Work. 

Getting off of work and watching this hits different

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, That's why I watch Historia Civilis On company time

You see, we’re not ALWAYS thinking about Rome…

When my father lead a contruction departmen in Germany he always provided free food and beer to all the employees and workers. Nevertheless his department was always the most productive and always in the green. He still received complaints from leading manager because of ''high hospitality costs"...

The most tragic part is that most of that work is unnecessary. Planned obsolescence and consumerism mean that vast majority of stuff produced is thrown away. We are killing ourselves for nothing but some billionaire's obsession with ticking up his high score.

I implored my boss to reduce my daily labour time to 6 hours. He was apprehensive at first, but conceded after taking my pocket watch. I was overjoyed!

When I was an intern working in the maintenance department of a chemical factory, I was always told by the old foremen that you can only expect to reasonably get 4-6 hours out of someone during a day’s work. Seems like those old hands knew what they were talking about

I work in agriculture in southern France. Unless we are avoiding the heat at the height of summer, we arrive at 7:30, have a café and patisserie with everyone, complimented from the boss, start at 8, short coffee break at 10, then for 12 midday, we go home and have lunch with our families and have a sieste (nap), before restarting at 2pm and finishing up the day's jobs for 5pm. If you finish early, you leave early. It sounds too good to be true because it sadly is. While a rich harvest means lots of work, a ruined harvest from bad weather can mean that your peachy 3 month contract can be swindled down to only 10 hours a week, making the poverty line look pretty. So any time you earn a decent amount of money, it all goes to saving, quite literally, for a rainy day!

The best job I ever had was making sandwiches as fast as possible from 8 am to 12 noon. I’d go shopping, do some errands, go home for lunch and the rest of the day was mine. I made the huge mistake of working my way up to management.

“The ancients thought their machines would set them free, but what they really did was allow other men with machines to enslave them.” - Dune by Frank Herbert.

I feel like a history on peasant revolts might make an interesting follow up.

Labour went from "this is how much work I need doing, please get it done" to "this is how much time I'm getting out of you, do as much work as possible." Which just intrinsically incentivizes employers to squeeze as much work as possible out of employees at an unsustainable rate.

The Factory I work in used to have 6 people per large line, and 4 per small line. That was 15 years ago, now there is 2 people per small line, and 3 people per large line. Yet we are expected to do double the work. Working used to be painless, relaxed and enjoyable. Now it is incredibly painful; if you do the job right you’ll experience pains in your chest, hands, and feet. If you don’t do it the right way it’s your spine instead of your chest.

Before: "Wow, new HC video, wonder what interesting thing about Rome I learn today" After: "I must destroy every clock I stumble upon"

I was working contract out of town making really good money. I remember when I told them I was going to take a month off for my wedding. They shamed me, they acted shocked and judged me. I took my new wife to Italy and we had the best time ever. That’s what I remember! F those people! You got one life. Live it!

Me in college: 4-6 hours class days, 4.5 months of total vacation, mostly free weekends, big lunch break. That was paired by 3 hours of train rides every weekday that gave me time to read or listen to music. That was the life.

Straight out of high school I got a minimum wage job at a factory. I was lucky I got the day shift. Can't imagine night shift. Day/night both operated 12 hr shifts and work weeks were structured work 3 days, then 2 days off. Work 2 days, then 3 days off. Weekends basically didn't exist, which to my surprise I didn't hate too much. Until a thing called "mandatory overtime" came along. When my boss first told me about it I laughed and thought he was joking. That made him hate me for sure! Mandatory Overtime means: work 3 days, work 2 days, then work 3 days again. No 2 day break. I was so naive back then but thankfully somehow I managed to get myself fired. Best decision ever made. I have very graphic and violent words to say to the people that support or made that system up. MANDATORY. OVERTIME. Yeah boss whatever it is mandatory for you to go eff yourself.

Here in Romania, if you hire day laborers, you are still required to provide food and alcohol on top of the pay. Not feeding your workers is seen as uncivilized and will have people avoid working for you.

This is why kids are made to sit and do busy work in school to break them mentally and prepare them for factory work

Wtf, i’ve always felt 4-6 hours felt wayy better and my mind much more active and clear, but the dread of that 7th to 8 hour and the long drive home, you’re right, 4-6 is perfect work day.

As someone who grew up spending a lot of weekends working in the woods with family, just to provide firewood to an old house, I find myself recognizing the medieval work pattern on those days - bursts of work when you have the energy, with a lot of breaks, snacking, meals and smoking (if you were my dad and uncles) in between.

To throw a personal story out there: I once worked in a factory that used a 24 hour operation 4 shift system where a crew would work 12 hours then hand off to the next crew who would work the next 12. You would work 4 days in a row, then get the next 4 off. By some modern labor miracle the factory owners for the most part allowed the workers to self organize, and the result of that was pretty strikingly similar to what you describe here, we would generally work for about 2 hours, then break for 1 with the exception of the few hours right before and after handoff just to get everything in order. On average we only spent about 8 of those 12 hours working. Despite it being a pretty physically demanding job in a less than pleasant environment (production floor was ~100 degrees all day) it rarely ever felt like much stress built up since a reasonably significant break was generally not far away. and as a side note, this didn't at all make people lazy, when things got tough we ourselves canceled breaks and would go pedal to the metal for the full 12 hours without any interaction with management. I've also done work for small construction contractors where the owner of the business was actually working along side us, and there we also tended towards this same general pace. Turns out when work is organized by the people actually doing it effort is scaled to necessity

Fun fact: until like 50 years ago, rural and construction workers were also treated just like the middle ages in rural Portugal. My grandparents aldo did nap time after lunch. Our national dish was a stew made for workers to provide them with strength.

Man I like my boss. One of those guys who says here's what I need done today. Start whenever, break whenever, end whenever. As long as I get it done and the customer's happy. On an awesome day can start at 7 and be done by 11

I learned from my grandmother that many of my ancestors were farm workers in a village in Bedfordshire, and were forced to leave due to enclosure of farmland. Two of my great-great grandparents and their children moved to Hendon in London. The details of their lives are murky, but my grandmother still has the death certificate of my great-great grandfather, which says he died aged thirty-six, from "exhaustion" and "malnutrition".

I've worked a corporate job that was soul-sucking, working 12hr days, 6 days a week on salary. After that I went to a company that didn't track hours at all, working 30hrs/week most of the time with unlimited vacation (I generally took ~6-7 weeks a year) and it is shocking how much of a difference it made to my mental health and overall quality of life. The interesting part is that I was far more productive in the latter role despite working probably half the hours. You hear these kinds of stories commonly in my industry yet somehow most companies are still closer to the slave-driving model than one where they treat their employees well so they can perform their best. It's way more stick than carrot out there.

Ive never hated a blue square so much in my life

I live on a farm with my parents in eastern poland, everytime we need construction workers for like building new garage or fixing barn roof or digging new well we also buy them crate of beer and my mother invites them for dinner. Well fed and happy workers work way faster and don't leave any "mistakes" because they don't feel like they are slaves in gulag

Can't help but notice that while a lot of video essays can get bloated, one of the things that got me to sit down and watch this intently was that it was in a nice, easily digestible 30 minute chunk.

Some insight from more modern history: In the late 1990s, the government of France reduced the working week from 40 to 35 hours. The government of the time did this not for everyone's wellbeing or out of the goodness of their hearts, but because France at the time had really high unemployment. It was thought that by reducing the workweek by ~12%, employers would be forced to hire about 12% more workers, solving the unemployment crisis. Simple, right? Instead what happened surprised everyone. Labour productivity immediately skyrocketed across the economy, meaning workers were doing the same amount of work in 5 less hours a week. Employment rates and labour market participation barely budged, in general extra jobs weren't created. People didn't generally seek out extra jobs with their extra time either. Instead, workers collectively simply took the extra 5 hours off a week and worked harder during the rest of the week to compensate.

The constant ticking in the backgroud really HITS when you get to the portion about clocks. Amazing work.

I just quit my job. 10 hour shifts and the kind of gig that makes you sit to pee because otherwise you just don't get to sit. Watching this after that is whiplash.

Yesterday I just looked at your channel and thought, "I miss Historia Civilis, I hope he returns soon"

Here in Brazil there are some jobs where people are paid daily. It’s common that one of your colleagues just stops coming for a week or two and upon their return, they are taunted with _“ahhh your money has run out, no money! Back to work”._ This claim is rarely denied but rather met with sheepish looks of concealed embarrassment.

8 hours a day today was already bad but its insane now. young people are expected to work at the very least 9.5 hours here, with one day weekends, for minimum wage that is shit. rents are skyrocketing and work hours are beyond abusive. Its unsustainable right now.

This hits. Man, this hits and hurts on a deep, spiritual level. Love from Korea, the most overworked country on the planet.

I remember during quarantine, when i was working my customer service job from home in my apartment (mostly just answering emails), I'd always get a lot of work done every other day and not pay it much attention on other days. It just kind of felt better having more to do, then less to do, then more to do, then less to do, etc. Those couple months were definitely the best I'd ever felt working that job

I worked as a quality assurance scientist for a few months, 8 hr work day 30 min lunch and two 15 min breaks. We had a mandatory 1hr of overtime everyday and mandatory half day of overtime on Saturday. This was during the winter so I'd go in before the sun came up and left as the sun was going down there was barely any windows. Being fired from that job was the best thing that ever happened to me.

“it isn’t about profits, it’s about pure power”

i always knew there was some reason why my whole life i always felt that doing BURSTS of work or studying or something. and then massively cutting back the next day to "recharge" always felt more natural. i always thought i was crazy. but now i know it's not! ty for this video ;D this is why society and humanity is slowly breaking down before us in real time. the industrial revolution completely messed up everything about this world

When you mentioned 3.5 months of vacation time it sounded crazy, but then I realized that's almost exactly what students and professors get

I’ve been helping my dad build a house in the mountains. we work at a comfortable pace, our schedule lines up almost perfectly with your description of the Stone Age and medieval work day. It feels lazy compared to my regular job, but without realizing it we simply adopted the schedule humans evolved to live by.

People used to work for living now they're living for work.

In tech, its heavily understood most people can only do good valuable thinking for 4 hrs a day tops. Sadly it took 2020 for remote work IN TECH to become commonplace. Tech still has a problem of unnecessary middle management, a holdover from when the focus was on managing people, not managing projects.

I think it’s very interesting that the academic/university calendar still looks quite similar to medieval work schedules. A Christmas, spring, and summer break; inconsistent work patterns with classes only some days of the week and cramming for finals; generally lax rules on attendance and punctuality; being friends with your peers and forming identity through work relationships; the list goes on. And we wonder why so many people find college/university to be some of the best years of their life…

“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

The recounting of a western medieval agricultural days work is very similar to what my grandparents in Bulgaria were doing 60-80 years ago. You wake up with the 🐓 roosters call(sunrise) have breakfast. Go to the field work untill 11-12. Large lunch and naptime. Work resumed around 15:00-16:00 work until the sky starts turning pinkish go home.

I've been starting to notice something akin to a burnout from working in customer facing jobs for close to 10 years, I think this is another challenge (the timeframe we work still a big one), but the accumulative stress from having to deal with challenges and also constantly display good customer service might be something also unique to capitalism.

To be fair, most workers in my office work about 4-6 hours a day of productive labour. The rest is spent in pointless meetings, pretend work and procrastination.

I've had people ask me why I only work 6 hours a day and have had some even insinuate that I'm lazy, and it wasn't until this video that I realised how we've all been collectively gaslighted into believing that 8 hour work days are natural and if you don't work for 8 hours a day then there's something wrong with you. When I worked 8 hours a day I was tired and miserable, I don't believe the money I'd get from 2 extra hours a day is worth my health and happiness.

Having worked at a major retail store, the bit about people having a life outside of work upsetting bosses brought me back to when I worked there, luckily for me I had my studies as an excuse to not work every day for 10-12 hours, some people though seemed to just be stuck there with no life outside of work

the irony of watching most of this on my lunch break and then immediately going to the clock app to set a timer for a 12 minute nap before heading back in to finish out the work day

Holy cow. I remember getting called to the principal's office in middle school. My offense: I was skipping lunches because the lunch lines were so long, I'd hardly have any time to eat. I was told to my face that socializing during lunch was wasting time and I just had to eat. I never thought too much about it until now.

I'm always surprised about the level of production quality that can be achieved in videos in which people are depicted as squares!

the work never ends now. theres no goal. no finish line. no reward. no point.

Part of this issue seems pretty obvious to me: Supply and demand for jobs. When there is high demand for jobs, the power is with the employer. They can exploit you as much as they want because they know if you leave, they can fill your position easily. When demand is low, the power is with the employed. The employer is now in a position where they must keep their employees happy or risk losing their workforce. I have seen this occur first-hand when I worked on a remote construction job. The day labourers were not very reliable and only showed up to work half the time. But the company was not in a position to punish or fire these employees due to nobody else wanting to work in this location. So they just let it continue and worked with the situation.

I work 12 hours as a night shift nurse. We're allotted a single 30 minute break. I don't officially take my break to eat. I eat, fraternize, and watch RU-vid at the nurses station through the night, all against company policy. I then use my my 30 minute break to exercise in the hospital gym. 😎

It’s a rare treat when anthropology becomes the primary method of analysis featured in a Historia Civilis video.

Man I know it has only been a couple months since this came out but I'm already waiting impatiently for the next video

Something that really adds to the enjoyability of your videos is that you take actual pauses in your video. It's nice that you don't pursue a frenetic pace and that you can afford to take a few moments to allow the viewer to reflect on the content so far to lo-fi beats such as at 6:53. I've always appreciated these little lacunae.

I think framing it as evil man spawns 1664 is very simplistic. You have to discuss why the workers would tolerate such a change in their work life. Was it average life expectance increasing? Was it more material needs forcing them to work more to acquire them? Was it a shift in the nature of work making it more accessible ie more worker supply than demand? Etc I expected a more in depth analysis of what would actually cause such a drastic change rather than an evil richard palmer changed the world in 1664

I worked a steel production job, 12hr shifts, that werent consistent. Always tired, always bored, and the job just sucked. The other workers were bluffed into thinking this was the greatest job in the world, promised a healthy work/lifestyle balance. Nope. You were always tired, stressed, and seemingly never able to enjoy your downtime. I lasted 6 months and got out, immediately went on a road trip and it was awesome. Ive never looked back

My grandpa was a farmer here in northwest Germany until his 20s (1953 to be precise) like his ancestors. From October until February, the farmland turned into a huge puddle of mud and apart from looking after the cattle, there wasn't much work. Slaughtering took place in winter and there were a few more days of "stress", with the women doing most of the work. When the money ran out, he went to work in a factory on a daily basis, and when he had enough money, he enjoyed his free time again. Work peaks were for planting and during harvest time, up to 17 hours were worked in the field for a few days. When his brother inherited the farm, my grandpa left the farm and went to work in production and suddenly he had a 50+ hour week and initially 10 days vacation per year. He even worked after 10 hours of physical labor for another 2-3 hours in a plant nursery in the summertime, because money was sparse. My grandpa told me that he found it extremely exhausting at first, but later the situation eased up .And let's be honest: who nowadays works productively for 8 hours a day? For me it's more like 4-6.

Dude, more like this. More. MOREEEE. You have a unique situation where you can teach us about past culture in ways I can only otherwise wonder about.

My dad was an agricultural worker on the family farm in rural South India during the 1970-80’s, where the only evidence of the Industrial Revolution were the imported tractors. After watching this video, I asked him how is work day was back then, and what he told me was precisely like how you described pre-Industrial workdays (including the siestas and meals under a nearby tree 😴 🌳 , but minus the Sunday’s being off because no church) He is now an international supply chain and manufacturing manager at a Fortune 500 company whose clientele include TSMC, Intel, and Samsung. We are significantly wealthier than compared to his younger days, but he is significantly more overworked and underpaid, now basically living paycheck-to-paycheck despite our high quality of life. He basically went through the last 300 years of human technological and social development described in this video in half a lifetime.

As someone who works from home 100% for the last year and a half this is basically what my schedule has morphed into. It was odd at first having punched a clock for the previous ten years, but I’m able to get my work completed working roughly 6 hours a day and I’m exponentially more happy having the extra time in my day. Work life balance is now the top thing I’ll look for in jobs going forward

OCDE: working hours per year in Germany 2021: 1349. US: 1791. Mexico: 2128, the highest. However, 50% percent of Mexicans were living in poverty or extreme poverty. Also, Forbes: 2010-2013 richest man in the world: Carlos Slim, yes, you guessed, a Mexican. I wonder where the profit from all those working hours ended up, right?

Honestly, this should lead into your next rabbit hole video… history of unions

I work in a global pharma company and I swear to god this is the reason that keeps me in this company. I could go somewhere make two times the amount I am currently making but the work life balance is just amazing I come at 9 and leave at 3 with a hour of break in between. as long as you have done your job nobody bats an eye. OK since this comment got a lot of questions I have to give some context. First I live in Europe. Germany to be exact. I studied pharmacy which took 5 years in Turkey then I have done my PhD in Germany. I did COVID research mostly because of the Pandemic (my thesis was about nanopharmaceuticals but because of COVID I worked on the formulation side of the Pfizer/BIONTECH vaccine.) Now I work in the clinical trials department where I look at the medical insights and my team decides to whether the company should conduct clinical trials about the insight and also where it should be done. I earn about 90K dollars a year. I am also an albino with 60 percent vision loss.

Learning that people used to get several half hour to hour long breaks for eating while meanwhile trying to eat my dinner on my 15 minute break is certainly an experience

This video was a therapy session, I always thought I was just lazy or couldn't keep up with a "normal" work day but those old work timeframes make so much more sense for what I feel throughout the days and the seasons

I wouldn’t say Christmas made it into the modern period “intact.” More like, it made it into the modern period with some vestigial existence.

I’m a union electrician, we get 1 or 2 half hour breaks per day depending on the length of the workday plus an hour lunch. We chill and talk pretty much at will, we take a week off with zero notice to go hunting or fishing, you might take a couple months off in between jobs just because you can and you feel like it. We’re all just peasants at heart!

That intro was so unsettling for me. I just wrapped up a long “fast” day at work and was listening to this video on my drive home. Being hyper aware of time passing just makes me super anxious. It’s really emblematic of how the institutions and inventions that we make have profound psychological effects. Excellent creative choice on your part! Thank you for the lovely content as always. Excited for whenever the next video drops-don’t forget to take your slow days, cheers!

The tone of voice throughout this entire video is honestly hilarious but so, so deserved.

watching this during a 48 hour shift hits different

I like that the video is roughly 30 minutes long… a very natural length indeed

Watching this video after work today hits different. I work on wind turbines and today we couldn’t climb because of lightning. We worked around the shop and looking back I noticed that we were naturally working hard for about 30 minutes then relaxing and goofing off for 30 minutes. Our manager took us out for a nice long lunch and at the end of the day we had a good hard 30 minute sprint cleaning and organizing the shop before sitting around and chatting the last 30 minutes of the day. Definitely the best day on the job so far. Typically we have an 8.5 hour day with about 5 hour up tower of hard fast work, an hour or so of prep and and clean up and another hour and a half of of hanging around the shop chatting and doing paperwork. Sometimes we have long days with way more time up tower fixing issues to get the tower running. It’s hard work but still the best job I’ve ever had. Great pay and benefits, great environment, lots of time off and satisfying work.

I like how the video is one natural work cycle long

Congrats everyone! After all these years, we clawed back... *checks notes* our ability to wear watches at work.

What I learned: George Woodcock was a 20th century Canadian socialist.

Honestly 4 day work week, seems like it makes the most sense to me, it creates 20% more jobs and gives people 50% more time off (roughly)

Finding a new HC video is like finding money in your laundry when preparing it to wash.

I live in the city, Work is always insanely stressful, but when I went to live in the farm for a short while my work was exactly like medieval times with lots of breaks and food.

Fascinating. I work a remote job where my time is not accounted for so long as I complete all my weekly tasks, and this is remarkably similar to the schedule ive ended up practicing

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the people with power don’t care too much about learning from history

Never felt more called out than watching this while working at a clock parts warehouse... feelin responsible rn

Historia Civilis is never late. Nor is he early. He uploads precisely when he means to.

also chipping in a personal experience from my last year: As a male Swiss citizen, I had the duty to serve in compulsory military service right after highschool and went on to complete boot camp and 3-4 weeks of repetition courses p.a. during the consecutive years. Getting fed up with these military repetition courses interrupting my studies and young adult working life every year, I decided to execute my right to switch to civil service. I found a civil service spot on a farm near Zurich and went on to do two months of agricultural aid there. I had just come out of 3 years doing project management in a hypergrowth startup in Berlin and the change to this purely physical labour was severe - and pure bliss. The work day started with a communal breakfast at 7am, moving on to everyday tasks around the stables (cleaning, feeding, leading the cattle out to the fields) and with the first coffee break of 30min at 9/9:30am. Then, more intensive labour until 12:00 followed by a freshly cooked lunch meal. After lunch, we all had another 30-60min off for a napping/relaxing until we had to be back at work around 2:00pm. The workday ended around 5pm with exception if we had a big harvest day or we had to get something done before the weather turned bad the next day or so. If this was the case there was another 30min-break around 4:30pm. So the workday was structured pretty much the same as explained in the video. When I asked the farmer in charge why this was the case, he told me: "It's pretty simple. If you do this kind of physical labour for 8h straight, even with a lunch break in between I guarantee you won't last a week without fatigue or injury." Bottom line: I've never felt so wholesome and fulfilled at the end of the these working days, falling into bed physically strained in the best of ways, sleeping like a baby. Working outdoors under the sun and with animals every day just added more joy to it all. Comes to show that there are still workplaces where they get it and workdays are structured in a similar way as they were in medieval Europe. And I guarantee you, they lead to a more balanced and fulfilled life. I am back in Berlin now working for startup lol

My dear man, ambition brought us to this. We have deified material wealth and we thing that this will be the source of our happiness; the way to attract the most attractive women and to scale the social hierarchy. Many of my coworkers here in Greece work voluntarily a second job to afford commodities that they don't need. It takes an intelligent being to understand the value of free time today at the expense of a slighty more luxurius life. Especially since we are constantly shown ways to consume. As for myself, I try to follow my own path but I am constantly reminded that I am alone. Thank you, for sharing all this information. Stay free.

This explains why historia civilis uploads so infrequently 😅

I always learnt in history class how horrible working conditions were for chimney sweep, factory workers, coal miners, prostitutes, etc. It made you feel comfortable with what we have today. They never tought us what it was like before the clock.

I just quit my factory job today, and God does this feel relevant to my life.

This video was an incredible eye opener, and has been really really effective in getting me to step back and examine society more. Incredible job.

Absolutely majestic video. I think that what we lack is class consciusness, not ambition, that recalls a more individualistic problem instead of a collective one, but videos like this help spread that, so this is really great.

Dude! I´m a construction contractor here in México and the workdays for construction workers are just like in medieval and ancient times lol. Even the payday is still on saturday and everybody works a lot that day just like you said. On monday a lot of workers don´t show up but we are prepared for it. People also take various breaks and siestas because of the heat. The only thing that we don´t do is feed the workers, unless it´s a special day, such as independence day, the day of a certain saint or when we hit thresholds with the construction. Interesting!

At my last job the management min-maxed the absolute shit out of every moment workers spent there. An alarm to signal the starts and end of work time, and break times. The amount of products we were expected to produce in a day was worked out mathematically and precisely down to the second. A whole team of staff were there specifically to keep the production staff supplied with materials, so they wouldn't have to stop producing to resupply themselves. Idle conversation between workers was frowned on as it would prevent us from meeting those targets. Hell I was once told off for getting ready to leave two minutes before the end-of-day alarm. I was exhausted the whole time and felt like the whole culture was incredibly dehumanising. I lost that job the other week. Despite my best efforts - as I really did need that job - I made too many mistakes that needed to be repaired in-house, and was deemed to be too costly to keep as a result. Capitalism doesn't see workers as people.

I appreciate the amount of work that most likely went in to this video. I would pose the question; did work hours and demand for work go up due to increased consumption? After all we aren’t making our own clothes and a lot of us aren’t even making our own repairs to our homes. Much of life is easier than it was back then. We have better educations and better communication. We don’t have as many errands to run daily as they did in the prior centuries. Very interesting video that poses interesting questions about our expectations and culture of work days in our modern era.

this just makes me convinced mankind would rather perish than make sense

I’m convinced that being jolted out of sleep by an alarm clock every day is horrible for your health.