[mjangle1985]

>It's when people are working till 11pm and someone says "I need to leave at 6 to make food for my kids" that the resentment happens. If everyone got off at 6, there wouldn't be any resentment.

What would you propose then? The parents starve their children? What an absurd thing to have resentment over. Do you believe the parents don't feel guilt over having to duck out early while others without children continue to work? I know when I have to do it I do.

It's a pretty terrible place to be stuck between letting your kids down and letting your coworkers down.

What an awful thing to build resentment over.

[mcv]

> "What would you propose then?"

The proposal is right there: everybody should go home at 6.

I do not feel guilty for going home after I put in 8 hours of good work. The employer should be feeling guilty if it's demanding more than that.

[dheera]

Please re-read the full comment. I am not expressing resent, I am explaining why resentment occurs in the masses.

> What would you propose then?

I proposed a solution, in the very first line of my comment: "legally-protected personal time"

[sokoloff]

Most people on this site can already work a 40-ish hour week and not get fired. They also probably won’t advance as quickly as someone with equal talent/ability who puts in extra hours when needed.

It would offend many (including me) if the law prohibited people from working as hard/long as they wanted.

If you want legal protection to prevent being you fired specifically because you don’t want to work more than 40 hours a week, I’d 100% support that. If you want legal protection to prevent me from working harder than that, I’m 100% opposed.

[mcv]

There's a massive difference between putting in extra hours when needed, and being expected to structurally put in those extra hours. The latter happens a lot, and is really not necessary, and in fact destructive. You don't get extra productivity from that.

Now if you want to sacrifice your own time to do some charity work to benefit your employer, there's nothing wrong with that in principle. But if the company rewards that, and more people start doing that, it could still become an unspoken expectation for all employees to put in those extra hours, and then we're back at the unhealthy working hours.

[dheera]

> If you want legal protection to prevent being you fired specifically because you don’t want to work more than 40 hours a week, I’d 100% support that.

Correct, it is this which is what I want to happen. I wouldn't care if you chose to work beyond that. I want protection for people who need to raise kids, deal with personal medical issues, and the right to free time for mental health.

But in addition, I would also add that one should not be discriminated against for wanting to only work 40 hours a week, especially in a salaried job. There should not be peer pressure and possible loss of promotion if others around you work 60 hours and you only work 40.

For hourly jobs it's psychologically much easier between peers because everyone knows they are getting paid based on how much they work. However, I would stipulate that for hourly jobs, the wage should be set such that 40 hours of work is enough for the average person to have a reasonable quality of life in the locality. Setting the wage such that a supermarket worker needs to work 7 days a week in order to make a living isn't fair, but if they want to work 7 days of their own volition, that's fine.

[sokoloff]

> I would also add that one should not be discriminated against for wanting to only work 40 hours a week, especially in a salaried job. There should not be peer pressure and possible loss of promotion if others around you work 60 hours and you only work 40.

All else being equal, I believe the new college graduate who regularly puts in extra hours (whether for work directly or on side projects) is likely to get better faster than someone who puts in 33% fewer hours. In that regard, they’ll have earned a promotion earlier in calendar time. You didn’t lose a promotion; they just earned one faster than you.

In such a case, you weren’t (unfairly) discriminated against; someone else just got better faster and got promoted based on merit.