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BS: 8 Day Week
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Subject: BS: 8 Day Week From: The PA Date: 30 Nov 07 - 07:46 AM Heard on the radio last night thoughts on a new week consisting of 8 days. For the workers 4 days on and 4 days off. Here's the question : what should we call the eigth day? Any Answers? |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Hawker Date: 30 Nov 07 - 07:54 AM Funday! |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Peace Date: 30 Nov 07 - 10:53 AM Call it Fred. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 30 Nov 07 - 10:59 AM Shouldn't this be in the music section? The Beatles sang about 8 days a week forty years ago. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Becca72 Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:07 AM "Hey, let's get together for coffee next Fred"... |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Amos Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:15 AM One advantage is that the year would consist of a stablethree-decimal number of weeks-- 45.625 -- instead of the current irregular 52.142... . But we have a LOT of tradition built around a 7 day week, starting with the Divine Labor detailed in Genesis, for example. So why not just start with a four-day work-week, three days off, and let it run for a while? No-one will get exhausted, I am sure. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: PoppaGator Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:47 AM We could also stick with the age-old seven-day arrangement by working three days and taking four off ~ better yet! Four days on and three days off would be OK by me, though; no need, really, for that extra eighth day to extend the weekend. Even a workweek of four 10-hour days would be preferable, to many folks, to the current five eight-hour day arrangement. Just as many hours (40), but more free time in terms of full days. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: gnomad Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:56 AM Agnes Then all the religious nuts can get excited about whether or not to call it Agnesday. I worked a four on, three off week for several years, and liked it a lot. The "on" days were long, but the time saved in commuting was great; not just 20% as might be expected, missing rush hours made it more like 40%. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 30 Nov 07 - 12:00 PM PoppaGator-- It seems to me that a workweek of 4-10hr days would really be ideal. Problem is that in many states any work over 8 hrs must be paid at an overtime rate, creating increased labor costs for employers. Too, many union contracts (if not all) also define the workday as 8 hours, with the same result. However, as I no longer have a work week this is of no never mind to me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Donuel Date: 30 Nov 07 - 12:08 PM I think George Carlin would call it Lemumbaday which he used in short for 'the day after tommorrow'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: PoppaGator Date: 30 Nov 07 - 12:34 PM Hey, John on the Sunset Coast, I've never had a union job, which may be why I didn't think of that 8-hour-per-day limit before time-and-a-half kicks in. Many years ago, when I was technically unemployed and putting in long hours as a street musician, I was a member of the Communications Workers division of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies"). I didn't go out of my way to join this legendary radical group ~ a local organizer in San Francisco dropped a membership card and lapel pin in my guitar case in lieu of cash. Hey, we're daydreaming here anyway, right? If a nationwide changeover to the four-day workweek were ever to actually happen, revisons to union rules would be just one of many changes that would have to be accepted. I'm glad for you that you no longer have a work week. I just turned 60 a few weeks ago, so I have a few more years to toil my life away before I got to that point (if ever). I was involuntarily taken out of the workforce a couple of years ago by the levee failures that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and was badly spoiled by an early taste of retirement. I'm back at work now, and I hate it... PS: Is the "Sunset Coast" the west coast of the US, or of Florida? |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 30 Nov 07 - 12:49 PM Florida? What's Florida but a male part along the Gulf sticking into the Caribbean Sea? I speak, sir, of southern California. I hope you (and all affected) are getting your lives back together. And Happy Birthday to you. Mine was 2-1/2 weeks ago; the number is bigger than yours. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Amos Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:12 PM Point Loma, here in San Diego, is also a male part of coast, but it sticks into the much larger Pacific voluptuary, with its billowing, trembling, crashing, pounding, scratching and clawing and soothing and gently caressing combinations of warm wet waves. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Nov 07 - 02:27 PM Good lord. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:29 PM Having formerly lived most of a decade in the San Carlos area of San Diego, I know Pt. Loma well. It is certainly how you describe it, Amos. BTW, let me plug to you my nephew's new North Park restaurant, Urban Solace on 30th & University. Sorry, couldn't help myself! |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: JennieG Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:31 PM When I was a teenager my best friend came up with a brilliant idea...... We have Friday off work to get us used to the idea of having a weekend Saturday and Sunday are the weekend We have Monday off work to recover from the weekend .......reckon she had something there. Cheers JennieG |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: PoppaGator Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:34 PM I'm pretty sure that the west coast of Florida uses the same designation, or a very similar one, for tourism-promotion purposes. It is, after all, another coast where you can watch the sun sink into the sea each evening. I am less than positive about this only because I rarely go down there. I am much more familiar with the Florida panhandle's south-facing Gulf Coast, variously known as the "Redneck Riviera" (colloquially) or the "Emerald Coast" (in Chamber-of-Commerce-type literature). |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:40 PM Copycats! |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Sorcha Date: 30 Nov 07 - 05:08 PM Biggest trouble for me would be that people tend to eat pizza every day of the week, no matter how many days there are in it. So, I gotta work all of em but 2. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: skipy Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:25 PM USa consumes 75 acres of pizza a day! Fact! Skipy |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Little Hawk Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:25 PM That's disgusting! |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Liz the Squeak Date: 30 Nov 07 - 08:23 PM 8 day weeks eh?? That'll bugger up Wink Martindale's career... Who is Wink Martindale?? He wrote this! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: George Papavgeris Date: 01 Dec 07 - 06:37 AM My treatise on the subject is here: Working Week |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Bee Date: 01 Dec 07 - 07:47 AM Four days on and three off is nice. I've done that. Best work on/off experience I've had was job-shares. You have one job, two workers. Worker One starts at noon Wednesday, works Thursday and Friday, has the weekend off, works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday until one. Then takes a week off. There's the one hour overlap to inform Worker Two of important job stuff. This doesn't work with all jobs, but it does for lots of them. It works especially well for people who have a second calling which brings in some income, but is not entirely reliable, such as a craft, art, or profession. In times of high unemployment, it means one job serves two people, which is how I first encountered the concept, after which I sought it out. Some employers like it because they get two workers knowing the same job, neither is exhausted from overwork, if one is ill, the other is normally willing to fill in for the extra cash, and any sudden overload of work can be handled by having both on the job for as long as needed. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: autolycus Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:03 AM For one thing, PA, I wouldn't call it the eigth day anyway. I'd call it the eighth.:-) Ivor |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:07 AM Liz---Wink Martindale recorded 'Deck of Cards,' but he did not write it. DoC was written in the 1948 by country singer, T. Texas Tyler, who also had a hit recording with it; Martindale was a teenager then, but his 1950s version probably has sold more records than Tylers. BTW, WM, on his website, credits Tyler as the author. |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: JohnInKansas Date: 01 Dec 07 - 11:31 AM One advantage is that the year would consist of a stablethree-decimal number of weeks-- 45.625 -- instead of the current irregular 52.142... ? ? ? ? ? With an 8 day week, there would be approximately 45.65500 weeks per year, but only if the current practice of occasional "leap-second" corrections is maintained to correct for orbit variations. To keep a whole number of days in each years, a leap year every 2d year could be used to "regularize the calendar," omitted for regularly spaced years "when the year number is divisible by n." I'll leave the calculation of "n" as a homework questions, since I'm not all that wild about integer math trivia. On general principles, I'd have to suggest that messing with the established practice is probably not a really good idea. The US Navy has done, and published, a lot of research on attempts to find/justify odd work cycles, and have fairly conclusively shown that efficiency, safety, and "quality of life" are adversely affected for almost any deviation outside the 8 hour shifts, three shifts per day, five days on - two days off that is mostly "traditional" (in the US). In the submarine service, especially, I believe the current practice is 8 hours on, 8 hours off, no such thing as a weekend, with two crews providing 24/7 manning, because it minimizes the number of crewmembers that have to be carried; but they admit that all the "good things in life" suffer, with the crew members taking the hit for the "convenience of the service." Although it's common to pay "overtime" for work over 8 hours per shift, the practice of 10-hour days 5 days per week with 6 on Saturday is - or has been fairly recently - almost "standard" in some US industry segments. Paying an overtime premium (often but not always time-and-a-half since only a very small percentage of US workers are actually incuded in the overtime pay requirement fiction) is much cheaper than hiring additonal workers, since you buy one health insurance policy, pay one retirement plan contribution, make one unemployment compensation system payment, and give the same holidays and vacation days off per person hired; and none of these "other costs of employment" change when the one you have works overtime, but would have to be paid if you hired another employee. Not too far obsolete figures indicated the "total cost of employing" a worker who is paid $20 per hour was about $180 per hour - the "burden rate" chargeable on audited contracts. Working that person another overtime hour cost you an additional $30. Working a new employee the same hour cost you $180 (not counting recruiting/hire-in costs, moving allowance, temporary housing and training, etc., which were common in that particular industry for that kind of employee). Similar "corporate savings" apply to the use of "Temps" a.k.a. Contract Workers a.k.a. Job-Shoppers a.k.a. "hired pencils." "Interesting" research results - persuasive but not conclusive - were reported within recent days indicating that "working night shifts may cause cancer." The researches report "statistically significant correlation" but have apparently refrained from postulating causality links pending further John |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: Liz the Squeak Date: 02 Dec 07 - 03:34 AM Re: Wink Martindale - Alright, I meant recorded! *BG* But I bet I'm one of only a few who knew what he did! I used to jobshare - a colleague and I took care of our respective children on this basis. He worked 3 days one week, 2 days the next and I did the opposite, with one Saturday each a month. It meant we had childcare we trusted and our children bonded really strongly - our jobs were covered and it worked really well. These former employers of mine were named 'Council of the Year' in 2000, which they achieved by reducing their outgoings. This they managed, by sacking a large number of staff on the slimmest of excuses (and winning over half the appeal tribunals) and hiring 'sessional workers' - aka 'hired pencils'. These days, I work a 4 X half day week, where previously I'd do 2 and one half day. I cover the mornings which means that the whole day from 7am-7pm is covered by myself and a member of staff who prefers to work the afternoon/evenings. The biggest plusses are that I no longer have to pay a childminder and I don't have to spend ALL day listening to the same colleague gossip and bitch like an old woman. LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: 8 Day Week From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 02 Dec 07 - 07:29 PM Back in the French Revolution they tried to introduce a ten day week - the décade. But it never caught on, and Napoleon pulled the plug on it after a few years. I've always thought it's a shame he didn't do the same for the other similar innovations such as metres and litres and suchlike... |
