Sunday, August 22, 2010

Weekends are now mandatory

Long, long ago in a world far away there used to be this thing called weekends. Now weekends were for everyone from the street cleaner to the head of a company to sit back and relax from the pressures of work and to have a family life. Of course that was all back in a lost time when everyone went to church on Sunday, or Saturday depending upon your belief structure.

Then, little by little those days were stolen away from us. First it was the gas station guy who had to work because more people were traveling hither and yon across America to visit grandma. Then it was the restaurant worker who now had to feed the traveling masses. Then, more and more businesses opened and the seven day workweek began. The problem is, it only applies to some of us. I would even speculate many of the problems of society today are due to weekend work for many.

At current there is a disparity among the working class. I for one have never had a job that did not require me to work weekends. I am not the only one. However, there are a multitude that has never had to routinely work weekends including government workers, higher-ups on the corporate ladder and more. Oh sure, they may have to put in a few extra hours at some event periodically, but they are not chained to their work weekend after weekend.

I propose doing away with weekends. If much of the working world must labor on the sabbath then so should we all. Corporate America has become a seven day event for many but a privileged few. I say it's time we all work weekends with rotating days off throughout the week. If it's so important that I am at my post on weekends, why doesn't the same hold true for my executive level bosses and other support structures of a corporation? Gosh, I'm sorry weekend shopper, I can't solve your delivery problem as there is no one on the other end of the phone to take my call. It's the weekend, after all.

Take it one step further and do away with days of the week. The days of the week are just remnants of a long-lost culture honoring gods we no longer worship. Days of the week are now meaningless and the calendar should be nothing more than a running numeric list. The U.S. is twenty-four hour working society except for the privileged few. It's time for them to put aside their weekend and join the rest of us.

Ironic that I wrote this on my rotating Sunday off, huh?

1 comment:

  1. I'd prefer a flex schedule, working Saturday with the ability to take days off during the week as needed. Post offices, banks, government builds are only open when I'm at work. Of course your schedule isn't really a flex schedule.

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