Discussion What if had a work system with 1 year of working, 1 year holiday.

[Justaroguegear]

I've had this idea in my mind for a few weeks and i don't really know where to post it.

You'd work a job a year, your partner would take over, do whatever you like for a year, and go back and switch.

And if you make it to 70 or something like that you would just retire.

Your youth wouldn't be wasted.
You wouldn't die without some time spent on yourself.
You'd have time to live as healthy as you want and develop good habits that would carry over into your work shift.
You'd have time to quit smoking, lose weight, whatever needs fixing.
You'd be so much more relaxed during the break, and therefore much more productive after.
No chance of dying 1 day before retirement without having enjoyed some untethered freedom.

And so on.

Obviously this is never going to happen, it's just something that's been on my mind.

Don't @ me with relatively small problems, only if there's something fundementally wrong with the idea.

 

[waterbottleman]

I'd be down for that.

 

[waived]

Why not get rid of work all together?

 

[Oyoy]

It's really hard to lose momentum.

 

[Life sucks]

I think its better to increase the whole efficiency of work. Working half the hours needed and getting the same or better results.

 

[win32]

I think its better to increase the whole efficiency of work. Working half the hours needed and getting the same or better results.

That's what we've been doing for decades. We could easily reduce the average work week by at least 10-20 hours. People in the past expected us to have a much shorter work week by now. Productivity and profits continue to increase while wages and hours stagnate. Studies show that working shorter weeks makes people happier and healthier (and therefore they perform better at work). In the Netherlands, a very "happy" country, the mean work week is only 29 hours. In addition, productivity decreases as the workday goes on and is very low by the 8 hour mark, so even if there weren't those benefits for the employer, the productivity loss for working less hours per day would be minuscule.

Then why don't American companies decrease their salaried employees' hours (outside of the few doing experiments which have shown the benefits)? There are many possible reasons. Maybe they are just set in their old ways. Maybe they are making the classic corporate mistake of only thinking about maximizing the value they extract from you in the short term to please shareholders.

Or, maybe they don't want you to have the time and mental energy to think critically about your situation, and then look for better opportunities, or worse: question the status quo as whole.

 

[Justaroguegear]

Or, maybe they don't want you to have the time and mental energy to think critically about your situation, and then look for better opportunities, or worse: question the status quo as whole.

Exactly, gotta keep the masses too busy to think, pump out more consumers and keep growing endlessly.

I feel lucky of sorts to have realized this... I feel strangely better now that I have an exit I can take any time.