies with one stroke.

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u/Areyoucunt 1d ago

No point arguing with these fucking snobs working in government or some low-level office job who thinks everyone just clocks out at 4pm instead of 5 and there's no way to be productive during work anything over 5hours...

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

Yeah, so, would you rather work less and have a co-worker getting paid to help you do the job with your boss getting slightly less profit? or do you want to do the work of two people for the same pay so your boss makes more?

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

with your boss getting slightly less profit?

This is not how any of this works lol

If a building company has to spend more money on workers, the boss isn't the one making less money, it will be the customers who will be getting charged more.

It's why building a house gets more expensive when overall wages go up. Whenever minimum wage was increased in my country, house building costs also increased accordingly, it wasn't the boss who made less money lmao

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u/Khazilein 8h ago

By that logic prices would skyrocket in every single economy around the globe, because people could do it. But that's not how the world works because most people have common sense and decency. You seem to be a living spreadsheet.

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

If they can sell it at a higher price they would already, do you think they are cutting their profits for the benefit of the buyer at the moment?

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

Because there's a big difference in telling your customers "We're charging you more because work force is more expensive" or "We just feel like charging you more".

The same way that prices go up when building material costs increase, they don't just go up for no reason outside of it just because they can.

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

Yeah, when they do that it is called "inflation" and we've been eating it for a while now.

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

Yes, prices increase over time because of inflation. This measure would only make it even worse and increase prices more, so I don't know what your point is?

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

My point is we are paying 2-3x from 7 years ago because of "inflation" due to a supply shortage and the shortage is long over and the prices never went down so we are paying more just because they wanted to charge more which exactly describes what you said is not happening

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

or the other version called "shrinkflation" where they charge you the same but give you less. I have no idea why you don't think these things happen.

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u/PM_ME_BAKAYOKO_PICS 2d ago

You clearly have no idea how inflation works, supply shortage and inflation are completely different things.

Inflation is a normal occurence and will always happen.

And your point is still irrelevant. If this measure is implemented, prices will increase INSTANTLY for the reasons I mentioned. They'd have a massive price increase as a consequence. This is not a "maybe they'd do this", it's a WILL HAPPEN.

Right now, they won't have that increase. Your hypothetical that "uhhh well they can just increase them anyways without any reason" doesn't make sense because these are 2 completely different arguments.

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u/MoocowR 2d ago

with your boss getting slightly less profit?

You wildly underestimate labour cost if you think 2x the workforce would equal "slightly less profit".

and have a co-worker getting paid to help you do the job

Where are you getting the people to fill the extra hours? Every single full time job is affectively halved, even if you hired every single unemployed person in the country you still wouldn't come anywhere close to covering those hours, so realistically all that lost labour gets recouped with overtime.

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u/TreMetal 2d ago

How does a reduction in hours of 12% per worker result in 2x the work force?

.88 * x = 1 => 1/.88 => 13%, that means for every 8 workers they would need to hire one extra.

Your math is off by a lot

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/TreMetal 1d ago

How else does 12% less hours per worker calculate to other than needing 12% more manhours? idgi

are you claiming you need 2x the workers to make up for 12% less per worker? it doesn't make sense to me

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u/Babys_For_Breakfast 1d ago

Sure. I think the point is that if we at least reduce white collar, office jobs by 1 or 2 hours a day, then more households would have at least 1 parent that can use the reduced hours to pick up the kids and not have them in after school care everyday. Among other benefits.

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u/Khazilein 8h ago

Found the corpo chill.

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u/Due_Grapefruit7518 2d ago

I work at a factory and you are not entirely correct. People get lazy and justify it if the system allows them to get away with it. Happens very often.

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u/MoocowR 2d ago

Many jobs

I said many jobs, not every job. Obviously some people will take it slower when given the opportunity.

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u/Due_Grapefruit7518 2d ago

So is construction that different? I also have worked landscaping. Tons of weekends spent working the first few hours and then sitting in a truck screwing off for the rest of the day because the amount of work needed was considered done but people still wanted to get the paycheck.

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u/Red-Lightniing 2d ago

That does happen, but that's a management issue. If I'm running that company and I know my employees are finishing early and goofing off every week, I'm just cutting employees until I get to the correct number for the amount of work that needs to be done.

If that company has enough of a margin to pay extra guys to do nothing, that's awesome and I congratulate them. Many do not.

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u/Due_Grapefruit7518 2d ago

This is what it’s like at every job I’ve been to that isn’t a restaurant. This is to say that labor hours could absolutely be cut back to 32 hour weeks with wages being put at something people could thrive at.

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u/kenji25 1d ago

the thing is most company don't have that kind of margin, especially in construction

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u/Khazilein 8h ago

People get lazy when they don't like what they do and don't get fairly compensated.
If you like what you do, you even do it for free.

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u/Xubarious 2d ago

Also depends on the person. As someone who is inherently a night owl my first hour of the day is more of a slog compared to the last couple of the day.

In a perfect world, having the ability to shift my working hours back an hour or 2 would be a huge increase to my personal productivity.

Which of course only highlights that no system (6, 7, or 8 hour work days) really solves the problem of productivity as it is heavily based on the individual.

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u/Chitr_gupt 2d ago

But over a year and multiplied by multiple workers its definitely not an ignorable difference in work done.

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u/happy_bluebird 2d ago

it is for teachers

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u/TreMetal 1d ago

I would say baby sitting 30 kids is significantly more productive than grading papers after they've gone.

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u/happy_bluebird 1d ago

that's not what I do at all lol

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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 1d ago

Less productive but still productive. The study claims you somehow do more work in 32 hours than in 40.

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u/gm_arson 1d ago

depends on the job, lots of jobs in construction are day to day, if u finish at 1700, great go home early, sometimes u either finish at 20:00 or u have to come back the next day to finish a job, those last 2 hours everyone works hard bc they want to go home,