Nov13, 2024–Again the great re-ordering of time has side-whacked us. Twice a year we reset the clocks to align with the great solar cycle, compensating for the tilt of our earth to calibrate clock readings to sunrise and sunset.
Long ago I came up with an elegant solution to ease this silly transition (see at end of column*). But for now I propose a more radical adjustment. Instead of adding an hour, let’s add an entire day. Face it, there just aren’t enough days in the week to get everything done.
This free extra day would allow everyone the flexibility to decide whether it would be a weekday or a weekend day.
For the working class, many would choose that sixth day to get everything done you couldn’t accomplish Monday through Friday. Productivity would skyrocket. Well, it would if it didn’t wind up being two casual Fridays in a row.
For chambers of commerce, the eighth day could be tacked on to the weekend. As it stands, there are not enough weekend days to accommodate all the fest, fetes, galas, celebrations, and whatever other synonyms exist. Adding a third weekend day would open up dozens of more dates to hold events.
The question you might be asking is, wouldn’t that throw off the calendar? No, not if we followed the Daylight Saving model and then removed the extra day in the spring. For the summer you would enjoy six-day weeks. This would mean a four-day work week, appeasing everyone grousing about the six-day work week, and the weekends would roll around faster. It would also give us more weeks, hence more weekends. Do the math.
For that matter, why do we need to differentiate between weekdays and weekends? A study showed that there is higher mortality in hospitals on weekends. It was not clear if this was because hospitals are understaffed on weekends, patients are released early for the weekend, or just the “thank God it’s Friday” syndrome.
So maybe it’s time to abandon the ancient weekly cycles, and make every day a “non-designated-day.” In this non-agrarian age, why do we still work five days, then take two days off? There is no logical reason for this. Time should be a seamless flow, not boxes on a calendar. What does anyone do on Sunday that they couldn’t do on Tuesday? Churches are packed for half a day, then are sporadically used the rest of week. Let every day have ecclesiastical overtones. Everyone hits the bars on Saturday night. Let every day have party potential. Give random days off on a rotating basis. Heck, animals don’t take weekends off. Farmers still have to feed the hogs on Saturday and milk the goats on Sunday. Cows don’t read calendars. Are we not superior to cows?
*As to my solution to Daylight Saving Time, there is an easy way to eat that cake and have it, too. Instead of advancing or retreating by one hour every six months, we could program our clocks to advance one second per hour for half the year, then lose one second per hour the other half. Voila! No one would miss, or even notice that missing second, and by spring, our clocks would be back in sync with the sun.
Do the math.
Then enjoy your day.
Phil Houseal is a writer and owner of Full House PR, www.FullHousePR.com.
Contact him at phil@fullhouseproductions.net.