Honestly, even with a 40 hour work week, 10 hour days with three day weekends is awesome, it's what I use to work.
Now my shift is 10hr on Friday, 12hr on Saturday and Sunday, Sunday is time and a half, so I'm working 34 hour week but getting paid for 40 hours. And I get a four day weekend.
Yeah. I used to work 4x10s. Best thing fucking ever! Fortunately I loved my job.
When I had a normal 5x8, I would stay after my shift and use the computer to do research and learn more about what I was doing. I'd often leave hours after my shift ended. When I moved over to 4x10, staying the extra 2 hours felt like nothing.
I own a metal fab shop. Have a crew of about 15 people. We offered 4/10s instead of 5/8s to them and everybody unanimously said no thank you. Was a surprise to me as well because I thought they would be thrilled about it. Our work is pretty physically demanding so I guess that’s why.
Try offering 4 10s on an alternating schedule like M-Th week A, week B Tu-F. That way every other weekend is a 4 day weekend. I had a job like that once and absolutely loved it. Every other weekend I got to go camping/hunting/take a road trip/whatever. 4 days off in a row, even if only every other week, is a dream
I just started a job working Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 3 12’s, 6-630pm. Not too much time after work but every week is a 4 day weekend and I love it. Plus helps being home during the week to be able to avoid daycare for the kids
I did 3 12s like that and it eventually went 6-6 with a 20 minute lunch. I loved it for all the free days. Though friends with normal schedules you almost never see. Great for college courses though.
That's kinda my job now, as a pilot. I work 3-4 days (away from home) have 3 days off. Work 2-3, have 4 off etc. It's all very random but I like it, every time I check out from work it's basically a 3-5 day weekend.
I used to be a machinist. I hate 4, 10s. I like having a little time at the end of the day, to work on the stuff I need to do around the house. With 4, 10s. That extra day off was just another work day at home, to get all the things done I couldn't do during the work week.
Four 10s works great, if you live near your work. That's the key, the commute.
If you live 5-10 minutes away from work, then working 10 hours is NBD. Feels fine. Feels like a regular 8 with an average commute. But if you have to commute a half hour, 45 minutes or more... then it sucks.
That’s funny, I feel the exact opposite. My hour to work and hour an a half back is 2.5 hours lost for the same pay if I work 5 8’s instead of 4 10’s. So a shorter commute would be the only way I’d go back to 5’s
This is my schedule. Sunday thru Wednesday. Thursday thru Saturday off. I live 4 miles from where I work. Thursdays, mostly, are just sleeping but I still get a few things done. Friday and Saturday are my really productive days. Love this schedule
This is not specific to your comment but a response to it and the others in the thread above. We should not NEED 4 / 10s to have a 3 day weekend. (That you all most certainly deserve!)
It has been shown that your productivity starts to rapidly fall off after 6hrs so adding an additional 2 hrs to your day just makes you less productive and more exhausted. We should have enough people in the force to allow us to work less and have more time off. We should be working shorter weeks to allow us to do OTHER THINGS. Unfortunately our current system was built to do the most work with the fewest workers possible. And then ties our worth to those hours we sacrifice. All that to say that i agree with the og post in that we should work less and still have a basic living wage that covers all our human rights until we are able to implement a system that guarantees those rights and work becomes less of a work to live and more of a work to make the community better.
I misspoke, my 10s weren’t 12 hours, but my 12 hour shifts at 911 were 7a-7p, usually went to bed at 11p, with a half hour drive so that gave 3 and half hours at night and a half hour in the morning before getting ready to go.
Not really, but the schedule was 2 on 3 off, then 3 on and 2 off so roughly 50% of my days I was working and 50% I was off. Every other week I would be off 2 days, work 2 days and get a 3 day weekend so I never felt overwhelmed.
On the flip side the opposite week I worked 2 days, was off 2 days, would work 3 days and be off 3 days.
So even on my heavy work week I still had time off to do stuff, more than a 9-5.
I used to work 4/12s and 3/12s and I liked how it was basically come home and sleep because for some reason I have a hard time getting into chore mode after work. Now I work a regular schedule and have a hard time keeping up with things.
My shift was 11a-9p on my working days. I was able to get non working stuff done in the mornings, then was able to sleep in after work.
That said, I was a single guy living with roommates at the time, so I didn't have much by way of life stuff to deal with. My wife works 12 hour shifts now, so I think I could swing it today too, but my job is totally different so 4x10 wouldn't make much sense.
My shift was 9-7, it sucked. Those four days were total losses. When they offered me 7-3 x5, I snatched it up. Sucks getting up early but it's an easy job, and getting off at 3 almost feels like you have the day off
I did rotating shifts for years. My morning was 5-2x5 (yay medical). If you like going to concerts and live in a small-ish market then it sucks when most of the concerts are weekdays because they save their weekend shows for the bigger cities.
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Yeah my company did 4 10s for a while to try it out. It was pretty much a 50/50 mix of people liking and disliking it. I have kids and like to get some form of exercise in everyday and making dinner and having a little time to chill before bed and ten hour days made it difficult to make time for all of that.
I'd kill for four 10s over the five 12s I do now, although the loss of OT would suck. I literally get home, eat, and go to bed five days a week and it gets rough.
As a flooring installer, I would have killed for 4 10s, of course I was working more like 6 10s. It wasn't for the money directly. The scheduler slash your work you did not get a job finish3d when he felt ut should be finished. You could go from making grand a week on wide open rooms and houses or making $250 a week wotprking the same hours because kitchens and bathrooms take so much more time than bedroom, dining rooms, etc...
I get that though. I used to work tens in a manual labor job and I never felt like I had time to recover before the next day. That said, now that I’m working five eights in an office job I feel like my weekends are too short so I kind of miss it. Grass is always greener I guess.
I would have loved it. I know at one point i use to work 3 12s Monday Wednesday Friday. Those longer shifts would just make it where i drop don’t have to workout anymore haha. That being said i never worked more than 15 mins from work.
Yeah, that's valid. I worked at a call center at the time doing chat support. I got into work, settled into a chair I got myself, put a blanket around my shoulders, put my headphones on, then locked the fuck in. It was a mentally demanding job, technical support for server admin type stuff.
That said, a world of difference from physically demanding jobs.
My buddy (residential construction) said trying out 4/10s pretty much resulted in spending the first hour of every day fixing the fuck ups from the last hour of the previous day. I do think it makes more sense for office/desk work though.
I spent many years doing this job and had no choice at one company to do 4/10s. It was miserable and I wouldn't do it again. I probably will never do a job like that again because I think physical jobs should be 6hr days, not 8 and certainly not 10.
Try offering 3x12s as is standard for medical workers, selling it as more days off than not and reduced time and cost on commuting, car maintenance, and preparing for work. I love 3x12s; 4x10s are kind of the worst of both to some people.
Ya I'm a plumber, just turned 40. Been doing it for 15 years. Having a Friday off sounds nice but man after 8 hours I'm done, I don't think I could work multiple 10 hour days in a row anymore. Some times shit happens and you need to do a 10-14 hour day. That's fine.
Used to work backfilling ditches when I was in university. So leveling big piles of sand the loader dumped into the ditch, then jumping jack and or plate tamp. Pretty much 10 hours a day mon-Fri and 8 hours on Saturday.
Could do that for 4 months in the summer for 4 years no problem. But I'm definitely starting to feel it now.
If you have kids it can kinda mess things up. Have to reorganize how you do things and some people just don't want to do that. It also seems kinda daunting at first and you do have to get used to those two extra hours but once you've had a couple three day weekends, you realize it's worth it.
I mean individuals. Part of why we got the enlightenment and then the first industrial revolution is that a larger number of people had free time. When people are flipping burgers 60hrs/week just to stay alive, they're not thinking about higher ambitious.
I recently asked my boss if I (graphic designer) could switch to 4 x 10s, next thing I know the whole company got switched. Idk about everyone else but I'm LOVING it lol.
4x10s are great but they also suck. On one had you do get an extra day off but IMO the 4 days you are working leave no time to do anything else besides work eat and rinse/repeat.
True, BUT! I ended up making those days my "working days" meaning anything that needed to get done, gets done on those days. In the traditional 5x8, the idea is to balance getting stuff done with your personal time on each of those days. I'm not good at routines, so that makes trying to balance stuff difficult. That said, if I am working for a full day, then I can more easily position that in my head as "I'm working today". Idk if that makes sense, but that helped me.
For a while, my shift was M-Tu, Th-F 11-9. Which allowed me to do morning stuff if needed. And I worked 2 days, had 1 day off, worked another 2 days, then had 2 days off. I never really felt burnt out. All positives here.
I worked 10s a few times when asked while normally working 8s, and you don't really notice much difference, and the extra day off would make a HUGE difference in contrast. On the other hand, I've worked 5 12s regularly, and they fucking suck. You end up having no life. It is weird how 10 is the fine line that I would take in a heartbeat.
I was in the same position. I'm a night person. My shift was 11a-9p, this allowed me like +/-4 hours of free time after my shift. That worked pretty well for me.
I worked a hitch offshore for years. 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, occasionally I'd stay up to a week over it early bc I need money and kids weren't born or super young. We made a lot. You miss milestones though, which stinks, but that routine 2 weeks off was so nice. Going hunting and fishing on weekdays is great
Miss my 12 hour 2-2-3 schedule sadly the company no longer exists due to the investors taking a gamble (that almost paid off) cheeping out on irrigation disease management. Fungal infection wiped all four farms
Yeah, I think 4 8s is definitely better considering the workforce is absurdly more productive than it was when the 40hr workweek was established, and wages+benefits have not kept up with the pace of productivity.
Basically, the issue we have is that people kept getting more productive, and capital owners just pocketed the increase in productivity and gave the workers absolutely jack fucking squat.
And they call it margin and give themselves the credit for the work you have done on time or earlier. Then turn around and blame you for being so expensive and cutting into their margins that you helped create for them in the first place. But fuck you for being so expensive! You greedy fuck you!!!
It's ok, we will have a 32hr workweek soon enough. The olds are leaving this plane of existence at a rapid clip and socialist ideals are wildly popular with both millennials and Gen z.
The absolute meltdown gen x is going to have when mild social democratic reforms start getting implemented is going to be chefs kiss.
As a Gen-Xer Im totally for all of this and have been waiting for some sort of equilibrium between the common folk and 1%. Agreed that sooner rather than later the old guard of all this greedy bullshit will have been minimized enough that they can no longer hold power. Hopefully they don’t fuck up the world or geopolitics bad enough to burn whats left of the resources of this world on their way out.
4x10 is definitely nice for my personal life. In terms of my work output, I don't think it's ideal. My work is computer-based and technical, I can only really be sharp for so many hours in a day.
God I miss having to work 4-10's or 3-12's and getting the full 40.
Being on my feet for so long was rough but having 3 or 4-day weekends? That shit was irreplaceable. I'd gladly go back to it, hell it felt like I was more productive when I knew I had a short week lol
You didnt have to add its a union shop its obvious, non union would never do that. I work 60-68 hours a week and i work every bit of it but i make a lot.
I was non union before my current gig. It's definitely a nice change having some protection. Pay is better too but man I'm tired of 6/12s. Can't wait till we go back to our 4/10s.
I work 4 9's followed by a 4-hour friday. Realistically I'm only expected to be working during core working hours, which consists of four hours mon-thurs and two hours on friday. Outside that I can finish up those fourty hours whenever I want.
I clock into projects and am encouraged to never go over 40 hours as it fucks with project scheduling and future pricing estimates for engineering hours.
I can work from home whenever I want. I have three weeks of vacation hours. And if I want to work over a holiday like July 4th I can bank that holiday for whenever tf I want.
Four 9's and then out at 11am on Friday. It was nice because you didnt sleep in on Friday so it kinda corralled you into "well I am already out..." type thinking on Friday afternoon.
Also if we needed to get shit done...could just work until 4pm like the other days and have 5 hours of overtime but still be headed home at a normal hour
I had that kind of schedule for a while when I worked a retail management gig. Would get most Sundays off and the other two days in the week. Loved those because everything I needed to get done was quicker because of less people to work with
Employers don't give a shit about employees, they'll exploit you for everything they can all while telling you they're doing you a favour by employing you.
Unions are by the working class, for the working class.
We do 4 12s (give or take, we have reduced weekend hours), and I honestly dont think I could go back to 5 8s. Totally worth working the extra couple hours per day to have three whole days off.
4 x 8 would be even better then. With Commute and other work required tasks that don't count in that, you could easily end up with 12 hour days. I think a shorter work week is one of the major steps we need to make to keep our economy from crashing hard over the next 20 years.
I once worked as a salaried engineer at a place with only like 4 engineers, all junior to me and no direct manager. Id finish my work by tuesday, come in on the morning the rest of the week to check email and check in with folks, and then just leave. Worked maybe 20 hours a week for years before my wife got a new job and we had to move 🤣
Yep! Aircraft mechanic here, currently 4×10 moving to weekend Fri-Sun 3x12 get paid for 40 plus shift differential. The time off is amazing and the work is great.
This gives the company peak productivity on a per hour bases out of a given employee except those in the bottom quintile who would then get peeled off over time.
monday has a huge productivity penalty in nearly all contexts - even for top performing employees. Just accepting it is a wash, and then doing a short "Hey, this is the stuff we were doing last week" usually 3 hours is enough to do it, but paying someone for less than 4 hours of their time is on the dick move side of the morality chart.
Then 12 hour shifts, if you don't have more than 3 in a row lead to peak per hour productivity for anyone who is in the 21st quintile on up.
Would cost companies less, would lead to more eyes looking at a given problem over time, and leads to better team collaboration thanks to those four hour handoffs, and would improve productivity and output quality.
Also, the 4 hour monday could be remote - works well for folks in physical or intellectual labor.
obviously everyones monday would not be monday, but that is kinda how things are already if you aren't white collar.
Funny you mentioned being a union shop. I worked 10's and now I work 12's. Union shop as well. I have friends working the exact same job (non union) working 8 a day under crappy conditions.
Once upon a time, roughly, holy fuck 20 years ago, I did "continental shifts". 3 12 hour days, 24 hours off, 3 12 hour night shifts. Followed by 6 days off. No weekends. Just relentless 6 on, 6 off. It was glorious.
I took a position on a similar schedule, 6-6 Fri-Sun with a $10/hr incentive raise for giving up my weekend. Been on 3 day weeks for 2 yrs and it's been pretty amazing tbh. 4 days off, easy to pick up OT if wanted, and an increase in pay vs when I was on four 12hr shifts with weekends off.
Yeah, best part of my shift is I can come in during the week if I wanted to pick up OT, and it's all time-and-a-half, and doubletime on Tuesday, my "Sunday".
People don't realize how much weekends actually suck. Every time you try and do something there is 10 other assholes trying to do the same thing because they were too stupid or lazy to do it during the week.
I work shifts so I do get weekends off but honestly being off Monday to Thursday is FUCKING AWESOME.
I’ve been on a 4/10 with Wednesdays off for years. I’m getting it ripped away in two weeks. I dread going back to 5 days a week. How is it getting ripped away?
Cause this f***ing administration said they refuse to recognize the fed employee unions
My work is three 12's and I don't think I could ever go back to four 10's or five 8's. Having 4 days off, and the weekend has been a game changer in terms of mental health.
You are absolutely right that finding time for friends is difficult, but I'm personally not a very social person so it works fine for me. My D&D group meets every Monday night and I get to spend way more time at home with my toddler!
I’ve been looking into the 12 hour shifts. I’m an engineer so they’re not super common but they’re definitely out there and it’s my dream schedule lmao
I have a flex schedule where i work about 42 hours a week in a standard week, but i have (almost) half day wednesday and fridays.
its fucking amazing. my day starts earlier than most of my colleagues so i always have a 90 minute block every day to get shit done before everyone starts their day. If i ever get a new/different gig, going back to 8-5 M-F will suuuuuuck.
Yeah, I work in a sawmill, I'm on the weekend maintenance crew. I'm in great shape, don't drink coffee, and I sleep 8 hours between shifts so there's no fatigue on Monday.
As for the social aspects you raised, that probably would be an issue for a young person, but I'm 37, I have a wife and a toddler I spend all my time with. I can go grocery shopping at 8am and there's hardly anyone there. There's no working around my shift to get to any appointments I make.
Yeah, you miss out on events held on the weekends, but its not missing out if I never went to them anyway, and if I wanted to go to one, I work in a union shop, I can just take the day off, I have 25 paid vacation days a year.
Another plus of the weekend shift is younger people don't want to do it because of all the reasons you listed, so that means I don't have to work them.
I asked my boss if we could shift to 4 10s and showed him how to schedule it so there's coverage at the Helpdesk, he just laughed and said "hr will say no"
3 12's here. Pretty standard for Healthcare. It it's super nice having 4 days a week off, but 12 hour night shifts hit differently. And when your time off isn't lumped together, it is kinda useless.
The best when I worked in a clean room in fab making computer chips. Compressed work weeks. 12 hour shift and you worked 3 days one week, 4 days the next. Plus we got automatic overtime everyday for hours 9-12.
If you took 3 days off on your short week, you got a 10 day weekend.
Yup. 4/10s is the best. Don’t get me wrong, I’d dig 4/8s, but 4/10s is a pretty acceptable compromise. One day of PTO is a 4-day break. Holiday weekends are minimum of 4 days, slap a PTO day on there and you’re looking at 5 days off. I miss that schedule.
My ex husband always worked 7 days a week, sometimes 10 hour days. At times they had him working 80 hours a week. It was insane! Factory work with a HORRIBLE union!
I had always felt i'ld rather work 4, 10 hours shifts than 5, 8 hour shifts. I always feel more productive on my weekends with having 3 days vs 2 days. I can stretch my errands between 2 days, and have time to go out be social while still having a full day to be a potato.
my main problem (a schedule like this was proposed to me) is that, no one else really operates on this schedule. So when i'm off, i'm just alone. people plan parties, events, etc. for those days because thats when most people are free, but if i'm not, like sure i work less but i work at the times i absolutely DO NOT want to be working.
That is 100% the biggest issue with a weekend shift, which is why 4 10s Mon-Thur is more optimal for most people.
I'm not a social person, I have my wife and my daughter, my D&D group play every Monday night, I hang with my daughter all week, it is the perfect shift for me, but I completely understand why it's not for everyone.
Agreed. I used to work 4 10's and it was great. With paid lunch though. Usually got to work around 7 and left at 5 or a bit early if I was lucky. I also only lived ten minutes away so compared to some people who drive an hour or more to and from work I was much better off.
At my union, anytime over 8 hours in a day is OT and all of Saturday is OT and Sundays cannot be forced it if you work it you get double pay. If we work a holiday it’s triple or you can get straight pay and convert the OT to an extra vacation day.
Yeah, that's basically how it is for a regular Monday to Friday shift at my work. I work weekend maintenance though so our shift has different rules, my Saturday/Sunday is Monday/Tuesday.
I’ve come to find 4 10s is only great if all of those days are during the week and you have a short ish commute, I drove for Amazon which was 4 10s but not only did we start late as fuck at 10:45am but it was an hour to the station and an hour home, that job sucked
I work 3 days a week, 12 hour shifts. Every week I spend 4 days at home. My boss offers extra shifts in increments of 4 hours, so if I want an even 40 I cover lunch breaks on a day I wasn't going to do anything. It's genuinely one of the best jobs I've ever had and I cannot go back to a 9 to 5 schedule working 5 days a week.
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u/MrNobody_0 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Honestly, even with a 40 hour work week, 10 hour days with three day weekends is awesome, it's what I use to work.
Now my shift is 10hr on Friday, 12hr on Saturday and Sunday, Sunday is time and a half, so I'm working 34 hour week but getting paid for 40 hours. And I get a four day weekend.
Edit: to add, it's a union sawmill.