I worked a 4-day week for years, but that only means you get the same shit done in 4 days, not 7. I was due to get a promotion as an engineering manager, but I refused the promotion and the increased salary in lieu of fewer days at work. Over time, lesser quantum of work gets thrown your way because you are away from people's faces for a larger fraction of the time. That particular equation has changed because of WFH.

It was fantastic to have a long weekend every week. I also miraculously became more disciplined, because I promised and delivered by Thu evening. For some reason Friday evening used to always spill into Saturday, then Sunday, into the interstitial spaces between home and social life.

The downside was that people would more often than not hold meetings without me, and get to work on more juicy projects, and I would feel hurt at the beginning. I had to continually remind myself of the increased free time. At the peak frenetic pace of the early 2000's and the dot com boom, this was seen as career suicide. I knew that it wasn't any such thing, that you can always get work when you show quality, but the social pressure still made me doubt myself sometimes.

As edith piaf sang, je ne regrette rien. I regret nothing.