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.
Do we actually archaeologically/anthropologically know that this is the amount of time that people spent working in those different periods?? Would love to see sources because I always think this is one of the most valuable things those fields can bring to us, but I’ve had trouble finding clear answers.
There’s a lot of evidence of what life was like for peasants back in the Medieval period. But, it’s hard to be exact because there were a lot of things that were taken for granted so nobody bothered to write them down and clarify.
Here’s an article about it:
https://www.yeoldetymenews.com/p/do-you-work-more-than-a-medieval
What’s well known, for example, is how many sundays and feast days there were. What’s less known is what actually happened on those days. For example, the Monday and Tuesday after easter were ale-drinking feasts. What was a feast though? In some cases it was a “party” where attendance was mandatory and you had to pay a fee. Yes, there was drinking, but was it a party, or was it one of those “work parties” where you had to go, had to be on your best behaviour, etc.?
Because it varied a lot century-to-century and also varied location-to-location, it’s hard to pin down what it was like unless you’re looking at a specific location at a specific time, and it’s a location and time where there’s good data. What is pretty well known is that nights were really dark. Even candles were expensive for a peasant. So, when the sun set, work more or less stopped
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-price-of-lighting-has-dropped-over-999-since-1700
Beautiful, thank you so much! Will read momentarily.
Update: Good and pretty compelling source. May not be primary, but I appreciate the easier reading and I enjoy that they basically put confidence intervals on their answers.
But also, wow the rest of this site is hilarious. Bookmarked!
Solid review of the source, now I need to make a note to check it out later…
Yeah, that particular article is a serious more historical one and then most of the others on the site are satire written in a cheesy old English style and medieval setting and it’s killing me
I think it’s more likely that people saw their parents or grandparents living on a single income, so between two people there was a lot more “free” time. When one adult is managing the home, and the other is making money, both get to be more off duty after work. The grocery shopping, meal prepping, social calendar finagling, and cleaning were happening simultaneously with the money making job.
Managing a household is a whole ass job and a lot of people are expected to do it on top of their day job and that’s why we feel like we have no time. I don’t think we’re comparing ourselves to celebrities, just our own family members.
Suicide seems better and better everyday
6 hour work days with higher pay would be pretty dope ngl.
1h unpaid overtime?? Explain? So much wrong here, and 1h is just 1h, but why would you ever work unpaid??
Working through the lunch hour, as someone else said, but I want to add that this is why you leave the freakin building for that hour.
“Work 1 hour extra or get fired” goes a very very long way to people that work minimum wage and can barely read, let alone fight a court case, my man…
not OP
I’ve had numerous jobs that had ‘unwritten rules’, such as being in, dressed, and ready to clock in 15 minutes before the shift starts. Being 1 minute late 3 times in a month was grounds for dismissal. It’s the old way that everything wanted to work.
If the job market is bad and managers are tyrants, you end up being soft-forced to put in more time.
If you don’t do it, you prob won’t get fired, but you prob also won’t get raises in hopes for attrition.
I think they are referring to a lunch break they are forced to work.
9-5 is 9h, so they probably work the whole time and don’t get OT for the 9th hour.
9-5 is 8hrs, you might be thinking 8-5 with unpaid lunch
Yeah that haha
Lose your job otherwise
And then people are like… Parents need to parent their kids… for every kid related problem or issue, but look at how hard it is to find any time to do anything! It’s so hard… Keeping up with all the kids admin, school homework, developing bodies, relationships, future planning… And then having to learn about every new platform and emoji and movie so you know if it’s appropriate and how to handle it… It’s impossible! Parents need to parent their kids is such a cop out for a society.
I feel like you’re mad at the wrong side. Parents do need to parent their kids but obviously they need to be given time to do so. I don’t feel it’s a cop out I think it’s a muti-step solution.
I think they mean it’s a cop out for people to say “parents need to parent” as a solution. The solution is “society needs to provide more support to parents.” Parenting your kids was a lot more possible when one income covered the fiscal needs of the household.
I guess anon is too tired to do maths correctly. That sums to 21 hours, so only 3 left instead of 4.
Thanks for making it worse.
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.
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.How many days do you work a week?
um uh buy less avocado toast
Have you tried not eating and drinking yourself to sleep yet?
I save that for when I have 24 hours off to flip from day shift to night shift or vice versa. Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that the 12 hour shifts frequently rotate. Fuck me, right?
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.
This is why I demand work from home.
I hate commuting.
Sometimes you can sit and cut vegetables and peel potatoes in a meeting… Which drastically cuts down meal prep time, I find.
When you’re crying about the 10th Teams Meeting that week you can blame the onions.
Just don’t be like the guy at my job loading your dishwasher with your mic unmuted.
My south American garbage wasteland city needs one hour and a half of commute to reach work and another to go home
I don’t know if I would go home at that point…
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.
I have an official 8 hour day and only work 4, the rest I’m slacking off. I am a dev in home office. Even tough I have way less workload and stress I don’t get anything done in my life. :(
Chop vegetables during your slacking time
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. Anyway, how’s that deregulation going, America?
Shitty
Find a job closer to home
OH SO EASY WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT YOU ARE SO SMART
Or you have at least 3 locations you want to be close to because youre in a family and everyone needs a school or job.
There are exaxtly 2 businesses that do what i do in the whole country. Being 40 minutes away so my wife can be 20 minutes away so my kids can be close to school and we are all close to my parents so they can help is the only option
Move closer to work -> rent goes up by hundreds of dollars bc closer to city
Find work closer to current place -> pay goes down like 30% or your job field doesn’t even have openings there
Tbh there’s not much winning right now
🎵 Fitter. Happier. More Productive!
