4-10s Work Week

The place where I work just announced a new work week option.  Basically we will have the option to work the same kind of 4 10-hour days work week that Governor Huntsman recently mandated for all Utah state employees.

Currently we work a 9-80 schedule.  That's where we work 80 hours in 9 days.  Most days are 9 hours long, not including lunch break.  When we work Fridays, we work 8 hours.  Then we get every other Friday off from work.

The new work week policy will give us the flexibility to choose either the 9-80 schedule or the 4-10 schedule, as long as our manager approves our selection.  Then we'll be given the opportunity to update our schedule choice every 6 months.  I'm intrigued by this new option, but I'm not completely sure which way to go.  If anyone has some good advice either way, please feel free to leave a comment. 

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

4-10s Pros:

• Every Friday off!!!
• Save gas by driving to work one less day
• Longer work days may be somewhat more productive
• More time to get errands done on Fridays during the day

4-10s Cons:

• Less time with family on work days
• More tiring work days
• Have to get up earlier to get to work; this could seriously impact my early morning Wii Fit workout :)

9-80 Pros:

• Bearable duration of work days
• It's what I'm already used to
• More available to customers and vendors who are sometimes not aware that we get every other Friday off
• Every Friday still has its good side; one week we get paid on Friday, the next week we have Friday off

9-80 Cons:

• More days away from family
• More commuting and more commuting during peak traffic times
• Need to keep track of which Fridays are on and which are off

About holidays...

I heard from a friend of mine who works for the state that they will only get eight hours of paid time off for holidays.  If an employee want the whole day off they have to use vacation time or make up the other two hours some other time during the week.  I am completely flabbergasted by this.  I just can't believe the state would be so inflexible.  I really hope that is just a temporary thing and/or I don't really have all of the facts.

As far as my company is concerned, they do have a slight issue with holiday pay this year.  There will be two remaining standard holidays in 2008 after we begin having the option to work a 4-10s week (starting 20 September).  If we elect to work 4-10s, we will only get 9 hours of paid time off for each of those holidays.  It's kind of the same lame issue that the state employees get, but at least it's only one hour difference.  Starting in 2009, they will have the electronic time card system updated and the allocation of holiday hours rearranged to allow for 10-hour holidays for those working 4-10s and 9-hour holidays for those working 9-80 schedules.  There will be 6 core holidays and an additional bank of holiday hours.  Those with the 4-10 schedule get 30 hours for flexible use, and 9-80 folks get 36.  So everyone will end up getting the same total number of hours.  

One glitch that may occur with this policy is that we will be allowed to update our schedule choice every six months.  I'm not sure Human Resources has thought that one through completely.  I can imagine some employees taking advantage of the system by electing for the 9-80 schedule during the first six months of the year when there are fewer standard holidays but more flex holidays available, then switching to the 4-10s schedule the last six months of the year and ending up with more hours of holiday paid time off than the intended 90 hours per year.  Perhaps HR will figure that out and create some kind policy to shut down that potential loophole.

Does Anthony work late today or all day tomorrow?

This new system could get pretty tricky if there is an incompatible mix of employees working 4-10s and employees working 9-80.  A lot of the work I do is done as a team effort.  If the digital hardware designers and software engineers that I work with aren't around on the days or hours I am at work, it could be less efficient.  In that regard I'm surprised the company didn't just mandate the change across the board like the state did.  Still, it is quite considerate to those who have personal arrangements to update (e.g. dependent day care) to allow them to continue in their current schedules.

Public Transportation

I also wonder what impact this will have on the public transportation system.  Many employees at our company are regular users of van pools, buses, light rail, and the commuter train.  Along with the state and the Church, our company is one of the largest employers in the area.  With the state and our company moving to 4-10s, I can't imagine Utah Transit Authority not reconsidering its Friday bus and train schedules.  If the Church were to adopt a 4-10s schedule as well, that would almost certainly result in reduced numbers of North-South Trax runs and Front Runner runs on Friday.  But even without the Church jumping on the bandwagon, I think Friday ridership will still drop significantly.

Pool Fun on Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day

The Slades are enjoying some time together on Pioneer Day.

We started out with breakfast at the Hills'. It was a bigger event than I expected. Besides Val and Noni, Mandy and Mike were there with Mike's parents, his sister Shelley, and Shelley's new puppy Henry. Lei Momi and Doug Sampson were also there with several of their children and grandchildren. We enjoyed fruits, breakfast cake, and bacon. I think my favorite was Momi's sourdough pancakes. Mmmm!

After breakfast, Noni let RaeLynn, Joseph and Ella jump in the small pools she had set up. She also set up a plastic sheet to "slip 'n' slide" down the hill.

For lunch, we devoured some delicious sandwiches from Kneaders Bakery. Delicious!

So far it's turning out to be a great day! The weather is great, albeit a bit hot. It's great to have the day off from work this year too. It's a fine day to celebrate. I'm certainly grateful to be able to enjoy this day in great peace and comfort. What a difference from the physical and emotional exhaustion that the original Mormon settlers to this area endured so long ago.

Current Big Project

We're working on repairing, replacing, and adding to our roof. Well, actually, we've hired a friend to do it for us. I've been Home Teaching Kenn Andersen for some time now. He's a very talented contractor and we're so excited to see what he's been able to do for our roof.
The old roof had two layers of shingles, so we thought it best to strip off all of the old and put down new shingles instead of just adding a third layer. Boy am I glad we decided to do that. We discovered a lot of damage to the wood beneath the shingles in several places. There was even one place that had a hole all the way through the two layers of shingles and the wood beneath them. Fortunately that was only over an eave outside the garage. Still, it was a lot worse than we had expected.
We bought shingles and other supplies from Harrington, just off of 21st South and I-15. The first counselor in our ward's bishopric is related to people that own/operate Harrington, so he helped us get a decent discount. We were a bit worried, though when Harrington called us just a day or two before the shingles were to be delivered. The color of shingles we ordered was not available in the style we had selected. It turned out OK, though. They offered to substitute a slightly higher-quality shingle for the out-of-stock kind. The color was very nearly the same and we wouldn't have known the difference in the style anyway. Who pays attention to roofs in that much detail anyway?
We're really excited about the addition to the roof. We used to have a covered patio area. When we moved in to the house, it had some corrugated fiberglass sheets attached to a simple wood frame to cover the small concrete pad behind our kitchen/dining room. The fiberglass eventually failed and I had replaced it (poorly) with PVC panels. When we asked Kenn to do our roof, we also mentioned that one day we would like to add on to our home. He suggested that we could add on the roof now since we are re-doing the rest of it anyway. Then when (if) time and budget permit, we can dig out a foundation and put up walls to fill it in later for an addition. That sounded great to us! Hopefully that will work out for us. We may have some difficulty with minimum setback requirements in the zoning ordinances in Riverton. We'll see how it works out later though. For now, it's just a somewhat bigger covered patio area, and is still within even a strict interpretation of the setback rules.
We're still not all the way done. Kenn will be finishing the shingles and installing the permanent support posts. I have some electrical work to add to it. And then we need to cover the ceiling and soffits, and paint the exposed wood. We can't wait for it to get done!