just wait and see

A weird skill I learned while at university was to be wary of rules/protocols that exist not for a logical or physical reason, but simply because someone “decided” on it.

One that I think about a fair bit is the 40 hour work week. I guess the reason behind it was that people should have the weekend off (Tradition) and that of the 5 working days the time should be split equally between work, play and rest. Maybe that sounded like a logical system (8 hours sleeping and an 8 Hour workday, which leaves 8 hours spare in a 24 hour day). However its not like 40 hours a week is the optimum level for human efficiency (or something).

When in school, we do to 30 hours a week. Maybe because it sounded logical that a child needs a lighter workload than adults. But Elite Athletes do something like 35 hours a week (Lance Armstrong mentioned that he rode 6 hours a day, assuming one day off a week), which is what gets me. The people who are pushing their bodies to the max are doing less work than the ordinary person. Not because they are inferior, but because they know how important rest is.

Employers don’t care about how rested their workforce is, if an employee isn’t rested it is his fault, not the bosses. So we eat into the time theoretically allocated to “play” so we can get enough sleep. Not only that but lunch breaks don’t count towards our 8 hours of working, so eating comes out of the “play” time also. Don’t forget commuting, that is also “play”.

What is left is a pitiful excuse of a work-life balance. And that is at the basic 40 hour week. It gets worse if you are trying to climb a corporate ladder or meet a deadline.

I work at a place that struggles to keep the employee level required to meet its labour requirements, so when I asked if I could cut back some hours I got death stared like there was something wrong with me.

I just don’t understand the need to follow the “full-time rule” that exists for no good reason at all.