Cracker: Hot Cross Words
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There is also the small matter of us owls...dunno whether you are Ben Wilson, but me & my sibs are: sooo, 3 of us are self-employed, and work during the night, and the remaining 2 (used to be 3 but aue! one of us died in 2007) work night shifts. We've fathomed ways for us to be productive members of society, and 3 of us work in city areas...the other 2 (self included) make bloody sure our food, drink et al is ready for us when we are ready for it = we make it so.
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I'm totally an owl. I used to think it was an unhealthy habit, but now I realize that's just something people who have to get up early in the morning want you to think, that somehow their choice of time to rise is deeply better. But I doubt that there haven't been night owls amongst the population since prehistoric times - someone had to keep an eye out for predators and other enemies. Some kinds of hunting is best done at night, same goes for fishing - the tide doesn't keep officially sanctioned hours. Someone has to comfort sleepless children. My owlishness was never criticized during the first six months of either of my children's lives because it didn't bother me in the least to get up at 3am to give a bottle, so long as I was allowed to sleep in.
I like mornings, but I like to rise after the sun, at my own pace, and prepare slowly.
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Fellow owl - exactly!
I'm a fisher and I can do early morning tides, no worries - because I've not gone to sleep before them, and I can happily sleep after. And - night tides? Pick me!
And, one of the things I'd never thought I'd be useful for, but turns out I am, kids with night terrors or just cant-go-to-sleep, find I can murmur stories or just sing quiet stuff-can do it with worried adults too!
I go to bed at dawn, relishing the dawn chorus: I get up around noon and I am full on thereafter-there should be ways of including all the eccentricities of humans into
everyday workaday life as a matter of course-well, I wish-
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a quaint throwback to times when we didn't have electric light
Quite a few people in the labour movement fought very hard, and some of them died, for the quaintness of regulated working hours. It's not like I don't see the necessity of some things in society being accessible at all times, but it seems a peculiarly privileged way of looking at things to assume that everyone doing shiftwork or beavering away on a public holiday has the same sorts of "choices" as you or I do. Once we make our (actual) choice, some other, less powerful worker is stuck with our precedent and that person ends up with fewer options. That's why we have things like penal rates and public holidays, and why I'm particularly reluctant to see them eroded.
Also, I hate 3am feeds with all my soul, and I've only been doing them for three weeks. :)
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But your bub loves & needs it- and you :)
What nightworker owls know is - we only work well in a different part of the continium of work time (and, more importantly, we DONT work well at earlier times.) I can go catch fish at - to me, absurdly early hours - because
I know once we've caught(and gutted, filleted, packed), I can go back to bed. And those kind of optimum times dont come all that often- we make our choices to do this kind of thing.But this doesnt have a lot do to with regulated working hours: I kmow these are being eroded, along with health & safety regulations, even as we casually email in comfort-
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I realise I'm a dinosaur, Ben, but my concerns are very much about the way that we all use our leisure time, now. So few people seem to be able to relax, and just be. It's something I try to teach my kids about. Because children tend to get bored if there's nothing to do, and I spend quite a bit of my time encouraging children to either 1) find a way to amuse themselves or in eduspeak drive their own learning and 2) sitting/lying quietly, just being and thinking. People these day I find have a propensity to run around madly, usually in the weekends, trying to cram everything in. And by everything, for some people, this means walking around their local mall, window shopping and buying a couple of things every now and then. So yes, I welcome days that everything is shut, and when moving a bit slower is enforced.
And Hilary, you are quite rignt, people did go for Sunday drives back when, but nowadays when there are more people on the road, and the people that are on the road are mannerless twats, it's so much more annoying. -
Also, I hate 3am feeds with all my soul, and I've only been doing them for three weeks. :)
Danielle, they don't last forever, and I'm impressed that you can feed, think and type at the same time.
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Danielle
but it seems a peculiarly privileged way of looking at things to assume that everyone doing shiftwork or beavering away on a public holiday has the same sorts of "choices" as you or I do.
I don't assume that. And I don't accept that my choice of timetable has forced anyone else to do anything. Like I said above, I'm in favor people being able to take the holidays they want, not ones that are timed around ancient and for many people irrelevant rituals. The people who end up working on public holidays ARE these people with no choices, and they do it for the money. Which means they don't get to be part of the celebration (even if it was meaningful to them).
As I see it, the way our days are organized and structured are much more oppressive to people with fewer choices than a more flexible timetable would be. The idea that society dictates when you must sleep, when you get to have your rest, etc, seems actually pretty slack to me.
Jackie, there's nothing dinosaur about valuing leisure time and relaxation. That's part of what I see is good about a flexible timetable, it lets you choose the most appropriate times TO YOU to enjoy that leisure. I remember one old guy I worked with who found he simply needed to sleep in the middle of the day every day. He would take a couple of hours for a siesta. He got away with it because he was the boss, but he worked like a beaver the rest of the time. He was pretty keen for it to be a company standard, but unfortunately the General Manager was one of those timetable fascists who loved to turn up at work at 5am, and gave huge kudos to everyone else who turned up early. He never seemed to notice that his productivity was toast by about 3pm, or that me and other owls would often work through until midnight if the task required it, or there was some disaster to cope with.
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My worry about the "some people want to work stat holidays" argument is the possibility of those who are willing to work being used to leverage other employees into working when they actually don't want to. If your boss is saying "Jim's willing to work Easter and he's got more kids than you and, hey, there's a recession on..." how likely are you to insist that your family time is more important than this "voluntary" work day?
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Back when I had a car, I really enjoyed DRIVING AROUND AIMLESSLY on a weekend afternoon. It's a nice time to just spend by myself, physically occupied, with the ability to just let me mind wander (but not too far).
Aimful driving is boring. Give me aimless or give me public transport.
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Love driving around (there goes my green cred) but usually do have a destination in mind. Don't know if it's Auckland's mannerless traffic, but I found my bus and train trips yesterday more relaxing and a great way to appreciate the city and its people.
I really like Ben's idea that everyone gets an allowance of stat days that they can use throughout the year as they please - with the proviso that they are strictly not tradable for pay. Especially in the Auckland region with our high migrant numbers, it seems silly that eveyone has to work around one religion's dictates about which days are special.
one of those timetable fascists who loved to turn up at work at 5am, and gave huge kudos to everyone else who turned up early.
I'm sure we've discussed this somewhere else a while back, but I find the socially sanctioned moralising about early risers being somehow better people just offensive. Sooner it dies out the better.
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JLM,
Re driving aimlessly, we drive so little now - about once a week, through a conscious effort to use other forms of transport - that when we do take the car out now, we make a point of taking a circuitous route and exploring the rural roads around our new environment. Much goodly plum and apple preserving has resulted, as well as a real sense of getting to know our neighbourhood. Perhaps it's not so aimless after all.
Claire Browning wrote a lovely recent piece on driving aimlessly here.
http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/the-road-to-pahaoa
Thanks Claire.
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really like Ben's idea that everyone gets an allowance of stat days that they can use throughout the year as they please
What kind of society would we have where we can't even agree on having public holidays at the same time. As far as I'm concerned that's kinda the point. You know, community.
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What kind of society would we have where we can't even agree on having public holidays at the same time. As far as I'm concerned that's kinda the point. You know, community.
Indeed, Martin. You know, the idea of a pluralistic society where anyone would question why we all should honour Christian religious festivals thanks to, effectively, a historical accident is really fucking appalling. Just because I'm a devout Catholic doesn't mean you should have to be.
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I reckon many people would still congregate around certain dates, just less so than now. You would still expect cultural festivals and religious services to be organised for followers on certain meaningful days of the year.
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Just because I'm a devout Catholic doesn't mean you should have to be.
Certainly not and I wasn't referring specifically to religious festivals. I said public holidays but yes, in some cases they do overlap with religious festivals. Although I believe that for most people, the festivals' religious origins have been practically forgotten.
I was arguing against the idea that we should all have an individual stack of public holiday tokens that we could invoke at will. I believe there is a value in having public holidays (secular ones if you will) that we can all share.
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If your boss is saying "Jim's willing to work Easter and he's got more kids than you and, hey, there's a recession on..." how likely are you to insist that your family time is more important than this "voluntary" work day?
This kind of pressure comes on people all the time anyway. Which is why you have the right to a holiday. My question is: Why does it have to be on a public holiday? Or a weekend, for that matter?
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I was arguing against the idea that we should all have an individual stack of public holiday tokens that we could invoke at will. I believe there is a value in having public holidays (secular ones if you will) that we can all share.
And how does having tokens make it impossible to share holidays? On the contrary, it means people can share the holidays that mean something to them.
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On the contrary, it means people can share the holidays that mean something to them.
I see a value in that we, as a society, have a set of public holidays that are fixed whether they mean something to you personally or not. Take Anzac Day as an example. It has no personal significance to me. However, I most certainly respect that it's a public holiday of national importance and would definitely not complain that my local Countdown wasn't open at 7am.
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What about having set public holidays that are not meaningful dates in themselves but are still days that most things are shut and most people can reasonably expect to have off work or school (maybe during the middle week of each school term)? I really do like the idea of having some days where everything stops all at once.
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I really do like the idea of having some days where everything stops all at once.
This - yes.
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I believe there is a value in having public holidays (secular ones if you will) that we can all share.
Agree - like Waitangi Day. Others seem to rely on everyone "sharing" the same preferences and cultures.
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Waitangi Day. Anzac Day. New Years Day. Matariki. Labour Day.
And the rest to be sprinkled through those times of the year that are meaningful and important to us as individuals...many people will still wish to respect their own religious holidays (whether Easter or Day of the Dead or whatever.) Me and mine would celebrate the First of Oysters and 'Bait Day* : some locals definitely celebrate Duck Season Opening (I make a point of being somewhere else for that.)I like Ben Wilson's idea...it shouldnt be too hard to factor in, in this computer age.
And for those people, like some of my whanau, who are regularly rostered on duty on the current statutory holidays, it would mean a chance to choose those times that are important to us as a family group.
*Opening of the 'baiting season, which is a variable feast-
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god forbid, SHOPPING FOR A HOBBY.
I hear your pain and I have a song for you, and all of us who really, really loathe shopping.
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You know, community.
One of the things that most irks me in New Zealand is the way everyone retreats into their boxes at 6pm, mostly not to be seen till the sun comes up again. It kills community and I love the way everywhere here in Asia, and across much of Europe & in places like NYC, community thrives, people communicate and life bubbles until late around shops, cafes and the streets. You even find it in our trans-Tasman cousins, or at least in selected 'burbs where non-Anglo Saxons live and breathe.
Minor hobby horse of mine, but it's one reason I live elsewhere
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