Greentext

Real and straight. This is all of us.

We should rise up, and unionize.

"And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death"

-Pink Floyd

I have strictly limited overtime with high bonuses and mandatory rest days, afternoon/night shift bonuses, 20 days minimum fully paid vacation, fully paid maternity leave, fully paid sick leave, healthcare paid through taxes, all written into law. Feels nice to live in a place where workers have rights. Sometimes I don't even know what to do with all this legally mandated freedom. Anyway, how's that deregulation going, America?

One hour commute each way 💀 Bruh that is brutal, waste of life. My commute takes 15 mins

My version:

24 hours in a day
12 hour shift
1 hour commute each way, so 2 hours
1 hour cooking/eating/cleaning
1 hour showering, getting dressed, getting ready for the next day.
Uh oh, bedtime if I want to have a chance at 8 hours of sleep.
1 hour walking the dog and playing with her. 7 hours of sleep possible.
Fuck it, I'll get groceries next week I guess.
Trouble sleeping due to the anxiety of not getting enough sleep.
Cry.
Sleep 5 hours.

WFH has been a blessing.

You easily eliminate almost 2h from there, no commute, and some workdays no showerp/getting ready to go out. Even when I shower I try my damnest to do it between meetings in company time.

I also do zero overtime, you'd be surprised that there are actually decent consultancy companies in that regard.

I think people are confused by seeing influencers and/or rich people and thinking what they have is normal.

In the 1500s it was sun-up to sun-down, 6 days a week for the work outdoors. Once the sun set, nothing could really be done. If you were a typical peasant you couldn't even afford to keep a candle lit. So, people went back to their one-room huts with their livestock in the same room and slept and/or waited for morning. They didn't have to work Sundays, but they were absolutely required to attend church on Sundays, so it wasn't a free day. There were other days off, but many of them were days where you had to do a certain prescribed activity.

In the early 1800s it was 12 hours of work, 6 days a week. Industrial era lighting technology meant that work could continue after the sun had set, so there were no winter days where you only worked 8 hours. Also, because this was the era of the factory, people had to commute to the factory and back, so if you were lucky you had a full 10 or 11 hours when you weren't working or commuting. If you wanted to sleep for 8 hours, you'd have 2-3 hours to do your cooking, eating, cleaning, bathing, mending, socializing, etc.

Thanks to tireless and bloody protesting by labour unions, 6 days of 12 hours each was shortened to 5 days of 8 hours each. It started in Chicago. The "Haymarket Affair" was a protest that led to a riot which led to public hangings. But, eventually, as a result of that, the work day was shortened to only 8 hours. Then, in the years that followed, a 2 day weekend became standard.

It might not feel like it, but your ancestors would be jealous about how much free time you have these days. Your distant, peasant ancestors might actually have had fewer work hours. But, they only stopped working when it was too dark to do anything, and then they basically sat or slept in a tiny, drafty, stuffy, one-room hut along with their livestock until the sun came up.

If we kill and eat the rich and use their bones as decorations, it would be possible to keep a bit more of the value of our labour. But, we're nowhere near a situation where we can all live like the rich. Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc. Life is hard, and has always been hard.

In Asia it's even worse. Standard work day in China for example is 9-9-6 which 9am to 9pm six days a week - remember that next time you see China living in 2070 propaganda. Six days a week is still de facto standard in most Asian countries.

The best part is that the actual work output is actually worse than five day 9-5 but I guess you have to keep the masses too busy for self awareness even if it costs economically. I'd remote contract with many teams in Shenzen, Tokyo and Hochiminh city and its incredibly how little actual work they get done with these crazy hours and its not due to lack of employee skill. It's stupid.

And they wonder why no one wants to have children anymore. Between not having enough money and not having enough free time, how the fuck do they expect all that? The rich really are a parasite and capitalism is a cancer.

#meirl

It should be illegal to call it 9-5 when employers don't pay you for your lunch break. It's like when Subway got caught with their not that long foot longs. It's BS. They have the nerve to expect us to be honest when they can't even be honest about how they're going to shill us out of work-life balance. Capitalism is just modern slavery y'all. It's time for this charade to end.

I guess anon is too tired to do maths correctly. That sums to 21 hours, so only 3 left instead of 4.

I can recommend being self-employed if you like super long hours for the peanuts. But hey, at least I don't want to kill myself every work day.

My south American garbage wasteland city needs one hour and a half of commute to reach work and another to go home

Shit try running a business. In the words of Admiral Akbar, it's a trap!

1h unpaid overtime?? Explain? So much wrong here, and 1h is just 1h, but why would you ever work unpaid??

From 2020 to 2025 I worked maybe two hours a day while remote. Made millions for my company but I didn’t have to work continuously through out the day. It was a nice existence. Went through two layoffs in that time but I finally had to take a job in an actual work environment.

🎵 Fitter. Happier. More Productive!