Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy has once again called for longer working weeks has returned, this time with an emphasis on schedules like the 996-pattern used in parts of China.
Murthy’s comments revive a debate which began in 2024, when he argued that Indian employees should work 70 hours a week.
Infosys co-founder once again calls for longer than 70-hour weeks - and no, he's not joking
Submitted 4 months ago by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 4 months ago
These are the people that own the GIF image format. Pronounced like Giraffe. Not known to many of you. This is the company that twice threatened to sue or sued multiple companies over the use of GIF. The first time was at the birth of the web and the last time was when their patent was expiring. Its the only thing the company has ever really done with a worldwide impact and they shit on it every chance they got.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yeah, go fuck yourself guy
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
How long until a CEO openly argues for slavery?
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It’s called prison labor.
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
I mean they fantasize about imprisoning the unemployed and the poor so basically they’re half way there.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Another bag of shit that believes in China’s 9-9-6 BS so he can float on a yacht. Stay in India loser!
Stern@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Overwork people until they die/kill themselves, great idea, what could go wrong. Really, I want to see homeboy do a month of whatever his lowest employee does with that schedule and THEN say he’s still for it. Bet he’ll be real fuckin’ quiet.
zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
He would go back exactly to where he was. These people have no empathy
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Shit like this should be shown to people who argue against unionization.
Remember, the parasites will take everything they can, even if it means their eventual demise.
BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The ultimate goal of capitalism is to have an infinite pool of workers, working infinite hours, for $0.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
And who will buy the results of their labour?
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Don’t forget each worker also has to simultaniously spend $∞ on goods and services.
oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Fuck that! We should be aiming for 21-28 hours being the normal length of the employed week for everyone everywhere, and it not being necessary to work any more than that unless you want to for yourself. We can’t accelerate forever, we need to do less work hours and have good quality of life, otherwise what’s even the point of technology?
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Arguably we are already there. Depends how much you want to yourself. My house? No comrade, our house.
Share a house and you can do very little work. You could take it pretty far too. Think of those capsule hotels, could fit loads of capsules in my current bedroom even if you want to have your own capsule - sharing can further increase population. Less than 20 hours of work a month for static fees (mortgage, tax) per person. Food is about 4 hours of work a month. Heating wont change, though you will use more hot water for washing, probably 2-5 hours of work for energy and water.
All essentials covered, less than 30 hours of work a month required per person. Basing this on my expenses in the UK and minimum wage.
sleen@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
Technology is now used as a tool to perpetually force the working class to obey the ever increasing draconian rules. AI is one thing, highlighting that all it matters to them is a profit with no gratitude towards the workers.
This is essentially legal slavery, fuelled by big corp and the governmental bootlickers.
FireWire400@lemmy.world 4 months ago
And yes, he’s ragebaiting
Balldowern@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
When his stocks tank as people leave his company in droves, he would realise. Always hit them where it hurts - their wallets.
And009@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
Where most face unemployment, not gonna happen anytime soon.
kautau@lemmy.world 4 months ago
“You worked really hard this year. 60 hour weeks. Impressive but you can do more. See that rolls Royce in the parking lot? If you work 80 hour weeks next year and everything works out, I’ll be able to buy a second one.”
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 4 months ago
Japan has a habit of doing this. The birth rate cratered, productivity is not that great and economic growth is famously low. Most workers do a form of performance theater, an actual “we pretend to work”.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
A form of wage theft that’s common in the US (and elsewhere) is that workers are expected to still do work when they have already clocked out (such as closing up the shop).
I have a Japanese friend who told me that it’s not uncommon that if your work colleagues are going to the bar after work, you are expected to go along. If you don’t, it shows a lack of commitment to your job. As it’s not a formal requirement, of course you don’t get paid for this, despite it being functionally mandatory. What’s worse is that you can’t just stick around for one drink and then head home — you are expected to stick around at least as long as your boss, even if he (let’s face it, the boss is probably male) is still drinking long into the night. I consider this to be an especially egregious form of the wage theft I described above.
It sounds so exhausting that I would likely be unable to do anything besides pretend to work, and even that would lead to inevitable burn out. I had heard that the work culture in Japan was bad, but I had no idea how bad until my friend shared some first hand experiences with me.
filcuk@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
So stupid. Wasting potential personal time for such theatrics.
They should take inspiration from my coworkers, who don’t even bother to pretend.
palmtrees2309@lemmy.world 4 months ago
MoFo wants 80 hour work week and pays 4,353 USD per year to Indian CS graduates.
hellothere@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Talk about telling on yourself having no idea how to run a business.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I do not understand his logic.
Paying someone 70 hours has the same cost as paying two persons 35 hours, right? (In my country technically no, because higher base taxation)
Someone working 70 hours is a mindless drone. This is how you get 13" iPads accidentally sold for 15€ “because the computer said so” (happened in a big box retailer in my country, no human involved in the process objected the price until WEEKS after the sale, when accounting noticed it, and they had to beg customers “pwease return our €1000 iPads and we give you a €25 gift card as a token of gratitude” and everyone just laughed about that)
Especially for developers, for the same price is better to get two that can do tasks with full attention rather than a single one that after 12 hours of job is just mindlessly clicking on “accept” on whatever a LLM is spitting out or half assing solutions because don’t have the right state of mind to think for a proper one.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Paying someone 70 hours has the same cost as paying two persons 35 hours, right? (In my country technically no, because higher base taxation)
I mean it isn’t, but the difference is like marginal, but you get added costs like more hardware,more HR needed ( after a certain number of people) It support for those people etc.
But really it’s penny pinching.
themurphy@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
That’s the thing. They wont pay you more. Maybe some people would get the extra money, but all new employees would get the same salary for more hours.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
Paying someone 70 hours has the same cost as paying two persons 35 hours, right? (In my country technically no, because higher base taxation)
What he wants is to pay one person for 70hrs, the same as he’d pay one person for 35 hrs.
Chulk@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
And he wants person 2 to be desperate for person 1’s job
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 4 months ago
AND he will massively underpay that worker for their 35 hours.
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
I am not an advocate of slavery generally speaking but I do think that it is a just and righteous thing to enslave someone like this and to use them for backbreaking labour for 20 hours per day.
Like. Make it pointless too. Dig this hole. Fill that hole. Dig it again.
Feed them stuff you find in dumpsters. Beat them if their hole digging is going to slow. Test cosmetics on them. Sell them to be used for sex.
That seems right to me.
dukemirage@lemmy.world 4 months ago
weird revenge fetish
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 4 months ago
You’re using the word “slavery” rhetorically, more or less, but in the eyes of a Sociopathic Oligarch, we are already living on literal slave wages. They couldn’t imagine living on the average annual income in this country, but they expect us to, and work harder on top of it.
They would pay us nothing, like the olden days, but then they’d have to cover our food and housing, and that would cost them more. So they pay us just barely enough to keep us from revolting.
We are already slaves.
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
No I’m not.
I mean we literally force people like this into irons and force them to work under threat of corporal punishment.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Good luck finding talent, dickhead
gustofwind@lemmy.world 4 months ago
He should work himself to death alone and leave us with a better world
Somecall_metim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
He doesn’t work that hard, so why the fuck should we?
rozodru@pie.andmc.ca 4 months ago
He has his own private chef to make him food, he has maids to take care of his house(s), he has assistants to do all his errands, if he has kids he has nannies to take care of them. So in his backwards ass head he can easily “work” more than 70+ hours a week and doesn’t understand why us lowly peons can’t do the same.
Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
He probably thinks he works 80 hour weeks because he is including schmoozing with clients and company paid lunches and dinners as “work”
throws_lemy@reddthat.com 4 months ago
“This is nothing. When I was young, I worked 80 hours a week”, Murthy probably
count_dongulus@lemmy.world 4 months ago
These are the little fuckwits that pretend waiting on a phone call back from someone counts as working time. Their “work” would consist of the company paying for their meals and outings to go play golf woth potential clients.
Oh, you want me to go play golf with this guy using the company card and then go for dinner and drinks? Do some soft sales, just having regular conversation? Sure, I’ll take that “work”. Man, it’s tough. Nobody works 80 hour weeks like me.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We pretend to work
They pretend to pay us
Rhyfel@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We don’t eat enough billionaires
Zier@fedia.io 4 months ago
That's because they taste extremely bitter and putrid. I suggest we just eject them into space towards the sun, and make them pay for it.
addie@feddit.uk 4 months ago
The amount of fuel required to launch them into the sun is more than is required to eject the from the solar system completely, it’s not very efficient.
Although putrid, they remain a valuable source of protein and nutrients. As a more carbon-efficient alternative, I suggest tying some waste stone around their feet and chucking them into the sea. Something in the depths will eat them.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 months ago
you gotta drain all the blood out of a carcass before you eat it
adespoton@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Revive a debate? Really? In that case, I’m reviving the debate for redistributing Murthy’s net wealth to all citizens as UBI.
flamiera@kbin.melroy.org 4 months ago
What a megalomaniac.
Yeah he's inspired by a system which country banned it and yet he still wants it?
Australis13@fedia.io 4 months ago
I'm sure these idiots have no concept of the future. They want to burn everyone out in months to years for the sake of boosting their profits in the here and now. Doesn't matter that if you treat your workers well (and pay them well) you often get greater productivity over a longer period.
the_q@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Personally I’d make an exception to my moral stance that work as punishment is slavery, and would prefer to keep him around forcing him to work 70 hours a week, in addition to doing all the other chores required so that he can live - in prison - for the rest of his life.
Maybe we’ll make it 84 hours a week just for good measure, can’t be giving him a day off.
Seems more poetic
cecilkorik@piefed.ca 4 months ago
Looks very nicely built I would be pleased to have one of these in my home.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 months ago
or do it the old fasioned way in , like with scimitar.
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Far too nice. No need for the blade to be so sharp and free of rust.
MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Infosys is a shitty boss that would contract for 2 resources but only assign 1 to do the work. That’s why he wants 80 hours per headcount.
This is why I’m somewhat happy that AI would render extinct companies like Infosys, Wipro, etc.
chocrates@piefed.world 4 months ago
Infosys is slimy enough they will find a way to survive
veeesix@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
So 6 days of 12-hour shifts? Sounds like a pretty novel way to tank your economy because no one’ll have the time to spend money or raise a family.
yeather@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Which they will then solve with mass immigration they can control easier.
showmeyourkizinti@startrek.website 4 months ago
Absolutely! The short sighted idiocy of this really points out the corporate thinking only about the next Q. This would get maybe a month before the economic crash
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
“Why aren’t the proles making babies? I specifically requested it!”
Zephorah@discuss.online 4 months ago
There is a large body of research out there regarding 12h shift work in healthcare. I’m only linking 1 article, a quick search will yield more, easily.
A TLDR on it: 12h shifts decrease performance. Stacking them decreases safety and performance, cumulatively. Car accidents pick up significantly on day 4.
Naich@lemmings.world 4 months ago
Apparently it’s about reducing shift changes, which is when most mistakes happen. You would have to hope that someone has done research into mistakes caused by fatigue vs. mistakes caused by shift changes.
Zephorah@discuss.online 4 months ago
In the healthcare environment that is true. 12h shifts retain consistency between back and forth reporting, while with 8hr shifts things get lost or missed or misinterpreted in the handoff.
My point is that 3 is the sweet spot, it’s the 4th and fifth shifts that become cumulatively bad and result in increased car accidents on the commute.
Naich@lemmings.world 4 months ago
Someone told me that the reason for 12 hour shifts is that most medical mistakes and accidents happen because of shift changes. Reducing the number of shift changes from 3 to 2 results in fewer mistakes, despite longer working hours.
Azhad@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Not really, a huge cocaine user came up with the system, and we use it since then because “it’s as we always have done it!!”
Zephorah@discuss.online 4 months ago
This is true. It also results in less intershift rancor. But it doesn’t change the difficulties of 4th and 5th shifts in the same week.
I’m all for turning a 40hr/5day work week into a 36hr/3day work week. It works well in 24hr professions.
What I’m not for is this 996 nonsense.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
It’s utter madness that healthcare professionals are allowed to work (in many countries) longer than truck drivers. It’s even more ridiculous that many countries have a medical doctor internship program that is designed by an absolute cocaine fiend assigning 30 hour days - and see nothing wrong with it.
frizzo@piefed.social 4 months ago
It’s almost like the collective bargaining of a union works.
Zephorah@discuss.online 4 months ago
There’s less errors overall in having consistency in who healthcare reports off to between shifts. The 17% is balanced out by that (math wise). The errors in having 3 people reporting around an 8hr clock are significantly higher than with the 12hr clock.
But a 4th shift? Staying over to 16hrs? The 36hr week, I feel, is the extent to which you can safely take the 12h shift.
Additional madness is in that, in 26 states, the administrators of hospitals can hold shift workers over into double shifts. I don’t know about you, but I lose the capacity to read words around hour 18. Yet, this practice is engaged routinely in health care, without regard to sleep patterns. Maybe it is an 8h shift. Maybe that person spent day shift in school then went to work for an evening shift. Now is being held on their license to stay a night shift. And expected to drive home after more than 24hrs awake. Maybe their babysitter leaves at midnight. How good and safe is that patient care going to be?
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
US: Truck driver crashing causes property damage, patients dieing causes the bed to open up for another paying customer.
Rest of the world: Shortages due to cost of education along with not enough spots available for said education.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 months ago
probably the shortage problems, and unwillingness for the industry to alleviate the problem. and the pipeline from college to health professional is long and grueling. MD IS heavily gatekeeped by the license certification association.
lectricleopard@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Capitalism protects the capital (goods, and equipment, on a truck), and values human lives at approx $3 million (based on financial cost for the company when a life is lost).
The value of the truck and the contents of the trailer are frequently greater than the value of the driver for a given trip, and therefore justify more caution and care than any given patient in a doctor’s office.
Hylactor@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Am I missing the article link?
Zephorah@discuss.online 4 months ago
Yes, I failed to paste the copy. After a 12 hour shift.
confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Let’s try this one
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
It’s not showing on my client either, hopefully they edit their comment.
NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Ok I’ll do 70 hour weeks as long as it promises I am also a billionaire by retirement. So that’ll be a salary of 21 million a year please.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 4 months ago
can someone kidnap this motherfucker and make him work normal labor job for 80 hours a week, for a year, and see how much he likes this stupid fucking pants on head idea after that
Knightfox@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That’s the thing, looking at the company they don’t work “normal labor” jobs. Infosys is into info tech, consulting, and outsourcing services and looking at their acquisition history I get the impression they buy up smaller companies and consolidate their work into their product. Basically they make websites and tools that your company buys for $100k to analyze and optimize workflow, but the site doesn’t work well and they never fix it. After 2 years enough time has passed that the higher ups don’t feel embarrassed retiring the software and buying something else. Also, rather than just coding themselves they code with AI or buy other companies that already wrote the code and put it into their own product.
At the end of the day they aren’t “working,” they are being available. They are the shitty guy who is answering a work call on a Saturday while they are supposed to be watching their kid’s ball game. They are the person who has to step out of the movie theater because they are getting an urgent work call at 10 pm on Friday. They are the person who flies back from their vacation two days early because the boss wants to ask about sales numbers. This is how Executive suite types say they work 16 hour days 7 days a week, they count every hour of the day as work because they are available, not because they were being productive that entire time.
RightEdofer@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 4 months ago
still solves the problem.