A four day work week -- sounds good to me!
By Rachel Cherry, Managing Editor
I was watching the news Thursday morning and a segment about gas prices and the cost of travel changing some employee's work time. In the segment, they spoke of driving to and from work less, hence using less gas, by reducing the work week to four ten hour days. The companies that were interviewed stated that the work was still being completed and savings were seen not only by the employees, but also by the company.
In my profession it is rare that I don't already put in a ten hour day, but if I had that one extra day that I didn't have to travel to the office, I would be one happy camper.
Not only would I save money on gas, I think I would look forward to work that much more coming off of a significant rest.
Of course there are some industries, such as the newspaper business that couldn't shorten the work week. As it stands now, most of us here at the paper work six days every week. Sigh, such is the life of a reporter.
Still there are certain other industries that I thought of that would have a difficult time cutting days, therefore cutting drive times.
Law enforcement officials, firemen, service oriented businesses, plumbers, doctors, etc. are just a few that come to mind.
When I think of having at least one day free to do as I pleased, I think of the days of my childhood when that was exactly what Sunday meant. We went to church, ate a large noon meal and did pretty much nothing else except visit with friends and family. There were no stores open on Sunday (or very, very few).
As it stands today, Sunday has fallen as either a catch up day, (like it is for me), or just another run day with kid's activities, shopping or other related activities.
I can day dream about a four-day work week, but I doubt many of us will see it.
Rachel Cherry is Managing Editor of the Abbeville Meridional. If you have questions or comments please contact her at abbnews@bellsouth.net or call her at 893-4223.
