Yesterday Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah announced that many state agencies will be moving to a condensed work week. Instead of a typical 5 day, 8 hour/day work week they will move to the 4 day, 10 hour/day work week.
The rumor had been swirling around the State Office Building on capitol hill but many of us thought they wouldn’t actually do it. However, yesterday morning al employees received an e-mail about it. This caused quite an uproar in the office. Most people are either strongly for it or strongly against it. I myself am one of the few that have mixed feelings. I am really excited about an extra day in my weekend to spend with my family. However, I am not excited about getting up an hour earlier and getting home an hour later.
I currently commute into Salt Lake from Springville which is about an hour south of Salt Lake. I currently take the bus because of ridiculous gas prices. I am one of the lucky bus riders that has a bus schedule that will easily accommodate my new work schedule. However, some people are not so lucky. One guy was saying yesterday that he would now have to leave home around 4:30am and he would not get home until around 8:00pm with the new 10 hour work day.
Gov. Huntsman said that the 4 day work week would be a trial run for a year so they can evaluate the impact. Most of us believe that the 4 day work week is here to stay. My wife and I have thought of moving closer to Salt Lake but with the housing market the way it is we don’t think we would be very successful in selling our house we bought a year ago.
There are currently many things the state still has to work out such as day care for employees as well as transportation concerns. They are launching the 4 day work week on August 4th and the plan to have most of those issues figured out before them. It was quite an aggressive move on the State’s part. All I have to say is that I’ll know how I really feel once I start working 10 hour days. I figure it will be like days I spent working at Omniture. The only difference is I get Fridays off.