Society of Perfect Time

My alarm clock rings at 7:47 AM which I deliberately place on the other side of the room to force myself out of bed. I drag through the paces of getting ready; shower, shave, clothes, check email while waffles are cooking, blah blah. Then I join the cluttered masses on the highway to my little cube in office-somewhere, I poke my way through the work that’s there and sometimes not before rejoining my four wheeled, blue-tooth armed comrades.

I can’t help but question just how healthy is a whole culture running in front of the hour hand in near perfect time?

The American working landscape has changed drastically in the past twenty to thirty years. Once great economic powerhouses assembled many workers in one place at one time to manufacture goods that our infrastructure once supported. American manufacturing industries, such as the Detroit automotive industry and the Pennsylvania steel forges, that are struggling or have completely disappeared in the progression of our economy built the structure of our contemporary work practices.

Industrial life has left us a regimen that herds the masses about their day in a systematic and detrimental ritual. The more time I spend subscribed to the nine-to-five the more I observe the damaging effects.

Traffic!
It may seem trivial and expected to complain about traffic but I consider it a powerful symbol of a greater problem. Our transportation system is overloaded daily; public transit is poorly maintained and ill-equipped to handle the crowds at peak times. Daily thousands of individuals sit bitterly on a four lane highway idling in first gear. The greater problem is very clear to me here. At a macro-level placing large groups in motion at the same time is costly, inefficient and damaging to our transportation system.

Insomnia
What sleep pattern is truly natural to humans? Is the standard seven to eight hours most natural? Do all of us function best with the same style of rest? I believe that the answers to these questions have been prescribed by our rudimentary labor schedule and not truly evaluated. I’ve met people that do their best work while burning the midnight oil, so why force them to a cube at the opposite time?

Equilibrium
The individuals around me that I observe on the “nine to five times five” are entirely unapproachable on Monday. This is a terrible way to live and produces a disposition that rolls like a flat tire. I see no balance in dragging through the week for brief enjoyment on the weekend then the horrible Monday crash. A flexible work schedule would persuade a more balanced flow of life.

As we shed the confines of the factory it is equally important to recognize and challenge the old ideas they have left behind. The American economy has incurred a strong shift from manufacturing to service and much of the labor force is technologically enabled to work anywhere at anytime. The productivity of technical labor and the quality of life for those who do it could be greatly improved by opening up the work schedule in situations where the shackles of manufacturing hours are no longer necessary.