I have long wondered why we follow the religion of the 40 hour work week when we only have 24 hours in a day. Technically, we only have about 16 hours of real wake time. However, we are excepted to spend basically 3 full days of our wake cycle in the office doing our jobs. Yes, I understand the economic impacts and financial strategies behind the production advantages of the American Worker. However, sometimes I just want to feel like I am in control of my own time.
Therefore, I have a radical solution to this simple problem. Let's flip our schedules to reflect different values. Let's change our days to 40 hour long. Granted this would take some getting use too. For example, you would wake up and go to sleep when it is light out. Of course, a napping schedule would have to be put into place as well. It would also dramatically change our calendar. Instead of 7 days a week we would only have 4 and 1/5 days a week. This would cause many scheduling conflicts at first and also probably some Birthday and Anniversary snafus. However, we could continue to call those days Thursday-Sunday. That way we would always feel like it was the weekend or we were getting closer to the weekend.
Once we have the 40 hour day scheduled we would implement the 24 hour work week. I know it seems like we are really cutting the hours of production. However, I think it would be a good time for our companies to really look at the efficiency of the work day. If we only had 24 hours a week in the office it would most likely fall into 2, 12 hour shifts. While that may seem like a long shift imagine how much work you could actually get done if you were forced to live inside that level of production. Now imagine the amount of time you would have left over to spend with family, friends, hobbies, etc. It would be pretty powerful.
I understand this is a pipe dream and logistically it would be near impossible to achieve. However, it seems just as illogical to continually ask us all to give up the best waking hours of our lives every week to the office. The two income trap's implications are really starting to be felt by the American family. Parents are over stressed, over worked, and as a result they fell guilty because they have little left to give to their kids when they do arrive home (or furry animals if you are kidless). The fact of the matter is that we are under valuing the worth of physical, emotional, and human capital. While at the same time over valuing the value of the dollar.
I don't have the solution to the problem and I am pretty sure there really is no solution. However, I am hopeful, with the work of companies like Amazon, Facebook, and now Netflix, that more American Companies are going to focus on improving the LIVING BENEFITS of their workers. I am hopeful that in the near future an employees quality life at home is just as important to the bottom line as the quantity of work they can achieve!
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