Our June 15 meeting: Do We Work Too Much?

At our last meeting, the question came up, is AI going to put millions out of a job? It certainly will have an impact. We should all get familiar with AI, even if we are no longer commuting to the office every day. If you haven’t tried it yet, take a little time to try it out. The easiest access points are at the free version of Chat GPT (GPT 3.5) or at the Chat bot on Bing (works only with Microsoft Edge).

But looking beyond how AI will affect the amount of work for humans to do, shouldn’t we be asking whether maybe we already work too much? That will be the theme of our June 15 meeting. Consider this chart from the OECD. It shows that Americans (green bar) work more hours a year, in some cases many more hours, than the citizens of other rich countries. Partly that’s because of longer workweeks and partly because we Americans have among the world’s shortest vacations.

There is nothing new about the idea of living well by working less. In a 1928 lecture, John Maynard Keynes predicted that his readers’ grandchildren would live in a world where people worked far less than they did in his own time:

We may be on the eve of improvements in the efficiency of food production as great as those which have already taken place in mining, manufacture, and transport. In quite a few years — in our own lifetimes I mean — we may be able to perform all the operations of agriculture, mining, and manufacture with a quarter of the human effort to which we have been accustomed.  . . .  A fifteen-hour week is quite enough to satisfy the old Adam in most of us!

We are that generation. Keynes was born in 1886, making him just a little younger or a little older than the grandfathers of many of us here at the Cracker Barrel. How did Keynes’ predictions work out for you?

The dream of working less and enjoying life to the fullest is alive among our own children’s generation. Consider the FIRE movement. Its devotees are super-savers whose aim is Financial Independence Retire Early. But if you manage that, what do you do with the rest of your life? Sit on your porch? Go fishing? Not necessarily – although that is OK if it is what you want. Volunteering or working at satisfying work that pays less than your first career are popular options. As one lifestyle counselor says, “Early retirement means quitting any job that you wouldn’t do for free – but then continuing right ahead with work in something that works for you, even when you don’t need the money.”

Others have a different answer to the problem of working too much: Do the same amount of work, but package it into a four-day week. It’s been tried, and it seems to work. Will it catch on? In post-pandemic America, many think an even better way to free up time is hybrid work, with three days or fewer in the office. The time you save commuting can easily be the equivalent of a week or two of extra vacation a year.

Members of Gen Z, our own grandchildren, have an even more radical idea: Just drop in and out of the workforce whenever you feel like it. Less money, more funemployment. Are they bonkers? We might think so; they appear to disagree.

Come tell us your stories on June 20. Do you look back fondly at 80-hour weeks in your early career? Regret that FIRE hadn’t been invented yet when you were in your 30s?  Look on with horror at your grandkids’ experiments with funemployment? Whatever, come and share.

And if you have more ideas for the meeting, email them to us. Or better: use the comments box on our blog . Get in the habit of checking it for the latest Cracker Barrel news.