vilakins | Overworked and underleisured

From several people, the latest of whom is astrogirl2

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

The closest books are right on my desk: the four Molesworth books by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle. Only one, Whizz for Atomms extends to 123 pages, unless you count Back in Jug Agane which just has 'THE END' on page 123.

Whizz for Atomms has only two sentences (or one, depending on how you look at it) on page 123 and they are:

Exit the wealthy worker 12345/c nye molesworth and all the machines go:

A puff-a grab - sizzle - grunt - scree - ow - gosh - sizzle - screeeeeee - ect.

This is from Molesworth's imagining of the future where he is a highly-paid worker in one of the 'automatick nuclear atommic factories which do all the work by themselves cheers cheers". This was written in 1956 when workers had a lot more power than they do now, and when people thought the biggest problem facing people in the future--the one we're living in--was how to fill their huge numbers of leisure hours.

What happened? People seem to be working harder than ever. Here in NZ we work the longest hours in the world, have fewer holidays than most (3-4 weeks with few public holidays) and people just put up with it. I've stepped back and work fewer hours than most (officially 30 hours a week but usually more like 35) and let me tell you, I would have no problem filling those leisure hours.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

3-4 weeks is amazingly long holidays compared to the US. You're sort of lucky to get 2 weeks these days.

Really? Wow. In Germany I got two months and heaps of public holidays. We're going to four weeks standard next year and not before time.

[offers a jelly baby]

Yes, I always wondered what happened to the leisure society they told us back in the 60s was coming!

Apparently now the biggest growing employment sector is the 'service industry'. Deltas unite!

What's happened is the intersection between the law of diminishing returns, the consumer economy, and the sort of idiotic thinking that determines things like "trickle-down economics". Our expectations got raised, our list of what we "have to have" is longer than ever, and the primary sort of economic thinking around these days is that if we give the rich folks enough money, they'll hand some of it on to the rest of us. Eventually.

It's wonderful news for the rich and for the powerful (there's some overlap there, but not nearly as much as they'd like) because most of us are too busy at our 45 hour working weeks to actually stop and think about things like "why the hells am I doing this?" or "hang on, why do I have to pay twice as much tax as the owner of the company" or similar such thoughts. It's not such good news for the workers, because we're told that the reason we're not satisfied with our work/life balance is because we're not working hard enough, and that we're being paid too much for the work we are doing.

I find it rather interesting that in the course of about twenty years (from the mid-1980s to today) we've managed to get rid of every last principle of collective bargaining that our ancestors fought hard for...

Yes. Exactly. It's the same here.

And that whole 'tax advantages for the rich' thing is obscene, as are the salaries they pay CEOs. No one, no one is worth that much. Who the hell do they think makes their profits? The workers of course, though no one acknowledges them. In fact they call employees 'human resources' these days, turning us into just another expendable expense

As far as leave is concerned I get 30 days a year (working on a week being 5 days for me)and all our Bank Holidays. But that's still not enough I want the 3 day week with the 5 day pay scale we were promised.

You get six weeks? Waaaah!

And to make you more unhappy the Bank holidays consist of;-
New Years day 1 day
Easter 3 days
May Day 1 day
Spring Bank Holiday i day
Christmas 3 days

And the 1 day Bank Holidays are all Mondays meaning long weekends.

These days many employers(not mine unfortunaltly) are combing Christmas and New Year and giving their work force a Holiday that starts on Christmas Eve and finishes the day after New Years day

We get:
New Year - 2 days
Easter 2 days
Queen's birthday
Labour day
Christmas 2 days
and Waitangi and Anzac days if they fall on a weekend. There are years we get neither.

We get one more than if we're lucky with the last two, but six weeks holiday? [envies so much]

I only get that many because I've been so long with the same employer. We start with 21 days and after10 years 3 days are added every 5 years to a maximum of 30. And it's still not enough.

Ahhh. I'd never get there then.

Our company forces us to take holidays between Christmas and New Year, but the holiday time comes out of our usual 4-week alotment.

As for public holidays, it's

New Year - 1 day
Easter - 2 days
Queen's birthday
Labour day
Australia day
ANZAC day but only if it doesn't fall on a weekend
One may also get a regional holiday like Melbourne Cup Day (Melbourne) or Exhibition Day (Brisbane) but that depends on where you live.

On the other hand, if you're a teacher then you get the same holidays as the students, more or less. Not paid very well, though, and not respected as they ought to be.

Oh yeah, I forgot anniversary day, which is different for each province.

How many days do you get for Christmas?

Oh, I thought I'd put Christmas. We get 2 days.

I think That companies that close down over Christmas and the New Year do the same here. Personally I wouldn't mind but then I do have an embarrassment of riches with my 30 day leave.%)

Factories, accountants, and lawyers (yes, an odd mix) close down over Christmas and much of January, yet another reason I wouldn't work for one. I usually take the days between and a few after to bring it up to two weeks for a cost of only 6 days, but I like to take my holidays when schools aren't.

But I like to take my holidays when schools aren't

You and me both, which is why Sue and I and the dogs take our seaside holiday in late September. We do occasionally share Newport Beach with a class oh 10 year olds but because they are country kids they know better than to bother the dogs without our permission and coming from small country schools they are usually much more disciplined.

And since we are talking about Christmas here's a preview of my winter icon.

Overworked and underleisured

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