Is the four-day work week a thing?

In part driven by the pandemic that shut offices (and orifices) across America, the four-day work week is gaining favor.

It’s being implemented by companies and government entities, but media reporting often misses a key point, namely hours to be worked in a week.

Some employers are permitting a 40-hour work week achieved by four 10-hour days. But other companies and governments are offering a four-day work week at the current daily eight hours. That means 40 hours is reduced to 32, which is effectively a 25% pay hike. Not more cash in your pay check, but a big boost in your hourly wage.

Business is free to do what it wants. I am more concerned about the government. One small city — I lost the name, sorry — said it was going to a four-day work week, from Monday to Thursday.

Well, how nice for them, but what about taxpayers who need to transact business on Friday? The taxpayers who pay the salaries of the four-day wonders.

It’s easy to fix. Platoon the work force between those who prefer Monday to Thursday and those who prefer Tuesday to Friday. But you don’t just write off Friday.

Right?

Reporting on companies who have gone to four-day work weeks suggests that productivity has gone up, which is contralogical. It also seems to undermine the idea that a lot of workers have made a decision to work less hard at the office.

I can’t quite figure it out, as I have spent most of my life working more hours than I was required to work. That’s one result of loving what you did for a living.

Mostly it was voluntary, but it was not my first two years at the Daily News, under a different owner than now, and also under an editor who was violating the Knight Newspapers management manual. 

The unpaid overtime was a federal violation, and when I threatened to take it to the U.S. Department of Labor, the company agreed to a small stipend — after demoting me and sending me to work on the night desk.

Oh, well. That was 1975.

In my career I have been friends with a lot of other Type As, people who were driven to achieve, to beat the competition; and with others who barely show up. At some places I have worked or covered as a reporter — TV outlets — I have seen an amazing disparity between the high-energy and low-energy types, and been surprised at how often the barely-there, teacher’s pets types have been rewarded. 

That’s life, and as one of my least favorite presidents once declared, “Life is unfair.” [Jimmy Carter.]

I have been a boss and I know that’s not always a walk in the park, and I did have favorites. 

My favorites were self-starters, people who handed in clean, fact-checked stories, and before deadline. They made my job easier, so, of course, I favored them. I’m only human.

No matter what you have heard.

So, full steam ahead with four-day work weeks, but be sure to be fair to the workers, and to the customers, be they at retail or taxpayers.