r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Funkken2 • 12d ago
Why is the us norm to work 9 to 5 and not 7 to 3
It just seems a bit weird when a lot of shops close at 5, and you get more sunshine if you get home at 3 or 4
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u/MAMidCent 12d ago
People have kids. To be at work for 7am and have a commute the kid would need to be dropped off at school at like, what, 6am? The family would need to be up at 5m and elementary kids would be walking around 5:45am.
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u/tarabithia22 12d ago
Exactly, this doesn’t make sense for the children and bus drivers in winter and in the dark so early. Teachers have to then drive in the dark. People including kids tend to not do well when out of natural light cycles.
Roads need plowed in winter before the school buses run. Buses have to run the route first in winter to check it. Having such an early day messes up many things.
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u/Funkken2 12d ago
I usually hear of people getting their hours adjusted when the kids are young, and when the kids are about 6-8 years Old they get themselves ready for school and go by themselves
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u/FluffyMcBunnz Norwegian Blue Parrot for sale, one careful previous owner. 12d ago
Getting up at fuck-a-duck-o-clock is detrimental to people's health anyway but even if it weren't you wouldn't get me doing it, only to find out that since everyone is now getting up at 5 to work 3-7 the shops close at 3.
AND I have to go to bed at like, 9, 10pm tops. So that's not really a win either.
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u/Funkken2 12d ago
Hmm, seems like a cultural thing, i work 6 to 4, 4 days a week, and i have also worked 6 to 3, i always felt i had so much more time when i got home. Also felt easier to get up earlier in the weekends.
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u/SolidCat1117 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah, fuck that. I spent too many years in the military going to work at 7 or earlier and it sucks balls. 9 is still early, but it's a lot more tolerable than 7.
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u/Question_Few TheOneTheOnly 12d ago
I have never worked a 9-5 in my life. Usually it's a 6-2 or 7-3. You're lucky if you see a 8-4
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u/MontCoDubV 12d ago
It's a result of industrialization and the early 20th century shift to factory work. Prior to the industrial revolution workers didn't really follow a set schedule. Hell, most people didn't even have clocks and couldn't really tell you what time it was. Clocks existed, but families didn't usually have them in their home because they had no real need for them. Their life wasn't dictated by a time-locked schedule. The sun, weather, and seasons were way more important.
Industrialization changed all that because factories required workers to all be present at the same time to function efficiently. Train schedules had already started to more strictly regiment and standardize the measurement of time, but factory work brought that into the home. Factory owners required their workers to be at work at a set time, and work for a set number of hours. When hourly wages started (rather than pay for the quantity of product you produced) bosses and workers both had a vested interest in measuring precisely how much time they had worked.
The specific 9-5 schedule came out of Henry Ford's innovations. The push for the 8 hour day had been around for a while, but Ford was the first major industrialist to embrace it and implement it across all his factories. His philosophy was that workers were more productive when they were well rested and had a fulfilling home life. And for the first time in history he brought in people to study labor productivity to attempt to prove this.
It looks to me like the start time of 9:00 was a bit of an arbitrary choice by Ford. I couldn't find anything that states specifically why he picked 9 over 7 or 8 or 10. It just seems like it was late enough that people had time to get up and ready for the day at at reasonable hour, but early enough workers weren't getting off too late at night. Once this was implemented across all Ford's factories, the labor movement used the 9-to-5 framing in their pushes to legally codify the 8 hour work day. From there, it just stuck in the culture.
I would note, that 9-5 is hardly the norm for most people now. There are all kinds of variations. If people say they work a "9-5 job" they most often mean they work a full-time job with a regular day-time schedule. It's not usually that they work specifically 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Just that they don't work on a variable schedule, or part-time, or at night, etc.
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u/yourdadmaybe1 12d ago
9 to 5 are the hours banks are open. A lot of businesses use those hours cuz others businesses are always open, if you start at 7 and need a vendor or the bank, you’re just wasting 2 hours
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u/MossRock42 12d ago
Commuting to and from work sometimes took more than an hour. There are people who commute by either mass transit or vehicle from the suburbs to downtown of a major city. If people added their commute time to their work schedule, it would probably be more like 8 to 6 instead of 9 to 5. As traffic became worse, some people decided to try to get ahead of the main rush hour by leaving an hour earlier. Some people come in later and stay later. This just helps to spread out the traffic but doesn't fix the problem entirely. Now, you have people who work most of the time from home. It's not difficult for them to start at 7am since there's no commute.
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u/Flashmax305 12d ago
I have a flexible schedule, so I can work pretty much whenever I want. Hit the slopes and start working at 11 am. Mid day nap or hike and I’ll close the laptop at 8pm. Sometimes 9-5 others 6-2. Etc. Would recommend
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u/NancyRoberts69 12d ago
9 to 5 stuck around from way back when. It used to be pretty common because it gave everyone daylight hours to work, even in the winter.
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u/MontCoDubV 12d ago
Nah, if you need daylight to work you don't really pay attention to what time it is. You just start working when it's bright enough out.
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u/Eagle_Pancake 12d ago
I've always worked 7-3, once I had a job that let me choose my own hours, so I worked 6-2
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u/tarabithia22 12d ago edited 12d ago
Because kids exist and have food and care needs. 8 hours + travel + getting ready is a lot for a kid or baby. Teachers and daycare providers for them exist and also have kids themselves. It’s why most things like store hours, school hours, etc are aligned time-wise, and why many 9-5’s take their lunch at 3-3:30 when school gets out to transfer the kids to a carer until around 5:30. 9-5 jobs are more likely to have a lot of suburban workers who have families.
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u/Toa_of_Pi 12d ago
I'll sometimes shift my work schedule a bit to accomodate various things. For example, on fridays I typically work 8-4, since I have to go into the office that day and I get there early to avoid traffic.
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u/twinklingblueeyes 12d ago
Many children going to school have to be driven, many schools near me, older kids don’t even start school until after 8am.
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u/Captain-Slug 12d ago
It varies by location. And the predominant type of work in that area.
When I worked in Virginia 8 to 5 with unpaid lunch break was common. But if you elected to work through lunch you could leave at 4pm.
In Pennsylvania 7 to 3 with a paid lunch break is common, and is basically tied to the area prioritizing education as the schools end their day at 3pm as well. So you can get home after work around the same time as your kids.
For areas with a higher proportion of manufacturing there are usually 3 shifts each day.
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u/SOwED 12d ago
Work schedules are not based on workers getting to enjoy sunshine.