Should We Adopt a 4-Day Work Week?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Emory Songer here and Scott Boorhes is over there. It's
my birthday month.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Happy birthday much? Was it like the twenty first or something?

Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's the eighteenth.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
We're doing a birthday month.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
No, it's interesting the birthday usually snaks up on me.
I know a lot of people though that the birthday
month is a big circle on the calendar. And I
don't know if it's just like a mental thing. It's
just they treat themselves right. It's a chance for them
to celebrate each and every year around the earth. For
some people gets rougher and rougher, depending on how you

(00:33):
feel you've been doing in life. I know some people
when they start to get to a milestone number, they're
looking for any type of optimism or silver lining to that,
and I guess a party or a celebration or I
don't know, how do you feel about birthday?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Now? Why are you yelling at me? I remember when
you would ask your parents when you were a kid,
how old are you? And your mom or dad would
have to think about it for a second, and you're like,
how do you not know? That's how old I am? Now?
You're if you asked me how old I was, I
would have to think about it for a second, you
know why, because it doesn't matter. I know what day

(01:12):
my birthday, I know what date my birthday is. I
don't know what day it falls on. I'm not planning
on doing anything.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Is it this month?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
No, it's it was yesterday. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
That's a lie.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Sorry, it's not until November. But that's a lie. No.
I I I'm kind of between the ages where I'm
excited to celebrate my birthday and celebrating a birthday month.
So all right, fair enough, Yeah, but you birthdays are fine.
I generally I don't appreciate the added attention. There's a

(01:44):
lot of pressure. It's like, hey, it's your birthday. What
are you doing to celebrate. Well, I'm gonna go to work.
I'm gonna work, and I'm gonna go home and maybe
have a little cake with the family. It'd be nice.
But there's like, no, you should go to the moon
and I don't know, something amazing. Take one of those
SpaceX flights, go see the curvature of the Earth. It's

(02:05):
your birthday. It's not a big deal.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
That would be a heck of a gift, though, Man,
you know much money that costs, Like, okay, I'll take that.
Thanks for the gift.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Katy Perry got to do it. I mean, it can't
be that much. How much money does she have and
she has a lot of money. I really yeah. I
only asked because I'm approaching well. I'm the same way.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
There was a like a Mexican restaurant in our town
that if you went and you said it was your birthday,
you'd get like a free little dessert thing. But then
they would come and they'd put a sombrero on your
head and then they'd sing you a song, and everybody
in the restaurant's looking at you. Yeah, And I'm just
kind of like, please don't tell them it's my birthday.
Like I would threaten people. By the time I got
to college, I was like, if you say anything about

(02:45):
it being my birthday, I'm leaving.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I'm walking out for two reasons. One I don't need
that kind of attention, and two, the staff doesn't want
to do it. You can tell they don't want to
do it. There's a great if you've ever worked in
the restaurant industry and you have a just a vulgar
sense of humor or you'll allow yourself to do it
for an hour and a half. There's a movie called
Waiting Ryan Reynolds and a bunch of people. It's about

(03:10):
a weight staff and just the arguments they'd have behind
the scenes and just how they're complaining about their jobs.
And then someone sticks their head and says a guy
at table four is had a birthday, and they just
immediately flip on the smile, happy, happy birthday. No they
hate it. Don't make them do that. That's funny.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Well, I ask, have you ever taken your day your
birthday off from work? No, because I know people who've
done that too. It's like I'm just taking a vacation day.
I don't want to go to work on my birthday.
I've never done that. I've never intentionally Like if it
lands on a weekend, certainly we can get a little

(03:50):
crazier with the party. But you know it's cool. I
told you about my anniversary last month. We went to
run club.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, but you also went out on the week Yeah,
you're right, you did it up and spent a bunch
of money. Yeah, and your wife wore a fancy dress.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, you're right. But at the same time, right, it
is like the dead day of you know like this,
we can go out on the weekend or whatever. Anyway,
My point is people take days off. People take days
off for anything. They're looking for any reason to celebrate.
And a tweet that was going around on the Twitter
machine yesterday on Labor Day, which has long been a

(04:29):
federal holiday. In fact, pop quay is when was the
first time that Labor Day was a federal holiday.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Probably just over one hundred years ago.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Yeah, I mean you're pretty close. Eighteen ninety four. Oh
and yeah, to recognize the labor movement in America. You
talk about labor conditions back in those days. I mean
that meant something when you got that day off to
commemorate that on the first Monday in September. But a tweet,

(04:59):
which this was actually a screenshot of Donald Trump's truth
social account from earlier this year, started making the rounds
and people were debating this Donald Trump on June teenth,
which is a new holiday. In fact, the first June
teenth new federal holiday. Correct, the new federal holiday was
in twenty twenty one, so it's only been four years

(05:22):
since that has been a federal holiday. And it's the
only federal holiday in the month of June and Donald
Trump said too many non working holidays in America. This
was on Juneteenth. Now he didn't say this yesterday, for
whatever it's worth, but he said this on Juneteenth. Too
many non working holidays in America. It is costing our
country billions of dollars to keep all of these businesses closed.

(05:43):
The workers don't want it either. Soon we'll end up
having a holiday for every once working day of the year.
It must change if we are going to make America
great again. End quote now again, a lot of people
are going to draw political ramifications. June teenth, Donald Trump
has nothing to commemorate or celebrate as part of June tenth.
Of course, that was a bided administration idea to federalize

(06:07):
the holiday of Juneteenth. But if you look at the
other holidays that we do celebrate or commemorate, New Year's
Day started being a federal holiday on eighteen seventy. It's
I guess people worked on New Year's Day before that,
unless like it was tradition just to have it closed up,
kind of like Christmas, you would think, right. Martin Luther

(06:30):
King Junior nineteen eighty three, so that's before I was born. Still,
President's Day seems like one. That's be like, e the
third Monday of.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Get over your stommach does and move that to the
Monday after the super Bowl, the day after the super
Bowl President's Day.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Just move it up. That's a week like if they
just moved it up a week.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Not you know Washington's birthday?

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, well it is sometimes, Yeah, they always put it
on Monday. Oh you're right. If you just did that,
just move now? Would everyone will win?

Speaker 3 (07:01):
That?

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Everybody good with that? Who would oppose that?

Speaker 2 (07:05):
But especially since the NFL season gets longer and longer,
maybe a skill President Day will be in March here
in the next ten years.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Anyway, that's been a thing since eighteen seventy nine. A
federal holiday, President's Day now Memorial Day nineteen sixty eight.
I don't hear anybody saying we need to get rid
of a Memorial Day. But that's one of the newer
ones mentioned juneteenth and twenty twenty one. Independence Day eighteen
seventy wasn't a national holiday for federal employees that they
got paid for until nineteen thirty eight. It was an

(07:35):
unpaid federal holiday from seventy eighteen seventy until nineteen thirty eight.
Labor Day eighteen ninety four. Columbus Day nineteen sixty eight,
now that is paired with Indigenous People's Day, but the
second Monday of October that has political ramifications because of
which one you wish people, whether it's Happy Columbus Day
or Happy Indigenous People's Day. You apparently can't do both.

(07:57):
You have to pick a side, like always. But that
was nineteen sixty eight. That's before you were born barely.
But yeah, Veterans Day nineteen thirty eight, that was even
before World War Two, and now we commemorate a lot
of World War Two on Veterans Day.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
By the way, today's the eightieth anniversary of the end
of World War Two.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Bingo. Nice Thanksgiving Day eighteen seventy It was originally federalized
and then made permanent on the day of the fourth
Thursday on nineteen forty one, and then Christmas eighteen seventy
as well. Too many non working federal holidays. Donald Trump says,
the only one that has been new since I was
born is juneteenth, and that's the only one he's commented on.

(08:35):
But I was looking at some of the numbers, and
he's not necessarily wrong, because when you look at some
of the other holidays. If you get that day off,
say you know July fourth was on like a Tuesday,
for instance, Well, a lot of people are just taking
that Monday off too. Sure, so now you got two
days that people are taking off or even companies just

(08:56):
like don't even bother coming in on like the day
after Thanksgiving, right, right, but that's not a federal holiday, right,
But at the same time, right, people are taking that off,
and it does you.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Can use your vacation day for whatever. And if a
company wants to offer you a perk of yeah, go
ahead and take that Black Friday off as well. That's
a nice thing. It's a nice thing for a company
to do.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
But does it affect negatively if so many people do
the same thing, it essentially is functioning Like while federal
employees ought to go back to work and let's stickification day, economically,
there are a lot of people that are just not
working that day. Does that put a strain on our economy?
The number suggest that it could if the day if

(09:34):
the calendar just didn't cooperate properly, and some of these
didn't just fall on weekends because a lot of them obviously,
you would still observe them on a weekday today, get
that federal holiday. But if it lands midweek, people will
build out like a blong weekend or something around it.
And if enough people do it at the same time,
it could have a negative effect on what the American

(09:56):
economy or how some of these businesses are able to operate.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Emri. I went to get some lunch today and I
was standing behind a guy at the counter who was
waiting to place his order, and several minutes went by.
During this time, there was an employee that came in there,
got himself a drink from the machine and saw us
and walked by, and then over here. The entire time
there's a girl that's just kind of hanging out up
against the wall looking over at us and just talking

(10:21):
for a long time. Wasn't her job to come up
and do it? So finally the desk person comes up there, Hey, guys, sorry,
what do you need? There aren't people working now. There
are people who sometime when they show up to work,
they might be there. They might be working. There aren't
a lot of people working now. Where is this loss productivity?

(10:42):
Because we got labor day off. By the way, when
people get labor day off or any holiday, Christmas or
whatever they expect. Well, if I want to go to
a movie, they better be open. People are furious yesterday.
What do you mean I can't go to the gym.
Gym's not open. It's labor day. Hey, just because I
get the day off doesn't mean you. So where is
all this loss productivity? I go into a store, there's

(11:05):
piles of clothes there because there's no one there to
hang them back up on the racks and do everything.
When I'm walking into a big department store of something,
I need some help, there's never anyone around to help me.
If I go in there and know what I need,
eight people come up there. Hey, can I get you anything?
You need anything?

Speaker 4 (11:20):
So?

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Where is all this loss productivity? Where are all these
great workers now?

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Very interesting thoughts by Scott forhes for whatever it's worth.
He did not name any names when he was talking
about which stores he was seeing this stuff in, But
you know, something to keep in mind. Jason sent me
an email and said, too many days off. We should
be working on a four day work week unless you're
in radio. No, no, no, that's not how it works.
If everybody's on a four day work week, we're on
a four day work week. I make my point, but realistic.

(11:49):
A lot of European countries have been playing with this,
a lot of companies have been playing with this, a
lot of school districts I have been playing with this,
like small school districts trying to attract teachers and have
a time retaining teachers. They go onto four day work week,
and the teachers feel like they get more done. A
lot of things happen, and so the question becomes because
I think that's the future, honestly of labor. It's the

(12:11):
four day work week for ten hour days to do
your job versus five eight hour days. I think if
we polled people on this, I think eighty percent of
people probably would say I'd rather do that.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
But they'd also say they don't think they can get
away with it. So many of us take our work
home in the form of laptops, phones, phone calls, business
meetings that you have to take. You know, the people
would probably in concepts say, yeah, four day work week
be pretty good.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
But.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
If you can't, I mean, if you have customers, clients,
you know, people you're serving, like people in a restaurant
or whatever, you know, are we only open during these days.
Some people expect places to be open all the time. Yeah,
so that's an actually a good point. You'd kind of
have to have sector to sector. You know, maybe schools
you could do the four day work week and make
that work, And there are a lot of them that

(13:05):
are already doing that other countries as far as like
the federal government or general practice for some of their
bigger corporations like Finland, I know they're on a four
day work week, but it really just depends because restaurants
they're open seven days a week. Right, Well, you would
just have to hire more employees, but you're also not
going to give as many employees the hours that they

(13:26):
want to make it worth their while. You don't have
eight days in a week, no matter what the beatles say.
So now you've got someone doing four and then the
other person doing three, and then it might switch a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
How many hours are you letting people even get because
the rules would still probably be the same forty hours
as a full time job. Thirty hours is a part
time job, and less.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
You're only making so much per hour, your rent is
not going to go down if you're getting fewer hours.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, it's an interesting case study. I also just generally
disagree that we need less federal holidays. I think we're
just fine. There was a big space in June where
nothing was. Now there's something. There's no reason to change,
and I'm.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Okay with it.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
It's really not that big a deal. And I appreciate
Labor Day for existing so we could have that extra
Monday off having some interesting discussion about labor, labor as
a concept. I guess on the day after Labor Day,
what the future of labor looks like? Are we laboring
properly right now? Well after? Please don't labor? It's an

(14:28):
interesting word. Donald Trump, during the Juneteenth holiday, which is
another federal holiday, said we have too many federal holidays
that people aren't working in America and who are losing
billions of dollars because of it. I think he's not
really that wrong when you look at actual numbers on

(14:48):
those days, or if those days end up like on
a Tuesday or Thursday, where people are building like full
four day or five day week and sometimes around those holidays.
But I think Scott, you made a good point. Scott
voorhees alongside with me today of how much productivity are
reactually losing in this situation that kind of let us

(15:10):
down a little bit of a rabbit hole about well,
other countries and a lot of different companies in some
school districts are experimenting with what that even looks like.
They're giving people an extra day off every single week
and finding ways to make that work, and seemingly productivity
hasn't gone down even when they do that one day
a week. What does that say?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Just because someone's at work doesn't mean that they're working,
you know. So it's like, all right, we're going to
give you four days now to come in late, scroll
on Facebook for a little bit, get some coffee, talk
to your co workers, taking early lunch, come back, go
on a smoke break, and then come back and fill
out a TPS report and go home. There are some
people just because you're that a real job, yeah, it

(15:52):
doesn't mean that you're working. It's uh, look, and I'm
not saying that I'm working harder and anybody else. I'm
in radio.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
That was not the I'm not working as a relative term.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Digging a ditch over here or anything, though. I have
done that job, and I just think when there's work
to be done, I like people who are good at
getting the work done until it's done, and providing good
customer service if there's a reason why they can't take
care of you, Like in my example a moment ago
where I go in there, I'm waiting, a couple of

(16:28):
employees are just staring at you, and finally the person
comes in there. I like a person saying, hey, she
just stepped out for a second. She'll be right with you. Hey, thanks,
thanks a lot for coming in. That's like the bare minimum,
and we don't even get that anymore from so many
different people.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
So I went to the Netherlands in April. I had
never been there. I'd only been to Spain. Didn't really
notice that much of a difference when I went to
the Netherlands, and did notice the difference. They do not
care about that. Like the workers just customer service is
not a thing. There's no tipping culture though, So it's
just like you get the service that you get, and

(17:04):
I mean, you just deal with it, and that's just
the way it is. So all of the locals are
just like they don't care. Oh yeah, but the people
who are tourists that come there, especially from somewhere like
the United States, where we expect good happy, smiling customer
service people checking on us regularly at a restaurant or
a bar, and it's just not that way. You're like,
this is horrible service. And if you ask a localist,

(17:25):
like this is just regular around here. So maybe our
culture set us up for failure by over performing because
of the tip culture that we have. And now as
people are less and less motivated, maybe maybe we like
we're experiencing the change. We don't like the direction it's headed.

(17:46):
Maybe that's what's going on. They'll get me started on tipping.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I got I went someplace on Saturday night, okay, and
they said, all right here and here's what you can.
They do the thing where you can go swipe the
card right there at the table and then it'll ask
you a question. Right They give you a little thing
there and say, all right, he sign here, click this,
and here's where you can put in the tip, and
it said twenty twenty five percent, thirty percent. Twenty percent

(18:11):
is now at the bottom of what you're expected to
tip some places.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Some places still are like my favorite bar fifteen is
the low end. But you know still, and then they
watch you.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
They stand there and they look at you I know,
while I feel like the pressure is on while you're
pushing these buttons.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
I just spent over one hundred dollars in here. Twenty
percent is pretty good.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Oh that's really good.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah. I went to my fancy anniversary dinner a couple
weeks ago. I don't want to tell you what I
tipped that guy, but he was awesome, right, Yeah, it
was great. Yeah, someone is awesome. The thirty percent is
not enough, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. But that's the
other thing that you have to kind of weigh in
the argument that we're making here. Right, It's just like
you're trying to understand what a job even is and

(18:58):
what the urients of having a good day, a good
productive day at work is. You mentioned a theoretical job
of somebody that basically can just loaf. They can show
up basically whenever loaf as long as they're clocked in,
they're catching checks, and all they have to do is
you don't just have a reporter two a day and
that'll be enough to keep the supervisors at bay and

(19:21):
they're fine. Right. There are lazy people that are doing
all sorts of types of jobs. This is why white
color work is people want to work in jobs like
we have because they just you don't have to physically
work very hard. You can't get away with that when
you're doing something physical, physical that people are seeing. It's
one reason why I think the roads in Omaha could
be a lot better. It's just like it's just a
perpetual like, Hey, these guys are actually pretty good at

(19:45):
building new roads. Well let's keep finding the roads for
them to keep building. Let's give them some more work
to do.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Finish the roads you started to do construction on first,
and then go start another row.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Go live in De Moin. Dude, I think that they
are ruining Flour Drive, which is where the airport is intentionally.
I think the city of Des Moines is intentionally tanking
that road to give road workers just perpetual work. That
thing has been underconstruction for like a decade. I know,
it's so dumb. How does that happen? I don't know anyway?
But what the bigger point is, what even is a
hard work? It's a relative term because I think you

(20:17):
do work really hard. You work really hard for I
put in a lot of hours, but not a lot
of work. But you're in between your ears, you have
to and there's a lot of moving parts that you
have to manage to I have a lot of people
in my email that have some opinions on this. Jason says.
Iceland is one of the top countries that went to
a four day work week, hours around thirty five to

(20:38):
thirty six on average per person, which isn't unlike most
full time jobs. You know a lot of people will
work at thirty six hours or so, especially if they're
salary otherwise they'd like to try to get up to
forty for the hours. I look this up. Iceland does
have what I don't know how you measure productivity in
every single element, but they really lost no productivity by

(20:58):
going to that route and morale increase at these businesses,
which is interesting.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
But what do they do in Iceland? Catch fish and
make outfits for b York?

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Is that a whole industry?

Speaker 2 (21:12):
What else do you do?

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Those are the two big industries in Iceland. I will
try to find you a better list than that. Reeve,
our friend Reeve says here in Columbus, a lot of
places go for ten hour days that have a weekend
shift that either pay weekend employees forty hours to work
thirty six, which is an interesting concept. You work thirty
six hours on the over the weekend, I'll pay you
four three hours essentially, or do what they type of

(21:37):
swing shift. A month, you work forty hours a week,
you'll take a week off, and then the next month
you'll work thirty six hours a week. And the only
reason they would do this is because they would see
a positive response from the workforce. Right, So I'm working
either four ten hour days or I'm working like three
twelve hour days. Yeah, now, and you get a week

(21:59):
off if you pull like a swing shift and are
willing to go back and forth between the two of them,
which that would kind of suck. But you know, like,
if you're willing to do that and land the plane
for yourself and your own personal life, you're making good
money and you're getting paid four free hours for working
the weekend. I can understand why somebody would do that.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Sure, you know, that's one of those things like, look,
I can't pay you more per hour, but we can
give you some more hours and maybe you're here, maybe
you're not. You know that happens sometimes. What are we
teaching though this generation of people who are just getting
into the workforce, whatever age that is. Like me, there
rarely been times that have gone by since I was
fifteen years old when I haven't had a job. I

(22:42):
think some of my freshmen year at college I wasn't working.
But you know, during that time, you just you work
because like, here's how much money I need. How many
hours do I need to work so I can cover
the money that I need? And it wasn't about like
what's most enjoyable for my work life balance? What work
life balance? Like here's the money I need, Go work

(23:04):
until you get it, and then when you get that amount,
you either keep working and get a little bit more
or maybe you take a few hours off here and there.
But you know, now it's like, all right, most people
work a five day work week. If we start training,
some people like, well, four day work weeks better for
your mental health. Well, then another decade or so, you know,

(23:25):
it would be better for my mental health a three
day work week. Why can't I just do a three
day work week?

Speaker 1 (23:31):
But if I give you the same number of hours
roughly in theory, and your productivity is the same, why
does it matter. What's the difference between three twelve hour days?

Speaker 2 (23:46):
On that on that other day where you don't have.
I think you're going to end up hiring more people
to cover the seven days that a lot of businesses
are open, or at least six. You're going to hire
more people, and they're all going to get fewer hours.
I don't think you can have the same number of
people right now. Haven't cut a day off of their schedule,

(24:07):
give them extra hour. I mean, you can give someone
extra hours on a Tuesday night, But if you're open
on Friday, who's going to be there on Friday? You
see what I'm saying. You have to hire more people.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
You'd have to piece to like and you're talking more
service industry, right these are companies.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
We're gonna have more part timers and you're gonna get
fewer benefits. And now if you're doing part time, now
you're getting more into the realm of Obamacare, Medicaid, that
kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Okay, But I'm just just hear me out on this,
not to combat what you're saying, because I hear what
you're saying.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Are you do you want Friday off? Is that what
this whole conversation. I will have Friday off. No, I
don't need Friday off.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
I would in theory, be interested in what a four
day work week would look like, not necessarily for my job,
but for the greater good of the of society. And
the reason I would say this and this again only
because we're only hearing good things from school districts, from
companies and from towns that have like a sector that

(25:04):
has gone this, or a company that has gone to this,
or the community college in my hometown in Southeast Iowa,
they were one of the first four day school weeks
I've ever heard of back in the nineties. They went
to that and they haven't ever changed. They consistently have
just been Monday through Thursday, and it's worked out for them.
The reason I bring it up is the reason that's
happening is because it's productive now. The hours that I

(25:27):
am open per week in theory, let's say I'm a
seven day like i'm a bar's Let's be as simple
as possible. I'm I'm a bar and I am open
seven days a week, and how many hours am I open.
Let's say I'm open for ten hours for five days,
that's fifty hours, and then I'm open for twelve hours
the other two days. That's seventy four hours. A week

(25:48):
that I need to cover good math. By the way,
on the fly, some of those seventy four hours, I'm
going to need two people at the bar. Some of
those hours, I'm gonna need one person at the bar.
In theory, if I go to my workers only want
to work four days instead of five days, and you've
already been piecing five day work weeks with the three
or four employees you might have at your small bar

(26:10):
for your seventy four hours, you've made it work because
seventy four hours we're going to add, you know, another
forty hours of when two people are gonna have to
be there. Right, so let's say it's closer to like
one hundred and ten hours or so. Those one hundred
and ten hours are the same. It's just now you
have to do the puzzle a little different. Worker A

(26:31):
stays longer on Tuesday, Worker B will not show up
on Wednesday. They'll instead just be there on you know
these days instead. Worker see all of a sudden is
working longer hours, but one less day on the weekend. Right,
they won't be in on Sunday anymore. You can still

(26:53):
have the same number of people and the same number
of hours to cover. It would just be a different
looking puzzle that you'd have to do in ser more
complex the bigger your company would be to try to
make that happen.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
What happens when worker B takes a week off, what
happens when worker SEE gets sick? What happens when you
need worker D? Because the schools have also gone to
four days off, and now the parents are like, but
I work on that fifth day when the kids were
in school, and now I can't do that. I have
to turn my life upside down, which is going to
cause them to drink more and they're going to go
back into the bars a lot more often.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
What I'm saying is you would have bigger windows that
you would realistically have to cover, and that is certainly
something that you'd have to do, but something I think
is plausible. Let's open the phones. Four h two five
five eight eleven ten. If you got some thoughts on this,
I'd love to hear from you. Four h two five
five eight eleven ten, News radio eleven ten KFE.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
BO and where he's doing here on news radio eleven
ten KFAB.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Been kind of in this? Would you call it a
debate or just kind of an exploration of what a
four day work week would look like in how you
would be able to make it work, not necessarily intended
trying to understand what it would take. Would you need
more bodies, would there be more of a part time influence,

(28:14):
and how do you even use a part time employee?
And how many hours could they even realistically get when
you're covering, Like when you instead of trying to cover
an eight hour shift for something that you need a
body there for now, you're trying to piece together a
ten or a twelve hour shift, which could be a
lot more tricky. I'm hearing that that makes a lot
of sense. I had Mark send me an email and
said I retired from the post office. There was talk

(28:34):
of a five day week for us, because they were
six days right the post office does and have two
days closed, but we thought it would be Saturday and Sunday. Well,
it could be actually be Wednesday and Sunday. So a
four day week would be Tuesday through Saturday, or Monday
through Wednesday and then work Saturday or another combination. There
was no guarantee that the days off would be Saturday

(28:54):
through Monday. So that's the other thing too, is how
would you, how would we as a society align which
days the federal Like if federal workers did four ten
hour days instead of and they were only open for
four full days, and obviously the mail is a bit

(29:14):
of a different beast, But if there was they were
open for four days, ten hours a day and the
production was still the same. But would that close banks
on Friday? Would would banks being open till noon on
Saturday like they are now? Would that just become what
Friday is? And then they'd be closed on Saturday and Sunday.
That gives you reason to think about it because they're

(29:35):
not open. You talk about commodity markets and agriculture and
the stock market, because that stuff is closed when there
isn't work being done. So that would be another aspect
to this that would be quite interesting in how you
would align which the day, what days were actually working on?

Speaker 2 (29:53):
What are we actually trying to solve here? People are
burned out, right, Yeah, people are burned out, mostly not
because they've had to work a five day week. A
lot of the employees who are burned out, they're fine
working a five day week. They're fine even once in
a while in the evening or on the weekend. Getting
a work text or an email and say, yeah, I
can respond to that that it's a quick thing, that's
not a big deal. It's they're burned out because the

(30:17):
company has let go a large percentage of the workforce,
and the people who are left over they now had
to absorb all those other jobs. And so they're like, look,
and when I started here, I was fine. I was
doing this, I was making this much money, and I
was doing this work. Now I'm still making this much money,
and I'm doing this work and that work and that

(30:38):
guy's work, and they're all gone. And it's people get
burnt out doing that kind of thing. This is happening
in businesses and corporations and government work places across the country.
We're I think we're asking too much of the good employees,
and it's leading to a lot of employees they used

(31:00):
to be pretty good, who are now just fried all
the time.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
It's a good point. I think the natural response would
be did we lose bad workers or are there good
workers that could slide in and take those jobs. The
answer seems to be that we're kind of looking more
into terms of how does artificial intelligence help us find
a way to bridge those gaps, and we're not there yet.

(31:26):
It's the growing pains of our economy. Essentially trying to
balance all of the overwork for people who are good
employees that are still employed by companies or governments that
have taken on more responsibilities as people have left or
been let go, and not having the tools all the

(31:46):
way ready to make those types of jobs a bit
easier for them to absorb. That's unfortunate. I don't know
what the right answer is there. What I do know though,
on the burnout front is if we're consistently losing how
many people are working, and this is capitalism at play, honestly,
where a company feels like the same amount of work

(32:07):
can get done if I had eighty percent of what
the current workforce is, they let twenty percent of the
workforce go the other eighty percent whomever is taking on
those additional responsibilities those twenty percent were doing because they
were doing something even if they weren't necessarily vital or
essential to the workforce. Is that actually a fair trade?
Are you feeling like that productivity is going to allow

(32:29):
you to keep all those good employees Because we're living
in an increasingly wild era where people are willing to
leave jobs. They've been at it for a long time
because of that balance, because of that life balance, because
they feel like they can't work without being stressed out.
They dread going to work because of all of the
work that they actually have to try to accomplish in

(32:50):
the forty hours a week that they've been given, or
in the super unfortunate situation, that forty hour week becomes
a sixty hour week pretty quickly, just because you can't
get away from it needs to get done.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
If you want to find out whether or not you're
completely at the maxed out of your job, go to
your supervisor and say, I have too much work to
do for my daily workload, And then they'll bring someone
in there and they'll sit down with you, and just
like the bobs in office space, they sit down and go,
all right, what is it that you say that you

(33:21):
do here? And they go minute through minute by your day,
and that's when you realize, like, what do you do
from this time to that time? These minutes around accounted for?
And then you realize like, oh, I'm not actually putting
in a tonne of work throughout the day. This happens
a lot in the corporate environment. Have you ever had
to sit down with someone they go, let's just go
minute through minute through your day and I'm sorry you're

(33:44):
struggling so much. Here, let's see what we can take
off your plate. What do you do?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
And that's why a case in point exhibit A for
why I have yet to complain about my workload to anyone,
even if they're like, are you doing all right? You
look kind of, you know, frazzled out. Before I came
to Omaha, I was doing a lot of night stuff
that was kind of secondary to you know, make some
more money and just be seen a little bit while
also working at four in the morning. And people be like, man,

(34:08):
you look completely print down. So I got this, We're good.
I was very grateful to get the phone call that
I was going to get a chance to live a
regular life by coming to Omaha.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Ridiculous what you do go on, but but it was
like it.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
I would sleep in four hour shifts essentially to make
it all work, and we made it work. But I
knew as soon as I would say, all right, I'm
having trouble, like bad balancing, is that the answer is like, well,
you're doing stuff that's not company related. In night time,
like as much as we want you to be seen
and it helps your brand, and maybe you know what
we're doing here in the radio, like, you don't have
to do that stuff. Tell them you don't want to

(34:41):
do it. I was like, well I like doing that stuff.
It's like okay, so what's the problem again?

Speaker 4 (34:45):
Right?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
So this is why you just have to be kind
of intrinsic about it before you decide, oh, I'm working
too hard, because, like you said, that's kind of that'd
be a humbling experience to go sit in there and
say I feel completely overworked, and they're like, okay, journal
your day for like a week, and we'll come back
and see factly what you were doing when you were
doing it. And you probably look and be like, okay,
I probably could be making better use of some of
this time.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Right, So go, Oh, that hour I spend complaining to
my coworkers might actually be better spent on work.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, something like that. I got a lot more emails
I'd like to read here of people who have experienced
either the four day work week or three twelve hour days.
Pretty interesting. I had Darren to me an email he
works he was working with Duncan aviation and Lincoln working
on golf streams, fitness class jets, cabinet tree work for

(35:30):
the interiors. So that was the job. Darren said, I
worked three twelve hour days over the weekend for fifteen years.
Going back to eight hour days was insane. You do,
you don't get anything done. It felt like I was
barely getting my tools out and then you have to
go home. Now, that's kind of like putting the donutweight

(35:52):
on your baseball bat before you go to the plate, right.
It's just like you do something that so many people
I know, a lot of nurses do the three twelve
hour shift situation. You go there and you do the
twelve hours.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
A lot of people.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I mean, I look at people doing twelve hour shifts.
You're crazy. That's insane to me. Why would you do
that much work in a single day. You lost that
entire day essentially. But then they say, I feel like
I get a lot of work done, I feel like
I'm as productive as I'm ever going to be, and
I get four days off full four days off.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
They spend the first couple of days recuperating from all
of the time they spend on their feet doing the
long shifts. Firefighters too.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Yeah, especially you know when you're talking about like you know,
handwork and physical labor like that. Yeah, I can see
that well.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
The pressure and the stress of being a nurse. Oh gosh,
no one's coming into the clinic. They're going I feel great,
and I'm having the best day of my life. It's
it's a four alarm emergency pretty much all the time.
Everyone is the most important person who ever came through
that door, and the nurses have to manage all of that.
I don't know how they can put up that for

(37:00):
twelve minutes, let alone three twelve hour shifts at the
same time.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
It takes a special kind of person get into that
line of work. I will good ones are angels, and
they get paid well, I mean, maybe not as much
as they would like, But nobody gets paid as much
as they would like, I don't think. But I gotta
tell you, I'm not Most of us are not built
for that stuff, especially on those trauma wings of those
hospitals and what they have to see and deal with.

(37:24):
And oh, my mother in law does this, and just
hearing some of the stuff that she sees on a
day to day basis, Like I think I have nothing
to do with something like that, So good on you
if that's what you're into. Only sent in this note,
and we were talking about how you would piece together,
like in the service industry, for instance, like restaurants or bars,

(37:47):
how you would piece together if a place is open
for seven days a week, but the workers all of
a sudden are empowered enough to only want to work
four days and get their forty hours, how do you
piece together that week? He said, don't forget you have
to take into accommodation that the employees could complain if
they didn't get scheduled on certain nights, especially when you're
talking about weekend days or nights where a big game

(38:10):
is happening. Mainly go to bar and restaurant industry because
they want the tip money. And that makes sense too,
write like, the whole point of me getting into this
industry and serving in the first place, and wanting to
be good at my job is so I can get
rewarded with tips. So if that's what I'm into, and
I want to do a really good job for people

(38:31):
and for the status of my bank account, of course
what I'm going to do is I'm going to lobby
for a Friday night Saturday when their game day is
going on Sunday during the NFL games, Like, that's what
you Those are the spots you want to be in.
If you're trying to schedule me for four days from
Monday through Thursday. When I'm in this kind of industry,

(38:54):
I have no interest in that. I have no like
the amount of money I'm going to make via tips
is insane. You'd have to come up with a good
system where everybody felt like they got a turn as
long as they were doing a good enough job. That
would be my suggestion on that. John's on our phone
line four two, five, five, eight eleven ten. John, Welcome
to the show today. What's on your mind?

Speaker 6 (39:15):
A Brune.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
I'm a trucker.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
It's part time for US.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
Industry, so work week.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
You know, but it doesn't pay the bills and product
doesn't get moved, gas stations don't get filled up, and
your stuff doesn't get delivered to your Walmart that you
need the purchase through your weekend.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
So, so, John, what you're saying is there's really no
conceivable way in theory that you could you could trim
it up. Right. We're in and out with John. I
appreciate the call, John, I got enough of what he
was saying there. I think it sounds like maybe he's
on the move and kind of dipping in and out
of service area.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
He told me, I'm a truck driver, truck driver, and
forty hours a week is part time for me.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah, yeah, and that makes sense right. And that's the
other thing too, is if this industry, right, the industry
you and I do, could you even realistically like the
radio has to go on, Like there would still need
to be people here on Friday if we went to
a Monday through Thursday work week around the country. I

(40:15):
think that it still would make sense based on like,
what are we going to do make our radio shows
longer during the week? That doesn't make sense, So it
still makes sense for us to have to come in
on that fifth day anyway. Same thing with the truck drivers.
When a job needs done, you do it, and then
you get paid when the job is done, especially in
a job like that where you get paid for the

(40:36):
job that you're doing, which is why they're driving as
much as they possibly can. I feel like there are
some sectors, some jobs, some industries that are exceptions to
kind of what we're talking about here.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
And I appreciate that the truck drivers are trying to
make their jobs sound as important as talk radio hosts.
I mean, what we do is vitally important. How else
are you going to know what time it is and
what the temperature?

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Come on, talk about it, temperature. You get to hear
what my voice sounds like.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Three seventy seven groups. But what about you know what
what's going to happen is a lot of these as
we just celebrated Labor Day, which isn't basically listen ovation
to the unions, the labor movement. Yeah, yeah, we think
you guys are great. We're gonna have a day celebrating
you guys. Make sure and vote for us, make sure

(41:26):
and vote for our party next time around. And that's
all still happening.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Trump has been luring a bit more of them to
the right side of that political spectrum, and so now
there's a big fight over you know, who's really there
for big labor. I would argue the Democrats aren't illegal immigration,
but that's a different rant. A lot of the ovations
will be made for well, we're gonna do a four
They can't tell you know, you first national bank. You

(41:52):
guys are now giving your employees a four day work week.
This is going to be for government workers, which are
a lot in a lot of union and it's going
to be something for the unions. So these guys are
now going to Have you ever been on an airplane
where suddenly the air traffic control union or the pilots
union or someone says like, well, if we don't take
off here in the next ten minutes, I'm gonna be

(42:14):
done for the day. I'll be my time, will be done.
By the time we'd land, I'd be over my hours,
and I'm not going to work in extra twenty minutes
to get you guys to Charlotte. So I would just
strand the airplane, you know, or something like that. It's
gonna be an ovation to these labor unions to give
them more time off, which I'm not saying they don't deserve,

(42:35):
but you negotiate your hours, negotiate the time that you're
going to be working and not working.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point. And
what even it lends the conversation to what sectors would
even realistically be able to do this quickly. School districts
can do it pretty quickly over the summer, they can
just say we're moving to this four day work week.
This is what the schoolday looks like from now on.
You spend the entire summer telling your teachers to prepare

(43:04):
for that, and the kids will prepare for that, and
even the parents who put their kids in school. That
fifth day is a little bit tricky, I think for
maybe childcare, but I think in it tricky, it's impossible,
But that you know, it's not impossible because these these districts,
like a lot of them, are really small school districts
in Iowa that I'm referencing that I'm aware of, and
I'm sure that there are plenty in Nebraska around the

(43:26):
country as well that have gone to like a four
day school week, and they're just small schools, and this
is the way that they can attract good teachers and
retain teachers because they like the schedule. But I'm sure
there's a way that the school also can help with
a working parent or parents for that fifth day. Even
though school isn't necessarily happening for kids up to age

(43:47):
twelve or something, maybe there's you know, like a study
hall free recess situation. They can still spend time at
the school for a few hours without it costing a
time on more money in childcare. You know, that would
be something I'd be curious to learn how they accomplish that.
But for whatever do for that.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Teach them math, you're saying, put them in school, but
don't teach him anything.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
It's just like recess. It's just like a day. It's like,
you know, if I was a kid, don't teach me
math on my day off, like, let me do recess,
although I did like math at the time. By the way,
it was Democrat Grover Cleveland. If you're wondering in office
when for his second of two nonconsecutive terms the Trump
before Trump, Grover Cleveland was in his second term and

(44:33):
he was the guy who signed off on Labor Day
becoming a federal holiday in eighteen ninety four. It is
three forty eight. We'll have more wrap this conversation up
next on news radio eleven ten KFAB and Marie's songer
aout Feeling It Now.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Mister Drad on news radio eleven ten KFAB, I had
this from Jacob or Jake.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Jake is in the lawn service industry. He said, Hey,
I'm I own a lawn service generally I work every
day except ten to twelve hours a day. Ten hours
been a moment unless it rains. A couple of weeks ago,
when everything was growing like crazy, I worked one hundred
and thirty hours in a thirteen day period that included
one day off for a funeral. Got to make hay
while the stun shines. Also, if I wasn't the owner,

(45:15):
I probably would have a different mindset. But that being said,
I make good money and I've worked up to this
load over the last fifteen years. That's impressive. But you
know what he said there, that's important. He owns the company.
It's his company. And if I owned the company in
my literal livelihood, not just my job, but everything that

(45:39):
I've built, my assets that are invested into this company,
I'm gonna do what it takes. And this is another thing.
Who's made up of the right stuff to be a
successful entrepreneur. You know, there's a couple of different Dog
Pooh companies that I see perusing my neighborhood, and I

(45:59):
wonder myself how many like homes on a day to
day basis are they picking up? And with what frequency
can can you change? Are you the kind of person
that needs your dog poo cleaned up daily and you
just aren't willing to do it, or you know, like
when I had the three greyhounds and I had a

(46:22):
pretty decently sized yard, if I went more than just
like two or three days without picking that up, I
mean I would just have it's going to be kind
of graphic. I had, you know, like a solid chunk
of my yard was completely unusable because there were land
mines everywhere. So I could have probably used a company
like that. But those are people who are entrepreneurs, and
I'm sure that they're doing what they can. How much
you would you even pay for something like that right now?

(46:44):
They have their prices, But you have to have the
right mindset of being like this is, I'm going to
start a company. There's a need for this, and I'm
gonna go do it. And when it's your company, I
think you'll just do it until you can't do it anymore.
That's the whole point of having the company, right. I
don't have that me, I know, I don't. I was
very ambitious and thought maybe starting my own like side projects,

(47:05):
side gigs when I was younger was something I wanted
to do. But then I realized how much work that
took and watched so many people try and fail, and
maybe the failure is what scared me off of trying
anything that was a little bit kind of radical to
start my own, you know, side gigs or my own
like side businesses, whether that was you know, dog poo
or peddling in you know, refurbished furniture or something like that,

(47:31):
you know, something like that. I don't know, just I
didn't have it in me to tackle that. So to
people like Jake who were willing to work every day
for two straight weeks, ten hours a day to make bacon, congratulations,
you have my respect. I just know that would drive
me insane and I don't have that kind of dedication

(47:52):
for pretty much anything in me. I need, I need
those days off. Had a very thoughtful email here for Michael,
said Emory, with all due respect, the four day work
week is absolute insanity and laziness across the board between
my military service, working on communications structures, sell towers at

(48:13):
the sort, driving truck, and farming, and yes, at times
all of these jobs have been done in the same week.
I can't for a single minute imagine anyone with some
easy union gig or office job. Being so incredibly lazy
and frankly pathetic to think they should only work a
four day work week. That mindset needs to be weeded out,

(48:33):
not encouraged. It's laziness, pure and simple, forty hour work week.
I hope my kids never see their dad only working
forty hours a week. I'd be embarrassed. I often work
seven days a week seasonally. I still have plenty of
time for my family and hobbies. I play a lot
of golf, spend nearly every evening with my kids, drink
plenty of beer, and have more fun than most could handle.

(48:55):
Some say I put the fun in funeral, Hugh. No
one needs or should ever be working only four days
a week. Have a great day. Let's talk about this
for a second. First of all, Michael, thank you for
your service, your military service, your truck driving, and for farming.

(49:17):
All those things are worthy of Arita applause. I don't
think it's laziness that people are suggesting a four day
work week. I think it's trying to be efficient. I'm
going to work for four days, working the same number
of hours, and I could get the exact same amount
of work done over those four days. Is that really

(49:40):
lazy or is that just our society becoming more efficient
and getting more out of people in less time. I
can tell you by Thursday, I can have everything I
need done this week, or I can have everything done
by Friday. You tell me what you'd rather prefer. I
think most supervisors would say Thursday is probably the time.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
I'd like that.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
If that's an option, well, that means okay, well that
it would require me to get roughly ten hours a
day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to get that done.
Would you be okay with me leap not coming in
on Friday if my job is done? Oh yeah, sure,
I'll have whatever you needed to get done done a
day earlier and you get an extra day off, so

(50:19):
you have all the reason in the world to get
it done faster. Sure. I don't think it's lazy. I
think it's efficiency. It's getting more done in less time. Now,
there are certainly people who would take advantage of this,
people who would like not to have to go into
work more frequently because they are indeed lazy. But I
don't think that. I don't think the Scandinavian countries that

(50:40):
are trying this and having success with having the same
or more productivity from their workers in four day work weeks.
I don't think that's because people are generally lazy. I
think people are just more motivated to get their stuff
done faster so they get their full three days off.
Just my opinion. As for I hope my kids never

(51:00):
see their dad working forty hours a week. I'd be embarrassed.
My dad worked a lot more than forty hours a week,
A lot of the time. He was in a white
collar job. So certainly is it all the physical labor
that Michael was suggesting that he did on a week
to week basis. But I just remember being a kid
wishing he was home more. I know he had jobs

(51:22):
that he needed to get done, but he would spend
I can't imagine it was fun for him to be
at work until eight or nine pm. Now, Michael says
that he still gets a chance to have time for
his hobbies and for his family. I'd like to know when.
I think Michael probably is just a very special individual
who happens to have the ability to operate with maybe

(51:46):
less sleep than the average person and likes to pack
in different things. I'd like to know how often he's
playing golf how much golf he's playing. If he's working
more than forty hours a week, working seven days a week,
still having time for his kids in the evening. I'm
not saying he's not making it happen, but I would
question exactly how he's making it happen. As for people,
I don't know if there's any kids that are out

(52:08):
there that would really care that much that you know, Like,
if you were twelve years old, did you care how
much how many hours a week your dad was putting
in at the old job.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
I just knew that when there was a job that
needed to be done, my dad did it. That was
around the house. I presume that's how it was at
work as well.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
But you weren't counting the hours. Just like, Wow, dad's
home a lot more lately.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
It's just like you. You wanted to see him and
spend some time with him. I'm sure, of course, so
you didn't want to spend time with me, but I
wanted to spend you know. And the cats in the crate, Hey,
that was nice. Wait, wait to put that in there.
Who did that song?

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Harry Chapin.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
Let's keep it that way all right. Fun Lines open
for two five five eight eleven ten For two five
five eight eleven ten. We have Joe on the line. Joe,
welcome to the show today.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
What's going on?

Speaker 4 (52:58):
I just my quick question was, be instead of ten
days vacation for the first week of work with people
give up two days of vacation to go to a
four day work week.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Great question, Joe. We haven't even thought about this. I
appreciate the call man, Thanks for listening to us. What
do you think You're a guy that manages people, that
would probably be Would that be a fair trade? Because
you're already getting the extra day off per week. If
I'm taking two weeks theoretically of vacation, that would only

(53:30):
be eight days. Right, That checks out for me?

Speaker 4 (53:33):
Right?

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Do we also then take out all the you know,
especially like if Labor Day on Monday, A lot of
people are kind of breezing out of here on Friday.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Oh yeah, so a four day work week, but they
didn't take vacation time on Friday. They're just like, I
gotta go and make some calls and just gone, yeah,
you know, so do we do we subtract that off
of their allotment of days as well? How do you
how do you do, you get better surveillance on your
people who are out making calls in quotes.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
I don't want to do any of that. I want
there too. If the job needs to be done, are
you doing the job outside of that, I'm not going
to micro manage you now. If you're not doing the job,
then I can micro manage you to the with the
best of them. But you know, for a lot of
if you're a good employee, good things happen to good employees.
You know, you don't have someone breathing down your neck
at four o'clock on Friday, going hey, where are you?

(54:22):
What are you doing? But some of the most productive
people are the ones that work for themselves. They're working
in things like being realtors. Sorry, well, I'm now on
your time. You're able to go work look at homes,
or you have showings on evenings and weekends and times
that might not be convenient for me. I gotta be
if I want to be good, I got to be
on call whenever you need me. Talking about being on

(54:44):
call doctors as well, Sorry you can't. Hey, I'm off
on Friday because we only have a four day work week.
Can I come into the doctor's office We're not open
on Fridays. I'm not cleaning teeth or doing leg amputations
on Fridays. Sorry, you're gonna have to schedule at another time.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
Yeah, you're one hundred percent on point here. And that's
why if this would ever weerever to happen, it would
just take a reorganization of how we view work because
people would self to work those days that, in theory,
you'd like to get off. It's not going to be
Monday through Thursday for everyone. Your four day work week

(55:19):
might be Wednesday through Sunday, Wednesday through Saturday, or Thursday
through Sunday or whatever, and that's going to be up
to whatever sector. If we did do this, that people
would be like, Okay, this is how we're going to
do things now. Carl just sent an email and said,
I work for ten hour days. I mean, that is
a quintessential four day work week. It just makes it

(55:41):
easier for my employer to expect me to work overtime
every Friday. In Nebraska, there's no law place to protect
employees from working forced overtime. Do I like the option
of getting the overtime, Yes, but I'd also enjoy not
being gone from home twelve hours a day with drive
time included. Now that's a different conversation. Forced overtime. You

(56:01):
get good pay, what is that a time and a half?
Like you get one and a half times your pay
per hour usually, and then you're doing you're pulling ten
hour days during the week and then being told that
you have to do another day's worth of work as
forced overtime. I don't really like how that feels theoretically.

(56:23):
But at the same time, if you're not down with it,
nobody's making you stay at that job for whatever it's worth,
and I'm guessing you're making pretty decent money on that
fifth day. I would not be taking that job.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
That's just me.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Now, Michael might send me another email and say that
I'm lazy, and that's possible based on his standard. I
think ninety five percent of America is probably pretty lazy.
But as far as having to work a fifth day
after working ten straight for hour for ten hour days
in a row, and then being told that I have

(56:58):
no choice, like I have to come in on that
fifth day. I'll get paid overtime, but myself to come in, yeah,
I don't know. That would make me feel a little
bit wonky, but again to each their own. And Carl,
I hope you're making good enough money. Stefan, Welcome to
the show. What's on your mind?

Speaker 6 (57:15):
Hey, I was just calling to talk about the currently
beginning week three of switching to the four ten hour days,
and I got to say, I much prefer it to
the five day, eight hours a day work week.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
Interesting, So what about it makes you like it better?

Speaker 6 (57:33):
So it gives me a little bit of extra time
during the weekend, get the extra day there to get
some stuff done at home. And you got a couple
of days to do things with the family and a
day at home to just do anything that you need
to do around the house that maybe eve been putting
off for a little while. It's a good good reason
to get back to some of those projects you had sitting.
I find that I'm just as productive during the four
day week as I am in the five day week.

(57:55):
I don't feel like I come back to a whole
heap of work when I get back on that Monday
or Tuesday, depending on the week. It's worked out well
for us so far. We're kind of in a trial
period right now, so we got half of us working
like a Monday through Thursday and the other half of
us working a Tuesday through Friday, and we just alternate
to make sure there's always coverage. And it's been working
out pretty well and it seems to be pretty well

(58:15):
received by everybody.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
Stephan. Can I ask what kind of work you do?

Speaker 6 (58:20):
I would try to say specifically where I work, but
I am in an office.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Okay, so it's a white collar though You're you're not
like going out in hammering.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
Roofs or anything, well in a sense, yes, okay, all.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
Right, Well, just want to, you know, clarify just so
we know kind of what sector we're looking at here.
That's good stuff, Stephan, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
For calling in.

Speaker 5 (58:39):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (58:39):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Now see, there's a good example of somebody who says
have done both recently and the four day work week
is awesome. Miles sent me an email Emory at kfab
dot com and said, I'm not sure how working four
days permits laziness. What's wrong with enjoying yourself and leisure
time in the real world and valuing it more than
dedicating time away from your personal life. Unless your job

(59:02):
is self fulfilling, you can't get enough of it. Why
should we value our job more than ourselves, and how
could it be laziness if we're still getting all of
the work done and then permitted forty hours and four days. Well, Miles,
that's a great point. I think you're exactly right now,
again to Michael's original email earlier this hour said, I

(59:22):
think it's pure laziness of people only wanting to go
to the office for four days. I just think he's
used to doing a lot of physical work. He's doing
a lot of different jobs. He likes to keep his
brain going, probably has a sense of entrepreneurship in his blood.
It's just people think and feel differently. He's able to
make it work and balance it out. That's not going

(59:45):
to work for everybody. He is a very unique individual,
Michael is what Miles is saying, I think is everything
everybody else wanted to do. Is like, Hey, if I'm
getting the same amount of work done and I can
do it in four days, I would prefer to do
that and have a full third day to enjoy my
person life and as Stephan said, work around the house. Like,
you know how much more productive i'd be at my

(01:00:05):
home with a full day.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
No, you wouldn't. Yeah, I would Most of us we
always say, like, man, if I just had a three
day weekend, I'd get so much done. Here it is Tuesday.
All the stuff you wanted to get on Friday? Did
you do any of it? Most people don't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Yeah, because I don't get many three day weekends. But
if it was part of my week, like Friday just
became like this thing that Okay, the lights, my outdoor
lights need to just be restrung.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
If you had a three day weekend this weekend, what
do you need to have done? Can you already think
of like three or four things you'd like to do
around your house? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
You get on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Did these things exist a week ago in advance of
this past three day weekend? Yeah? Did you do them?

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
But I don't have any three day weekends.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
But if it was, but you just had one, Yeah,
But if I had, why didn't you do it? It
rained all weekend?

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Yeah, you had done it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
It was outside stuff. What do you want from me?

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
They done it on Saturday.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
On Saturday all Saturday.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Yeah, it's like I was doing stuff. I had other things. Hey,
if I had a three day weekend every single week,
I would find plenty of time on one of those
days to be incredibly productive at home.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
No, you wouldn't. But after after five months, you would
look fifty pounds heavier. That's what you would do. I
would be calling college football, going we need more day
games on Fridays. What are we doing? Come on, all right?

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Travis is on the phone line at four h two, five, five,
eight to eleven ten. Travis, what do you think about
all this?

Speaker 7 (01:01:30):
I've been working a four ten work week for probably
over ten years now, and you do get a lot
more done on that Monday or Friday off. If you
think it out in advance and plan, you do get
a lot more done. I work on a lot of
projects in my spare day off, and then, like the
other callers said, on Friday or Saturday and Sunday, you

(01:01:54):
spend that time with family and going to church. And
but then on your extra day you can get a
lot of those extra projects on it you you play
them out.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
So, Travis, you're you're endorsing the ten hour work days
for four days a week, is what you're saying.

Speaker 7 (01:02:07):
Yeah, it's because I could work a five eight hour
hour day five e to week eight hours. I have
that option. But I've been working the four tens for
I said, over ten years and it worked out very well.
I mean, you get into work early, you know, get
in at six and get off at four thirty and
U versus coming in at seven. And what do I

(01:02:29):
need that extra hour in the morning for to sleep?
I don't need that. I need extra time on the
extra day to get work done.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I love it, Travis, really appreciate you coming in.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Thanks for listening to our show. Yep, okay, all right,
there you go. Another ringing endorsement, Scott.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
But I know that guy. He is a contract killer.
His job is very rewarding. He would do it for free.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
If you want to call in. Four of the two
five five eight to eleven ten is the number for
the two five five eight to eleven ten. You go
see the news radio eleven ten. Kfab and Mari Sung
got a couple of emails here that are quite interesting
that I'm going to get to in a second. But
first the phone lines are open as well for your thoughts.
Four two five five eight to eleven ten is the number.
Four oh two five five eight eleven ten. We have
Emily on the line. Emily, welcome to our show.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Today.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
What are you thinking about.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Gray, Good afternoon.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
They were just called.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
I used to work four times for quite a few years,
unfortunately back to five a's. But the biggest benefit for
that is, especially if you have children, but your doctors,
your dentists, your banks, everything that's closed at five. If
you're working five eights, you have to take time off of.

Speaker 6 (01:03:38):
Work to go do that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
And so it was extremely beneficial to have that extra
day during the week to be able to go and
run those errands and get those things done without having
to burn sick time or vacation time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
That actually makes a lot of sense, and I didn't
think about it that way. Emily. Really appreciate the call today,
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 4 (01:03:54):
Welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Yeah, it doesn't necessarily go to answering the bigger question, Scott,
of those places would still have to find ways to
be open, you know, five six days a week still.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Anytime someone has a day off, whether it's Christmas Day,
Labor Day, or I'm working four tens and I got
that Friday off. If we want to go do something,
whether it's a doctor's appointment or a movie or get gassed,
they better be open. What do you mean this restaurant's
not open on Christmas Day. Hey, in a Christmas story,
they needed that duck restaurant. It's smiling at me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Doug sent me an email. I'll get to him in
a second. I'm going to wait for that one. Jason
sent this. He was explaining the Nordic countries. You know,
how Iceland specifically, and how their four day work week
has been going, and they have shown no drop off
in productivity. Jason says, yes, Icelanders also get their sixteen

(01:04:52):
national days off, as the four day work week in
Iceland is a reduction in working days rather than a
change in holiday policy. The standard paid haul are still
observed and employees are typically off work on those days
unless they're required to work, in which case they receive
additional pay. Now, I'm not saying everything that operates with
the people in Iceland would work in the United States

(01:05:14):
of America. Certainly a much smaller economy, much more manageable situation.
Socialistic ideals actually work pretty well when you have a
lot less people like that. When you are, you know,
one hundred times the size of a nation, you tend
to have a few more issues you have to kind
of operate through and especially with the size of our economy,

(01:05:35):
You're going to have to find ways to make that coverage.
But as you've been hearing here on this show, there
are absolutely companies and businesses and sectors that have been
going and operating through a four day work week. So
I'm pretty intrigued by you know how everybody's opinions are
on this phone lines are open at four, two, five, five, eight, eleven, ten.

(01:05:57):
Let's start with Chris today. Chris, welcome in. How how
you doing today?

Speaker 4 (01:06:01):
Doing great?

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
Hey?

Speaker 5 (01:06:02):
Two things. One, as far as the company is concerned,
many people get frustrated because they work a nine to
five and when they need car workdown or something like that,
they can't because every place closes at five. However, if
you work on nine to seven, your business is open
during hours when your competition isn't and could be very
beneficial to you because now you have another window that

(01:06:26):
people could utilize.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
To get and pay for your services.

Speaker 5 (01:06:30):
Secondly, for the employee, I remember when I worked four tens.
It was great because every time I took a day off,
I got four days off, so it actually worked out
less vacation time. With more days off, I have to
use less vacation hours for four days off and I
would have normally so And let me tell you, guys,

(01:06:51):
after four days or excuse me, after a three day
weekend every week I was ready to get back to work.
It wasn't so oh crap, where did that weekend go?
As Wow, I am ready. I'm ready to get back
to work.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
I feel good.

Speaker 5 (01:07:04):
So four kims are the way to go as far
as I'm concerned.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
It's great perspective, Chris and I really appreciate calling in
and giving that to us today. Really appreciate it. Yeah,
there you go. I mean we underrate that Sunday scaries
a real thing for a lot of people. Not something
that I feel that much. But I have a really
low stress job. It's just a matter of, you know,
just like planning my week out and what I'm going

(01:07:27):
to talk about. But I know what that feeling is
like when I come back from vacation, right like I'm
ready to go, like fire me out a cannon. I'm
ready to get back to work. If I have that
little many three days that's just built in every single week,
by the time I get to work on that first day,
I will I would I see that I totally would
be ready to go. Just like today I showed up
to work even with my allergies, just like I got

(01:07:49):
stuff to talk about. Let's talk. You know, we're ready
to go. So I that's an aspect we didn't even
talk about it. Just how much more ready and excited
you are to get back to work after three days off.
Tim's on the phone line four two, five, five eight,
eleven ten. Tim, Welcome to eleven ten kfab.

Speaker 4 (01:08:05):
Hi there.

Speaker 5 (01:08:06):
Yeah, I've got a couple of things. It has been
proven in the studies who bear it out that people
who work four tens can be and are usually more
productive simply because on five eight, so to speak, and
they lose production at the last couple hours.

Speaker 6 (01:08:22):
Or so of the day.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
And like you just mentioned the refresh rate on coming
back and I work three thirteen, that's my odd shift
every week, so I have four days off per week,
usually once in a while pick up that other day.
But the efficiency of that, the rejuvenation of it, really
has the dramatic effect. And Europe is certain models in
Europe they have proven.

Speaker 7 (01:08:44):
That to be the case.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
So there's no reason that we can't do, you know,
four tens and be very productive with that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Yeah, So if I had to give you the choice,
would four tens or three thirteen's be your preferred method there?

Speaker 5 (01:08:58):
I really like my three thirds teens because I love
my four day weekends. And I'm sixty nine years old.
I've got three sons, I've got aut eight grandkids, and
I'm still working.

Speaker 4 (01:09:08):
I enjoy it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:08):
And that's one thing for guys. We need to have
some gold productivity to crank out every day.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Yeah, so it feels like retirement, but you're working just
as hard as anybody else still at sixty nine years old.
That's really awesome, Tim, I really appreciate you calling in today.
Thanks for listening to our show.

Speaker 5 (01:09:21):
Enjoy it all right, thanks?

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Yeah, thanks. Wow, that's some good perspective too, Right, three
thirteen's he's working just as many hours as a regular
employee would just crammed it into three days, has four days.
Feels like he is kind of in semi retirement doing that.
Yet he's working just as hard as anyone else, and
he feels happier and more refreshed and rejuvenated, and he
feels like he's getting plenty of time with the kids

(01:09:44):
and the grandkids. Sounds like he's checking a lot of
boxes with a pretty interesting and unconventional work week.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Do you want the government to mandate that though for
federal employees?

Speaker 5 (01:09:57):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
When's the last time he had to call a federal
employe IRS, unemployment whatever and try and get someone on
the line. You're the three thousandth person in line. Please
hold on the phone all day and someone will get
to you in just a moment. We right, but Elon
already dozed most of these people out here. Now we're
gonna have him only work two or three days a week.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Yeah, but even if you did that, it's just about coverage,
right in theory, because the hours would still be the same.
And in theory, maybe you could hire more people at
a more acceptable rate and be more productive. I'm not
sure how the science would work on that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
I don't know. Don't get me wrong, though, I mean,
you can get rid of more government employees if you want,
if they're not necessary. I mean, dude, does Iowa need
two senators? You you got Chuck Grassley. He's doing a
great enough job to cover you know, two people. Have
him vote twice. You don't need another senator in Iowa.
If Jony Urns wants to leave. Let her go, just
have Chuck vote twice. I trust him. I don't live

(01:10:55):
in Iowa, but I'm sure our friends in Red Oak
could be very happy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Hometown of Jony Ernst. By the way, he's well, hey, yeah,
I hear the sarcasm dripping out of your voice, and
I do understand what you're saying. The reason it's working
so well for the people that are calling in is
because not every business has done this.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
If someone has a job where they can do it, great.
If you have a job where you're like, I'm just
gonna work a couple of days this week, but you
the more toilets you plumb, the more money you make.
If you decide you don't want to do it and
it works out for you, great, but that's someone else
to be happy to get those customers.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
That's the difference. We had Jake who owns his own
lawng care company and he just works every single day
as long as he can every single day. He knows
he has to take advantage of that, but he owns
the business. If you're just you know, a worker, low,
lower level, and you get the option to manage your
life and be more productive or as productive happier in
your own personal life and healthier in general because of

(01:11:53):
the way that you can schedule things out. I think
you should be able to do that and to tackle that.
But the reason it works is because now you have
a free day or two that you can actually go
and do the stuff while other stuff is open and
take advantage of that. So there is a bit of
give and take. And absolutely nothing we're talking about should
be mandated by the government for whatever it's worth. I
think the reason that this works is because people are

(01:12:16):
able to do what makes sense for them real quick.
Joe was on the phone line four two, five, five,
eight to eleven ten. Joe, what do you think about
all this?

Speaker 7 (01:12:23):
Oh, well, I'm a farmer and things. That was a
kind of screw things up for me because that would
be too a day a week that people wouldn't be
open for me to get.

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
My parts and stuff like that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:36):
I don't know, I don't care.

Speaker 7 (01:12:37):
For the idea of it.

Speaker 6 (01:12:38):
I work, I work a seven day week practically farmer.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Yeah, yeah, Joe, And I would hope in theory, right
the businesses that are going to this would still stay
open the same amount. They would just have to work
on like how to schedule people out. Instead of having
one person work eight hours for five days, they'd have
one person working four days for ten hours, and then
instentive one person working those four days. Maybe they just
move them to a different day so they can cover

(01:13:03):
that extra day and still stay open the same amount
of time. They'd have to talk about that, though, because
you're one hundred percent right. Our economy would crash if
everybody just closed up an extra day per week. There's
no chance. I appreciate the call, buddy, Thanks for listening
to us. All right, I want to get to Doug's
email here, because Doug had some words for this conversation,

(01:13:23):
maybe not some great ones. I'll explain next on news
radio eleven to ten kfab It's sim Marie and Scott
Voorhe's with me and we've been talking for a while
now about labor and the ever changing landscape of labor.
What it looks like potentially for people to work a
four day or maybe even a three day work week
and still feel as productive as they would be with

(01:13:44):
five eight hour days. Well, Doug sent this email, and
you'll have to help me out because maybe you know
Doug better than me. Doug is a good guy. I've
met Doug a few times. That's good, he says. Guys,
you're comparing Apple store oranges. Most of us do real work,
not fake work. Most work the line, and work never ends.

(01:14:04):
If your job involves a computer, you are fake work.
You're working air conditioning and you're not doing physical work,
so work is fake to me. Your job is lazy
office work and it shouldn't pay crap. The real worker
out on the line should also always be top pay
because we make all the money. Also, we work overtime

(01:14:25):
because we like the paycheck. Greed is a huge motivator
at five am and punching out when the sun goes
down ps at the end of the day. Whatever pays
the bills. Most of us have no real choice. We're
always working one paycheck behind, one paycheck from bankruptcy. That's depressing. Well,
that was a Doug in his email. Is he being

(01:14:46):
sarcastic grit? Does he really believe this?

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
He believes that, And I think he's responding to those
who are complaining, like I want to work only four
days a week. The people who put in the work,
they might not love every minute of it, but they
know that it's necessary to be able to pay those
bills and be able to put some money away so
they can retire some time or take a vacation or
whatever it is that they want to do. You're not

(01:15:09):
hearing them complain a whole lot.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
I get it. But at the same time, just to
interject here, hello, is that not mean something for people
to earn their way to a spot where it's a
little cushier, right, Like, I'm not here to say that
people on the line shouldn't don't deserve stuff. But the
people who work the line and then work their way up,
I think they have earned the benefit of being able
to wear a dress shirt to work and set at

(01:15:34):
a computer and manage a bunch of stuff and still
get paid a really healthy, decent wage. And I'm not
saying that they shouldn't also work five days if that's
what the going rate I suppose is for a company
like this. But if he's getting as much done in
four days as he is five days, what's the point

(01:15:54):
of that fifth day? I just don't understand, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Yeah, But the people who, as I was saying that,
they aren't complaining, they're just doing the work and getting
burned out and beat down by it, but aren't complaining
about it. They also would probably look at this going, heck,
I'd like to work just a five day work week.
I go home, I'm still bringing work home with me.
Teachers are grading papers, people are checking their email, they're

(01:16:20):
responding to work texts, They're getting calls from me, going
we don't have regular traffic updates coming in. Is there
anything you can do about it? I mean, people are
working now twenty four to seven, and some people either
put up with it, or they find something else to do,
or they complain about it and their work performance goes
way way down. I think Doug is responding to those

(01:16:42):
who are complaining. They're checking in, they're clocking in, but
they've checked out fifteen minutes before they come into work,
and they're complaining because they don't know how good they've
had it, because they've never had to work those long,
tough hours outside or military hours or first responders or whatever.
They're just like, well, I don't want to come in
here and move you know these this mouse around for

(01:17:02):
the next few hours. I was checking my Facebook and
my supervisor gave me a dirty look and say get
back to work.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
And I don't like that that's a different problem. Yeah,
but I think that's who Doug is responding. All right, well, Doug,
I agree with you. If those are the people that
are like having a hard time and they're complaining about
the way that their life is going, then yeah, I mean,
you can't help everyone as far as certain industries go.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
Though.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
If you're telling me you can be as productive or
maybe even more productive and feel better about the work
that you're doing by working ten hour days, four days
a week, it's in them a traditional five hour work
day or for five hour work week, then I just
don't know what we're waiting for. As long as you
can find coverage and all the companies stay open as long,
you know, as long as they've been open before, and

(01:17:47):
you're not losing hours being open, then I don't see
what the problem is here.