4 day work week. Yeah I know off topic.
shadowcat
Atlanta suburb
There has been a lot of talk about this lately due to the high cost of gas. Work 10 hour shifts for 4 days and then have 3 off. This can work for many occupations.
My office is open 24/7/365. We never close. For the last 2+ years, I have been working 12 hour shifts. 3 on, 3 off, 3 on 3 off, 3 on, 3 off, 3 on, 6 off. Add to this my 6 weeks of vacation and compensatory time off for holidays worked and I wind up going to the office less than half a year. I choose to work the 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M shift. I will say that on the days that I work, nothing else gets done. But the time off is wonderful. Why retire?
My office is open 24/7/365. We never close. For the last 2+ years, I have been working 12 hour shifts. 3 on, 3 off, 3 on 3 off, 3 on, 3 off, 3 on, 6 off. Add to this my 6 weeks of vacation and compensatory time off for holidays worked and I wind up going to the office less than half a year. I choose to work the 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M shift. I will say that on the days that I work, nothing else gets done. But the time off is wonderful. Why retire?
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How come some people end up in "sweet deals" and others don't? Is there something consistent among those who have say in their lives? For me, the daily grind has been so much, in any job I've ever been in, that I don't even have time to bathe or eat food, I'm so busy radically sprinting from job requirement to job requirement. There have been times when I was frowned upon for using the toilet during work hours. How would I go about finding out about, and avoiding, this kind of unreasonable exploitation in the future?
As far as my work becoming a 4 day work week, I don't think my employer would go for that. Besides gas prices aren't really a big concern to me yet. I don't do that much driving and my car is already somewhat fuel efficient.
I believe I rack up most of my miles traveling to strip clubs. I did stay home last weekend but that was only because I thought I might be sleepy from not sleeping too much. I didn't want to risk driving and sleeping at the same time. Now if my relatives stop visiting so much, maybe I'll have some free time to myself again this weekend.
Better yet, instead of divine intervention, just invent a time machine and borrow a fusion reactor from the future and add some beer and a banana and off we can go. If our government really does have anti-gravity equipment as rumored, that would really help reduce transportation needs if they released that information.
Sorry for the rant, I did only sleep 2 hours last night. I think the anti-allergy medication is keeping me wired.
FRIENDS!!! :) That (the right friends) is a huge deal assuming you don't want to follow the path of getting an in demand degree or toiling for many years to try and climb the ladder somewhere. There is also luck, but part of the luck is looking ahead. For example, President Bush was praising a the idea of a lower dollar way before it happened because it creates "jobs." It also creates opportunities for speculators who looked ahead. A lot of morons, imo they're morons, sincerely believe in debasing a currency to create an export market i.e. jobs. A good portion of Americans whimper about sending "jobs" overseas, but the problem isn't sending "jobs" overseas . . . the problem is what happens if foreign nations suddenly decide they want real money or a lot more of your "funny" money?
You know the "fake" energy crisis? Fake is probably way too harsh a word, but a good portion of the higher price is merely a reflection of a cheaper dollar. Who knows the dollar may collapse completely so that President Bush's dream of creating millions of new jobs is realized as America becomes a net exporter instead of an importer. And, if the dollar collapses completely then $10 per gallon gas may seem like the good old days.
It's also my experience that once people spend more off-hours time working (eg. checking emalis during the evening) they also spend less time working during normal working hours. Maybe clubs should install wireless internet service so we could pretend we're working while we're having fun.
Work had me in clubs much more often then now. A few of us hit clubs at least once or twice a week after work. If I was on-call and had to go out, you can almost bet I'd hit a club or two. Traveling, ALWAYS checked TUSCL for the local clubs, and for the most part, the reviews were right on.
Now, I rarely visit clubs.
I do not doubt that what you say is true about computer work after hours, but in my case, other than checking a few emails, I would do nothing on a computer after work. Everything was pretty much interactive during the day, therefore, right after 5 PM was reserved for a few beers, eating, showering, and the clubs.
Checking out new clubs was always a benefit of travel. I do miss that, at times. And finding that one gem on a trip was always a high!
TO put it generally: most businesses that I've experienced tend toward this business model: the least possible effort for the minimum do-able success. Rather than scintillating success, just bare minimum si sought. Rather than effort-to-reward as a standard assumption, there's something different.
Generally it's "be a happy member of a happy environment" and "be a well-oiled cog in a quietly droning machine." The whole "I have enthusiasm for my work" mantra. Frankly, I personally don't. I have enthusiasm for my PAYCHECK. American work-culture has long since abandoned competitiveness or ability; much of the rest of our society is moving in that direction, too. So, in Detroit, they don't make the best cars, they make the best car financing plans, and the financial managers who run them are generlaly people who can "fit in" to a bland, middle-american corporate environment in which creativity, ability, verve, vigor, liveliness, common sense, are all traded out in favor of cheery-beery-boo performance of Julie-the-Cruise-Director-style "enthusiasm."
This nation is, after all, the land of enthusiastic religious experience. No surprise we've transferred that to our work culture as well.
I have no real problem with workplaces requiring that a given employee be somehow "happy to be there." But what's wrong with the happiness being engendered by the TRADE OFF of good work for good pay? no no, America doesn't do THAT any more. Instead, we do, "Oh I love it here so much I'd do it FOR NO PAY" as the assumed minimum requirement.
At least, that's what happens in academia, teaching, publishing, journalism, middle-management of real estate brokering and marketing, public relations, publicity, copy editing ... all the fields I've ever been in. Perhaps the problems come from the fact that I've chosen to be in a "service industry" because my natural gifts come from the world of the humanities and writing. Or perhaps the problem pervades much of big-structure corporate environments as a whole and I need to be at different employers though not necessarily different industries.
My solution? I'm going to law school. At least THAT will have some competitive edge to it.
I always looked at it this simple way. If the powers that be do not have you directly under their thumb, then you must be fucking off, in their opinion.
So, why bother with fine distinctions? Get into a different industry!
I did! I left IT and joined RI.