The Thursday Trap

"Hello, could I get your account number? You can find it by clicking Help then About."
"Where do I find that in the program?" Insert face into palm, this conversation is already off to a rocky start. For anyone working in tech support, it's a common refrain in so much that it is repeated dozens of times per day. In customer support, you're taught not to take anything personally but that has never been easy for me. We're told from a young age not to bother anyone with your problems because they have their own things to worry about. Oddly enough through my daily interactions with the Debbies, Lindas and Tammies of the world, I find myself having a few extra drinks on Thursdays instead of the culturally acceptable Fridays.

Employment is an interesting concept. When you don't have a job, most people will spend an inordinate amount of time looking for one. When you have a job, you constantly look for reasons not to go. Granted, there are some people who are working exactly where you want to work and happy with the wages your receive or comfortable working environments. God bless you but you're one of the few. Most Americans will lump it out and much more are working paycheck to paycheck. For all intents and purposes, it's a kind of feudalism. On a few occasions, I've been called a wage slave, especially while I was working two jobs. A few times (OK, more than a few times) where I've caught myself yelling at traffic during the morning commute to a job I'm not too keen about. It's like getting mad because I'm late to go have a tooth pulled.

I've mentioned cognitive fatigue in the past. It goes by a few names, but cognitive fatigue could be described as a feeling of mild to extreme exhaustion lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Symptoms include a sustained sense suppressed mental clarity, emotional instability, and agitation along with processing suppression, thought disorganization, depression, irritability, and anxiety. Colloquially, I've called it "red-lining." If you're driving a car, there is an upper limit for the RPMs (revolutions per minute) an engine can take and those upper limits are in the red zone of the tachometer. Driving at that pace causes unnecessary wear and tear but could ultimately lead to your engine blowing out. In the work world, you see it referred to as "burn out." Whether employers know it or not, the service industry taxes cognitive processes. There have been many instances where my brain is turned into oatmeal after 50 interactions. Baseball managers will count the pitches the pitcher throws to make sure the hurler doesn't blow out his arm for the next time he's due up in the rotation. Could you imagine if a manager or a CEO took a look at your workload and tap you on the shoulder and said to go home and come back fresh in the morning? Unheard of!

Today is Labor Day and I finally have time to hack out this piece about the work/life balance. Historically in the industrialized world, worker's rights have fought over. We've come a long way from 12-hour work days and 6-days per workweek. Even so, with increasing automation, we are looking at shrinking that down further. Can we get the same amount of work done in less time? Many people are getting their work done within 4 to 5 hours. I think many people would forgo the mandatory half hour lunch and 2 15-minute breaks if people could go home an hour earlier. Countless people have written about it, Tim Ferriss being my favorite. In his book, The Four Hour Work Week, Tim goes in depth about maximizing his effort and time and not falling into the pitfalls for looking for stuff to do to fill the 8-hour work day. It's frustrating because businesses are unwilling to take the first step. Who will be the first company in the service industry to say they're going to be open for 4 or 5 hours and pay their employees the same as they would if they were there for 8 hours?

The same goes for vacation time. We are inundated with stories about how Europe has a guaranteed amount of paid holidays, typically around 4 weeks. Many people wouldn't consider an economy such as Germany being a non-productive bunch. The economic core of Europe, Germany has one paid national holiday, Unification Day (October 3rd) and 9 to 13 paid holidays in addition to up to 24 days vacation. There are also "mini jobs" where workers earn 450 euros for up to 15 hours of work. The typical American working in the private sector will receive about half of what Europeans do, 16 days of vacation.

Dan Carlin mentioned the idea of parachronism in terms of employment wherein we look at a particular era and apply that to a current context. For a majority of employers, there are sticking to a business model that was created over 70 years ago. It's only in the technology field where employers are using different tactics, shorter days, more "me" time for employees and other benefits and services and are getting more from their team. It's essentially the difference between free range chicken and factory chicken. The concept is that you'll get a better, healthier product if you give the animal enough space to enjoy its life. Until we all get on board with that concept, I drink it out. I've kept this "stream of consciousness" site to kind of parse what I see and what's been told to me. I've caught myself comparing my state of affairs with a rubric that's 50 or 60 years old. Moving forward from here, I need to overcome these behavioral tendencies and habits I've picked up over the past 10 years and not rely on old coping mechanisms.  Job one is to cultivate new activities to prevent cognitive fatigue on my own and continue to increase my acumen within my field. Just have to avoid that Thursday trap as we all try to survive until Friday.