9 to 6ers

Another kick in the balls to the American employee is the decade-long movement to keep my white ass in a non-ergonomic chair staring at a computer for an hour longer than I really should. I happen to work a job right now that has the hours of 8 to 5. When I took it, I first thought, "Hey, this is great. I don't mind getting up an hour earlier, because I'll get home an hour earlier."

But then it got me thinking...when the hell did this happen? Didn't corporate America and Dolly Parton both coin the phrase "9 to 5?" When did this magically turn into "9 to 6?"

Subtly. That's how. Think about it. We still call these people "9 to 5ers," even though nobody works those hours anymore. No one is outraged that we have to work until 6 o'clock. It's happened so gradually over the past ten or fifteen years that no one blinks an eye. In fact, leaving at 5 pm will often get you the "Half day?" snipe from the receptionist.

Since it used to be the most common dinnertime, staying at work until 7 pm must have once seemed ridiculous. Now it's just working an hour longer. That's barely overtime. I'm positive that people in the 50's and 60's took lunchbreaks, but your day was over at 5 pm. That's when the whistle blew.

But one by one, workers must have felt they were climbing the ladder faster if they showed their commitment to their company. That meant working longer hours, working weekends, taking business trips with that guy you hated whose breath smelled like rotten foot.

Now we have to apologize if we want to get home at a decent hour. To see our wives, our husbands, our dogs, our kids, or just to wind down. People in other countries must think we're insane. We've just passed Japan for the most weekly hours put in by the American worker. Forty percent of our population works over 50 hours a week. And yet, we have fewer vacation days than any other industrialized country, and less time for maternity leave. Hell, we're one of only two industrialized countries that doesn't have fully-paid maternity leave (Australia).

What does it all add up to? If you factor in a normal commute time for an average work-a-day stiff, which might be 30 minutes, you have a total of 10 hours a day devoted to work. And let's say you're lucky and get 8 hours of sleep. That leaves 6 waking hours that you have to yourself, right? Wrong. You need about an hour to eat breakfast and get ready for work. And you need no less than an hour to wind down after a day frying your brain under florescent lights and a computer monitor before making dinner. Without counting any potential exercise regiment, let's just call it 4 waking hours of time for yourself.

Four hours out of 24. 1/6 of your time. Are we happier doing this? Are Americans completely nuts? Even Max Weber would crap his pants over this.

So the next time your CEO nudges you and says you're looking a little tired, just turn around and tell them "You know, Ted, I'd be feeling a lot better if you didn't take all but 17% of my life."