You will never see this ad—Wanted: employees to do bare minimum

You can tell a lot about people’s attitude toward work by the phrases they use. For a long time, the workplace promoted what was popularly known as “the Puritan ethic”—success comes from keeping your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder on the wheel. Idle hands are a devil’s plaything.

All of that has made American workers—who log about 1,800 hours of work a year—among the hardest working in the industrialized world, with an average workweek longer than Europe’s, 25% longer than Germany’s. Not coincidentally, a threat to reduce pensions for workers in France was met with massive strikes and 5,000 tons of uncollected trash on Paris streets. What city in America reports the longest work week? San Francisco.

There are well-established currents that run contrary to the longer week ethos. In 1992, Levi Strauss sent an 8-page brochure titled “A Guide to Casual Business Wear” to 25,000 HR managers across the country, with “business casual” looks usually featuring Dockers or Levi’s. Around that time, businesses that were looking for ways to entice employees without spending any money embraced Casual Friday to allow work to become a little less formal and more playful than the rest of the week.