C&B Come Out in Favor of the 4-Day Workweek

BUCK: We got some more thoughts for you on something that we could say might improve your life just a little bit and is actually truly bipartisan right now. So, we’re ending on something of a happy note. The U.S. Senate has approved a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

Now, Clay, we have to break this down for a moment here because to me I just don’t want the time to be changing.

CLAY: Ever.

BUCK: The dumbest thing — this is before there was double masking, I think the dumbest thing that we were all made to do — was changing your clock twice a year, like, why, right?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: It made no sense at all. I am seeing people, though, apparently — I didn’t know this was possible — who are upset because they don’t like that the hour will be moved. It will stay forward, they liked the way — have you seen this?

CLAY: Yeah, I understand the arguments, and I’m sure there’s a break down of a certain percentage for our audience and the nation as a whole.

I think most people — I say most people — prefer to have hours later in the day as opposed to early in the morning, right? So, for example, when I get home with my kids, I would rather be able to run around with them outside and still have daylight longer in the winter, ’cause, for instance, where I live in Nashville it’s dark at 4:30 Central time.

So, you talk about how crippling that feels, you barely get the kids out of school, you get home, and it’s pitch black already. It feels like it’s 10 o’clock at night. It’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon. So, having an extra hour in the evening I think would be great. I’m just anti-changing the time in general.

When I lived in the Caribbean, I lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands practicing law down there, no time change, no time change at all. I loved it. We were on the Atlantic time zone all year round, because the U.S. changes, that means part of the year we were on the Eastern time zone, other part of the year we were on the Atlantic, hour ahead of Eastern time zone. I loved it.

I think the way to go is to never, ever change the time again. So we have to get it passed in the House —

BUCK: Right.

CLAY: — and then Biden would have to sign it and it would become national law because the Senate has passed it.

BUCK: Yeah, the Senate passed the bill — I think it was a hundred to zero, my — or it was — I don’t think anyone voted against it.

CLAY: I think that’s correct.

BUCK: I think even Mitt Romney had the —

CLAY: Even Mitt Romney.

BUCK: — had the gall, had the backbone to vote for this one. Yay, Mitt, you should be so proud of yourself.

But I’ll tell you this, man. This is, you know — this is opportunity — may sound a little crazy — this is opportunity to say, you know, all of this stuff is what we all agree to and what we decide society will be, four-day workweek, Clay.

Now I know I’m like the guy who is running for student council president who says we’re gonna have, you know, no homework and ice cream every day at recess and whatever, but, you know, five days, we only get a two day weekend, doesn’t feel like much? I know you are tweeting until like midnight every day.-

CLAY: I work way too much. And I’m trying — my goal in 2020 — I don’t even know what year we’re in — 2022 — was to work way less. And then it’s like whenever you make that goal, something crazy happens. We got a war in Ukraine all of a sudden, right? I was like, hey, you know what? Gonna have a couple of months where it’s chill, we know it’s gonna be wild for what we do as it gets closer and closer to the midterms. But I felt like, hey, maybe things are gonna be chill a little bit, won’t be much going on for February, March, April, May, a little bit of a relaxed time. And then we got a war in Europe. You know, you never can just take a breather.

BUCK: One thing that we saw because of covid is that there are people who, when they have a truly flexible work schedule, will be even more productive. When they don’t have to come into the office and they can do whatever they want to do and that most people — this why the movie Office Space is so brilliant.

I still recommend it. I love that movie. When he breaks it down for ’em, when he breaks it down for the two Bobs and he says, you know, on any given day I’d say I’d do 15 minutes of actual, real work.

CLAY: Yeah, right.

BUCK: Anyone who’s had kind of a boring office job, which I’ve had in the past, knows, a lot of time you spend at the water cooler talking about the sports or, you know, hanging out with folks and just sort of killing time. We could — look at how work from home has changed the way we think about work for so many people, millions of people across the country.

We could get it all done in four days, folks.

I know it seems crazy. I know you’re thinking I’m nuts, but we could, Monday through Thursday, and then the weekend could be established for all Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We’d the all be living better — I lived in Greece for a summer, Clay, they take like three hour naps every day. It’s ridiculous.

CLAY: I’ll tell you this. This was my big issue with practicing law. If you told every lawyer in America you get paid the same amount but you can finish your work as rapidly as you want, right? The problem with practicing law you have the billable hours system; so it’s not only how long something takes, it’s how long something should take. You could have 95% lawyer efficiency and probably cut 70% of all billable hours.

There’s no need for 80%, 75, 70% or so of all legal work. So this was my issue with being a litigator. I just hated how inefficient it was. And so I always thought, you know, hey, if you told everybody, if you get all your work done — and I think that’s what’s happening a lot with people who work at home ’cause there’s not somebody looking over their shoulder all the. Time, as long as you produce quality work, you can get it done fast, you got way more lifestyle time built around you. And I think there are a lot of people who buy into this.

BUCK: This stuff, you know, we take for granted there’s a system in place, you have to do it in a certain way, certain times. But I think we should really have bigger societal conversations not only about what — about the work schedule — I really mean — I really think we should have a four — I know it’s crazy, we should have a four-day workweek —

CLAY: It’s a bold claim. I didn’t know you were gonna go full pinko commie here. I will say this.

BUCK: Wait, wait but hold — hold, can I just consider — one thing. Parents who do homeschooling, one of the things I always find so interesting.

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: — is that they say they have their lesson plans and stuff, they often get done by noon or 1 o’clock.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: And then the kid can just be a kid.

CLAY: That’s right. I agree. There’s no doubt that there’s a huge part of the school day that is wasted.