1999-12-17

Work work work

Last night a discussion broke out amongst the 5 or 6 people I now refer to as the Noise Message Board Posse (or the NMB Posse, which makes us sound more killah than we already are), and it was about our jobs. More specifically, about the whole concept of work here in the United States, and maybe more particularly so in New England. There's this idea that everybody has to work themselves to the point of exhaustion. I've heard people actually brag about not having had any vacation time in 2 years. J, for example, reports that her coworkers think it's odd to leave work anytime before 7 PM, no matter if you'd been there since 8:30 in the morning. My sister experienced the same sort of thing at her former job. I don't understand what it is about these places that blind their staff to the ultimate importance of being generally well-rested on a daily basis. I mean, it's fairly obvious to me, anyway, that if you come into work all ganked out from having worked a 13 hour day before, the quality of your work is going to suffer.

I know that I'm very fortunate in that my workplace basically encourages cool-out time, because if everyone's exhausted, especially in the Production Department, people are gonna get hurt. Power tools should not be handled by folks who are operating on 3 hours of sleep. Some departments have scheduled times in which it's understood that they are not to be disturbed for any reason. Like I said, I'm lucky. My salary isn't exactly impressive, but I'll take the overall peace of mind, thank you.

lisamcc at 09:16:15

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