Many people in the workforce have complained about being tired and overworked in their jobs.
Because there is no other alternative to getting that weekly paycheck, workers in many industries endure the stresses of the job.
But what if the companies these exhausted employees work for could hypothetically alleviate their work-related stresses and anxiety by reducing their work hours?
Could you be on board?
Curious to hear what strangers online would think about modifications to their work schedule, Redditor LanaDelCoochie asked:
"Do you believe in the 4 day work week? Why or why not?"
People mentioned how poor time management was more problematic.
Marking Time
"Some jobs are literally waiting for something to happen."
– Leeiteee
Working Efficiently
"I don’t mind working if I’m busy, but sitting somewhere staring at a clock waiting for the time when I’m ‘allowed’ to leave drives me crazy. If there’s nothing for me to do, let me go home. You’re just wasting my time and your money."
– uglyuglydog
Slow Shift
"I'm food service, my first store was so slow I only needed 2 people in the afternoon. I intentionally worked 11-2 then 5-11 just so I didn't have to twiddle my thumbs and clean already clean things for 3 hours each day."
– BlueNinjaTiger
Stress Of Killing Time
"My current job (the contract for which expires next Friday, but is up for negotiation tomorrow) is 15-20h WFH at my convenience. I wake up at 3am, log in, and work until everyone else in my house gets up- usually, 7. If I need to add some hours, I log in again while my toddler is at preschool."
"A few years ago, when I worked for this same company, I was tied to a desk in a poorly-renovated school building and very frequently had nothing to do. I cannot tell you how many books I read during my days at my desk in the summer with nothing to do. I browsed Reddit a fair amount, sure, but it was easier to leave a Kindle window open just a sliver next to an Excel spreadsheet to look busy. I re-read a few of my favorites; I read many new things."
"But it was so maddeningly frustrating to be stuck inside at work with literally nothing to do, waiting for anything to come to my inbox!!"
– WomanOfEld
People discuss the pros and cons of working remotely.
Benefits Of Working From Home
'If there’s nothing for me to do, let me go home.'
"Which is one of the reasons I've liked working from home since Covid started. If things are slow and I don't have anything to do, I can relax for a bit and wait for stuff to pick up."
– Surax
Being Productive While At Home
"100%. I'm newish at my current job, so I try to be in the office as much as I can. But if it's a slow week and I already foresee my Thursday/Friday being slow- I'm staying home. I'm still doing what I have to do, but I can simultaneously do other things like read or watch something without feeling guilty, do some laundry, hang with my dog, etc. After my first full year I will most likely be normalizing this to be my Friday each week at the very least."
"On the other side of the spectrum, my last job was fully remote and I was a little too bored and also didn't push to do anything beyond my basic responsibilities, so that was very unhealthy. It's good to be at least moderately productive and accept a new challenge every now and again. I basically did nothing for 2 straight years."
– daveblu92
It's A Preference
"I totally get why people love it, but I am so unproductive at home it‘s crazy. Tried nearly every trick in the book, but when it comes down to it just going to somewhere else for work does the trick for me."
"I think working from home is a nice tool, but it certainly isn‘t a solution for everyone. And even working from home a 4 day week makes a big difference."
– Ulldra
Not For Everybody
"For me, I am discovering the reason for my unproductivity is lack of interest in the work. Like, if I go into the office then I feel I have to make it worth it by getting the work done. If I am working from home though... I feel so unproductive because I just don't care. Like I could get the work done easier while nobody is interrupting but instead I interrupt myself."
"I've got one more week in the current job then I start a new one where I actually feel interested in what I will be doing there. Who knows how long that will last for but it just feels more like something I'd like to think about than twiddling my thumbs."
"Not the case for everybody but something to consider."
– Libriomancer
The limited work schedule seemed to please a good majority of people.
The Popular Opinion
"You might be surprised. I work with a lot of folks who still do the five-day work week, but all of them have been incredibly respectful and accommodating of our 4-day week. They ask me to schedule a meeting or call on a Friday, I reply with 'I don't work on Fridays, what other options work for you?' and they invariably give me other options without batting an eye. And frequently say 'I wish we were on a 4-day week, too.'"
– Mehitabel9
The Thing About Fridays
"It’s because even people who 'work on friday' don’t really work on Friday. Especially if your office has a WFH policy, 90% of the company will be from home on a Friday. And 95% of that group is signing off at 1pm, and breezing through their morning/just shaking their mouse. Just watch peoples skype statuses on Fridays lol."
"And even before Covid when I had to go into the office on Friday, it was well recognized that Fridays were for chilling. You don’t schedule a 3pm friday meeting."
– Count_Rostov_
Worker Burnout
"Yes worker burn out is real."
"So much work in offices is just created to fill time, make things more efficient, pay people the same, get the same amount done with happier workers."
– lemons_of_doubt
Opinions varied across the board since different jobs come with specific demands.
But the overall complaint had to do with the mismanaging of time, with many arguing if there was no further work to be done at an office, employees should be sent home.
Conversely, even a handful of those who worked remotely had the itch to be in a less distracting environment.
Personally, I'd rather be working from home than inside a cubicle at a job location–even though the latter may be more conducive to work efficiency.
What are your thoughts?
Reddit user Janine_18 asked:
"What's the one thing you'll never tell your SO?"
Love/Hate Relationship
"She loves her siblings and hates her parents."
"I hate her siblings and love her parents."
"They were very tight with their parents for the first 3 years of our relationship, and in 2017-2018 all hell broke loose so to say. My partner has no personal animus towards her parents, she is however extremely close to her older sibling who has a heap of problems with their parents."
"My partner follows their lead and it guides her own relationship with their parents. And the reason her siblings have huge problems with their parents is that they retired, moved 20(!) whole minutes away from their childhood home and went on a vacation for a month.
"They are apparently 'selfish', 'inconsiderate', and 'don’t think of themselves as parents'. This despite the fact that they call and visit for every holiday, birthday, promotion, celebration of any kind. Dog and babysit. Frequently host. Communicate well."
"No the absolute truth is that my partner's siblings are black holes and not great."
"Would 'I radically dislike your one sibling and don’t trust the other at all” be a viable middle ground?'."
~ Agreed_fact
Sweet Tooth
"A few years ago, my girlfriend put a candy bowl in our hallway at our apartment for Halloween. She came home that day to discover that nobody took any candy, and she was a little bummed."
"Over the course of that week, I'd take candy out before work or when she was asleep."
"She got so happy that 'the neighbors loved the candy'. She does this every year now, and I have to continuously swipe the candy and pretend it is the neighbors."
"It makes her happy, and I get free candy. Win win."
~ AlecsWebHair
GiphyIn It For the House
"That I know she cheated on me and the only reason I haven't left her is because the mortgage interest rates are a bit high so I can't comfortably buy her half of the equity we have in the house."
"I got a valuation, a mortgage pre-approval, and a lawyer all ready to go... But would only have about $21 per week to spare... I'd be screwed the first time a major appliance or the car breaks down..."
~ H_He_Metals
Mommy Dearest
"That her mother is a bad person in disguise of a caring and beloved figure."
~ Relative_Rich8169
"My pet name for my girlfriend is Bambi."
"She thinks it's because has big brown eyes, but really it's because I want to shoot her mother with a rifle."
~ airblizzard
Giphy"That's my mother in law. For her daughter, she'll do anything... to the point that it's overbearing and controlling and difficult to deal with."
"And for everyone else, she is one of the least empathetic people I've ever met..."
"She CRIED when Rush Limbaugh died, and she literally said the Proud Boys are like the Boy Scouts. But she'll drop $2,000 on Christmas presents for one person like it's nothing, so she thinks she's owed respect and kind words."
"I literally had to tell her at one point, 'If you want me to stop calling you a Nazi, buying me more presents or arguing with me isn't going to do it, you have to stop saying Nazi-friendly sh*t'. But she didn't stop, of course."
"She thought COVID was no big deal until a family member died of it."
"She also makes tons of snide comments about my work. I'm a lawyer in Big Law, I make great money but it's soul sucking and I never wanted to do this forever, I want to work for the government."
"She'll see a postal worker and say 'That'll be you one day, government worker, not a great way to provide for my daughter'."
"Her daughter, my wife, is a DOCTOR who is going to make more than I do no matter what job I work, and she herself is a dentist who worked until her banker husband could retire at the same time as her."
"She talks sh*t about how I made her daughter an atheist (I didn't, she did that on her own), but she herself has NEVER read the Bible and hasn't been to church in 20 years."
"She unironically believes in aliens, Big Foot, and ghosts, and thinks she saw Mother Mary in the sky."
"All the bad things I tend to think about Republicans (they don't care about an issue until it personally affects them, they have no standards except double standards, they use religion as a cudgel but don't actively live a spiritual life, they believe insane sh*t with zero evidence, they're old fashioned and judgy and can't accept that the world is changing around them, etc...) is her to the letter."
~ 2Charming-Fig-2544
Magic the Retirement Fund
"How much my Magic the Gathering collection is worth."
"They'll absolutely try to get me to sell some of it."
"It's my precious."
~ Ganthamus_prime
GiphyFirst Impressions
"When he and I first met, I was CERTAIN he was gay."
"He is very much NOT gay."
"And he will NEVER know I ever thought this."
~ ShinyIrishNarwhal
No Llama Drama
"When me and my wife first started dating, I had a dumb canvas painting with a llama and rabbit on it that I found at Walmart. I showed it to her and told her how much I loved it just because it was just such a dumb random thing to find."
"For some reason she took that as I love llamas and that they are my favorite animal. So now, every time she sees one or something with a llama on it I see her brighten up to show me and I get excited with her!"
"Llamas are not my favorite animal. Never have been. I don’t know how she made this connection, but i will never tell her otherwise because seeing her face light up every time is way better."
~ WhereTheChapstickAt
GiphyRelationship by Google
"I spend a couple hours doing research on how to make relationships work and keep her happy in the long run."
"She thinks I'm this awesome perfect guy but I just do what the internet tells me."
~ BadRobot___
Chemical Warfare
"He thinks I don’t fart around him because I’m too shy or polite."
"It’s really because they are so bad they could kill a horse."
~ Neonpantsuit
GiphyAre There Raisins?
"I don't like the potato salad she makes, and she always tries to make it as a treat for me."
"It's my mom's recipe, but doesn't taste like mom's."
~ Bean_Juice_Brew
*yawn* 🥱
"The spot you make me sleep in on the bed is uncomfortable but I lay there because you're comfortable where you are."
~ legacyrisky
GiphyConfessions
"We’re both in college, and last semester we both had a cold at some point. He had it much, much worse than I did, so I went to class and he skipped."
"Afterwards, I went to his dorm to share notes and take a nap. I was almost asleep, and I’m assuming he thought I was, because I felt him squeeze me and whisper, 'I love you so f**king much'.”
"It was the sweetest thing ever and I’m never telling him I know he did that."
~ scorpiomooon
Maybe a Farm Upstate?
"I definitely didn't kill that massive spider, and I have no idea where it went."
~ Cothak88
GiphySo, these weren't too awful, right?
What secrets are you keeping?
People's Wildest 'WTF Is Wrong With You?' Experiences
We all have that moment where someone we know says something so completely absurd, the only response we think of is 'WTF is wrong with you?'
Sometimes, it's something woefully inaccurate that you can't wrap your head around the fact that someone believes that.
Othertimes, it's something completely offensive and you regret your association with that person.
My college roommate was a girl I knew from my high school. I didn't know her too well, but we had some big things in common, so I figured it'd be fun to live with her.
This girl was half-Korean and talked a lot about racist people. At first, I let her rant, figuring maybe she or someone in her family faced some racism. I faced some myself, and I agreed with most of the things she said about racists. Eventually, however, I realized she was equating the word 'racist' with the word 'white.'
I spoke to her once, telling her she can't use 'racist' and 'white' interchangeably. She agreed to stop doing that, but within a few days, she started doing it again. She was a very bright girl, so I was a little concerned about this, especially since her own dad was white and was possibly the nicest man in the world. Not to mention, this made her and her siblings half-white too. Did that mean they were all half-racist?
I stuck by her for a while, but when she started saying things about what she wanted to do to racist people (once again using the word 'white' instead of 'racist'), I realized I couldn't be around her anymore. She couldn't talk about anything else after a while, and every time she spoke, I wanted to say, 'WTF is wrong with you?'
We did not room together the next year.
Redditors have stories similar to mine (and some even crazier), and they are eager to share.
It all started when a Redditorasked:
How To End A Friendship
"In college I used to kill time between classes hanging out with a guy who was from the same redneck county as myself. We didn’t really have much else in common, but he was nice enough and seemed eager to socialize so I figured why not. I wasn’t overly social myself and didn’t know a whole lot of people."
"One day we decided to go somewhere off-campus, and he drove us. While driving, on an interstate mind you, he proceeds to show me his handgun that he kept in his truck - not in a menacing way, but in a “Ain’t that cool?” way."
"I was not immediately frightened, but I respect firearms enough to recognize we are going like 60-70mph on an interstate in daylight, and nothing good can happen in this scenario. I calmly asked him to put it away because I was not comfortable in this situation at all. He then tells me “Oh it’s not loaded” and presses the gun to his head before pulling the trigger."
"Thank f**k he was right, but still it was a wild and frightening display of reckless disregard for his own life and mine for that matter in the event that he’d accidentally killed himself while driving us. I didn’t hang out with him much after that, certainly didn’t get in a car with him."
– omjf23
"“It’s not loaded” famous last words of many an idiot."
– GloInTheDarkUnicorn
The Worst Kind Of People
"When my dad was in the nursing home, they weren't running certain expenses, like ambulance rides, through his insurance. When I took over his financials, he was tens of thousands in medical debt that shouldn't have ever been charged to him in the first place. He was in numerous collections, and his credit score was tanked."
"When I complained to the nursing home director, he said, "Well, it's not like he's going to be buying a house or a car!" Then he laughed."
"My dad was paralyzed from the waist down and needed lifelong care, so he was never going to leave the nursing home. Even though he was technically correct, I gave him the "WTF is wrong with you look." Then I complained to HIS boss and he got canned a couple a weeks later. My dad's insurance was fixed pretty quick, too."
– MNWNM
"“Sorry, what was funny about that? Could you please explain.”"
– v3n0mat3
...Seriously?
"MIL told my wife she should divorce me bc I googled whether a lasagna should be covered with foil while cooking."
– Struggle-Silent
"This is my first laugh of the thread lmao wtf."
– koreantrvp
"It actually ruined this entire trip. It was at my BIL’s wedding, which was only close family (siblings + parents) and they had the caterer make a lasagna for an evening dinner."
"Father of the bride was gonna pop it in the oven and asked if it should be covered. I googled lasagna cooking instructions and said yes it should be covered and cooked at this temp. MIL said absolutely not!"
"Me and the father of the bride kinda gave each other a look and he covered it. MIL was furious and texted my wife that I was an a hole and she should divorce me before we had kids."
– Struggle-Silent
Hostile Work Environment
"Boss at old job told the team we needed to ‘get used to a healthy level of conflict, fear and anxiety in the workplace.’ I dipped so fast after that."
– Prestigious-Energy69
"Similarly, a boss told me that I owed him my loyalty because he was paying me."
– Kylearean
How To End A Relationship
"A girl I was with while we were still together just looked at me while I was driving to her house and said.” You know I would get over you faster than you’d get over me” I was like …… Tf did you just say?"
– omega91301
"Huh. And just like that I'm over you."
– Pineapple_Spenstar
"Honestly, that would absolutely do it for me. When I was younger, I would be stupid and hurt and argue. I'm past 50 and I got no time for that nonsense."
– Terpsichorean_Wombat
There Are Other Ways To Stave Off Boredom
"I was DD for some buddies who wanted to go to a particular dance club in Baltimore. They're all hammered, it's too loud and we've been there for several hours. Casually an older woman next to me chats me up and notices my eyes are nearly crossing from boredom. I explained what I was doing there and casually (stupidly) mentioned I'm a bit bored. This psycho BITES ME on the chest! Afterward says "Well ya ain't bored now, are ya??""
– Mike7676
"Well, were you bored after that?"
– DontWannaSayMyName
"I must say, I was not!"
– Mike7676
That Goes Both Ways!
"I'm a man who works with kids, and when I started this job, I was talking to one of my old coworkers about how every once in a while I'll get weird looks for being a man working with kids and my coworker said I deserved it because some men can't be trusted with kids. I was shocked and she went on to say that I did it to myself and deserve to be questioned about it. I immediately stopped talking to her."
– Dolhedew
"What? What in the actual f**k? Doesn’t she know there are women who can’t be trusted with kids?"
– Anonymoosehead123
That Escalated Quickly
"The lady that accused my kids of cutting the line. (They hadn't, I was watching). When I went to ask her what was wrong, she told me to go back to my own country with that sh*t. (I was born in Massachusetts.)"
"The line was to pet dogs at a Renaissance Fair."
– pasafa
Everything All At Once
"While alone with a coworker, he told me that "women in the work place will lead to the decay of the fabric of society" to me. A woman. He also asked me out, got an attitude when I didn't say yes and continues to walk around with huge incel energy. He always complains that he has no one to go home to yet refuses to look at himself as a possible reason."
– Nopeferatu31
"Sounds like they should learn something from the phrase, "if you meet one a**hole, they're the a**hole. If everyone you meet is an a**hole, you're the a**hole.""
– tmpope123
Ouch!
"I told a coworker my wife had died."
"Her response: "You're one of those bald middle aged guys with a dead wife.""
"Me: "Yeah.""
– WalrusCello
"I want to think this was a wholesome thought that came out wrong. An awkward attempt at dark humor."
– ThisUsernameIsTook
*Cringing*
"Had an otherwise normal co-worker who was completely convinced windmills will cause the earth to stop spinning."
– Shadowmant
"WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!"
– Torvaun
These are all crazy 'WTF is wrong with you' stories, but that last one blew my mind in 'how is it possible people think that could be true' sort of way!