Originally Posted by
TMOliver
On the record, I'm comfortable maintaining that among the employees I've seen in action, the legendary 40 hour week had little relationship to actual performance or productivity. I've had employees who could in 10 hours do a week's expected work, and had others who took a month to actually work for 40 hours.
The ones who are good at doing the week's work in 10 hours quickly figure out that there's NO INCENTIVE for that kind of behavior if they work in a company of any size and their goal is more time off. The company will just tell them to stay the 40 hours and do 4 weeks' work. They might get the highest pay bump at evaluation time, but they're not going to get fewer hours. That's part of the problem in the U.S.
There's an interesting book out called "The Four Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss where he points out that no roads in conventional workplaces lead to more leisure time. He recommends arguing for a telecommuting job to get out of the office and not to have to look busy to try to recapture some of the time. He also recommends outsourcing a lot of day-to-day duties on an individual level while trying for an ultimate goal of a side business not aimed at maximizing money so much as taking up as little time as possible.