In a viral TikTok, a recent college graduate bemoaned the demands of a 9-to-5 work schedule.
The creator, Brielle, says she leaves for work at 7:30 a.m. and doesn't get home until 6:15 p.m., at which point she has no energy to exercise, cook or see friends.
"I'm in-person and I'm commuting into the city ... if I was able to walk to work it'd be fine, but I'm not," she says of her long commute.
The video was instantly polarizing, with some viewers empathizing and agreeing that the current workplace structure is unhealthy and others chastising Brielle for complaining.
Post-pandemic, a truncated workweek has increasingly gained favor with employees. One in three workers say they'd quit their job for one with a shortened week, according to a Monster survey. During the UAW strike, a 32-hour workweek was among the initial list of demands.
Historically, there is precedence for this change, says Ben Hunnicutt, a historian who focuses on why companies abandoned shorter workdays.
"The 40-hour workweek, from 9-to-5, is not a universal mandate from God, it's a historical accident," he says.
Gen Z workers, like Brielle, might be the ones to facilitate a shift in company expectations.
"There is a tendency now in younger folks to value their time more than advancement at work," Hunnicutt says. "Maybe that is a choice we all have to make: Time or money? Money or your life?"
'Work is a religion'
From the early 1800s, the peak of the Industrial Revolution, until 1940, when the 40-hour workweek became law, hours were continuously cut. Most economists predicted that this trend would continue, Hunnicutt says.
John Maynard Keynes, known as the "father of macroeconomics" predicted that by 2030 the workweek would be only 15 hours long. Kellogg cereal implemented a six-hour workday in 1930.
"Nobody thought the shorter hours process would end at 40 hours," Hunnicutt says. "There is no reason at all as to why it shouldn't decline some more."
Work is religion, and any time a religion is threatened, the people who believe in that religion get really mad.Ben HunnicuttHistorian
The current workweek structure isn't an economic need, he says, but a cultural value.
"Work is what we have for condemning other people, for setting ourselves apart, for our prejudice against all those 'lazy bums,' for justifying racism," he says.
As long as Americans believe that working more increases your value as a person, people like Brielle will be judged.
"Work is religion, and any time a religion is threatened, the people who believe in that religion get really mad," he says.
'People want to work as little as possible and get the highest wage possible'
Some experts are not so sure that changing how or when we work will improve employee wellbeing.
The problem isn't the structure of the workweek but the desire to work, says Daniel Hamermesh, an economist and emeritus professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin. One of his areas of study is the shortened workweek.
"People want to work as little as possible and get the highest wage possible," he says. "People want more for less, but the world doesn't work that way. I wish it did."
People want more for less, but the world doesn't work that way. I wish it did.Daniel HamermeshEconomist
Results from a six-month trial in the U.K. where employees got 100% of the pay for working 80% of the time in exchange for delivering 100% of their usual output showed that working less did improve worker satisfaction.
However, looking at data from how working 10 hours a day for four days a week affected employees in South Korea from 1973 to 2018, Hamermesh found that happiness increased very little.
These varying results, Hamermesh says, are likely due to a cognitive process called expectancy theory, which postulates that a person works harder because of an expected reward or consequence. People who desire and attain a 4-day workweek will be happy for a bit, but the positive effects of the reward will eventually wear off.
"Once they get a more desirable schedule that would be the new base point, but they would be equally as happy as they were before [getting a shorter workweek]," he says.
Plus, he says, Americans are fussy and that's not likely to change: "Complaining is the American way — that is our strong point."
DON'T MISS: Want to be smarter and more successful with your money, work & life? Sign up for our new newsletter!
Get CNBC's free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire's No. 1 best piece of advice for regular investors, do's and don'ts, and three key investing principles into a clear and simple guidebook.