Friday, July 20, 2012

The Panda Bear on Store Hours and the 32 Hour Work Week

The Panda Bear Blog is a blog about the busy life of an average American.   The Panda Bear disagrees with so-called "experts" who say people are just imagining how busy they are.

Today the Panda Bear had today off from work.   At 1:00 she is to meet Mother Panda for lunch and help Mother Panda buy a new computer.   Mother Panda now has no computer.

This gave the Panda Bear from 4:30-12:45 of leisure.  (The Panda Bear's work hours are from 7:00-3:30 so she is used to getting up early in the morning).   The Panda Bear spent all yesterday afternoon day dreaming about what she would do with her eight hours of leisure.  

The Panda Bear's first choice of activity would be either to go to a second hand clothes store she likes or the public library.   These places of business do not open up until 10:00.  In fact most stores don't open until 10:00.   Considering the US is now a 24/7 society, the Panda Bear is very surprised that sores don't open earlier during the week.   There must be many people like the Panda Bear who are used to early hours during the week and some people who would like to do errands before work.   Thus, despite the Panda Bear being critical that in the US people are expected to be on the go constantly,  the Panda Bear believes that some institutions might find it useful/profitable to have early morning hours.

The Panda Bear has nothing against being busy.   Indeed, the Panda Bear is devoting a great deal of her leisure time to her blogging and other activities.   The problem is the Panda Bear believes that a great part of American busyness is involuntary.

In the future the Panda Bear will be doing a series of posts advocating that thirty-two hours not forty hours been considered the basis of a full-time work week.  The Panda Bear has picked a thirty-two hour week because the Panda Bear known people who work a thirty-two hour work week and they can hold similar positions to those who work forty hours a week.

The Panda Bear remembers learning an old Union Chant that went:

It is a six day week, and a twelve hour day and it is welcome boys to the USA.

The five day work week certainly was an improvement over the six day week-maybe it is time to consider the four day work week.

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