The weekend. Two wistful days of bliss for the 9-to-5 worker. Saturday and Sunday. Or as I like to call them: "Sat-down-day" and "Fun-day." Two full days of rest and relaxation. Forty-eight hours of do-what-you-like. Even if you minus a couple hours for going to church on Sunday morning, you still have time to relax later on. Two days of recharging the human batteries. Time to remember you are a human and not a remotely-controlled machine dedicated to making your employer a daily profit. No, the weekend is your time and it's my time. But what if that time was intruded upon by the corporate world?
As many of us who work for big companies or global corporations know, the hourly pay clock keeps ticking as long as we keep working. Therefore, we take as much as we can get--before Uncle Sam steals his greedy portion--and come in to work on weekends for that juicy overtime pay. But it is worth it?
I have to ask myself that question. Of course, when I'm in need of money, yes--it's worth my time to come in and work on a Saturday or Sunday. Hard economic times dictate employment decisions. However, now that I'm married, my personal time becomes more and more important to me. I want to spend more time with my wife, not trapped in a prison-like cubicle staring at four gray wall panels. My wife and I don't have any children yet, but when we do, I don't want to miss a single moment without them. Don't get me wrong, I'm a very dedicated worker. I like to leave after my shift is over knowing that my day's work was put forth with my best effort. I take pride in my work. My diligence and work performance has never come to be questioned by any of my employers, past or present. So, what has changed?
Time has changed. Days seems shorter now than when I was younger. Even I have changed. I'm not as fast as I used to be, I acknowledge that fact. It's not a medical condition, unless you factor in what sleep apnea has done to me physically. Oh, the desire is there! The mind is willing even if the body is weak. I can work and plan to work until such time as when I believe I am no longer functioning at full (physical or mental) capacity. That's not what is troubling me, something else concerns me about this work-weekend-work cycle.
The decline in the quality of life, that's it. I need to work to earn money. When I earn money, I can feed and clothe my family as well as pay bills and keep a roof over our heads. I'm not complaining about that fact. I'm concerned about my quality of life when I spend most of the work day with people (i.e., co-workers) I hardly care about. I guess I would not be so concerned if I had my own small business, such as a pizzaria, and my family owned and operated the business. We would be together all the time while also making money to support ourselves. And maybe that is the answer to happiness, to balancing life with work-related responsibilities. To own your own business and be your own boss, the dream of many, but the reality of few.
The truth of life is that we all work for someone else, even if that someone else is just a monolithic corporate face or company logo. Like pledging allegiance to the American flag, so do we pledge our very existence to the business taskmaster--the overlord of our lives--the one who controls and doles out the paycheck. This is the never-ending cycle we cannot change, like life and death. There is no room in this world for the lazy or the useless. Work, my son--work to eat and survive. You have no life beyond that daily routine. Though the work week is long, just remember that the weekend is the only chance you have to truly feel like you are alive. Work for the weekend, everybody's doing it.
~Andrew K.
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