Yes, You Are Expected to Work!!

It was on Presidents’ Day when this column idea was hatched. Unlike many of it predecessors, it was not immediately penned. Instead, like a hearty beef stew, it had to linger a while before it was deemed “just right.”
The holiday was, for government workers and some unionized folks, a day of leisure and relaxation. Perhaps it offered a 72-hour respite from the rigors of daily work to sneak off to the Poconos for a weekend of skiing. Maybe it was a day to head to the mall and finally spend some of that plastic money that’s been burning a hole in your pocket since Christmas.
There are no accurate figures, but I have a suspicion that perhaps half of Cape May County, yes, 50 percent of New Jersey’s working population and many schools, were shuttered for the day. Such Monday holidays are a bother to those who labor. This one was allegedly set aside to “honor” our present and past chief executives. Curious, if we asked a random sample of citizens to name even half that number, I doubt they could do so.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, programs are held noting the late civil rights champion’s life and accomplishments. I have yet to hear of one on Presidents’ Day that so much as mentioned the likes of Grover Cleveland or Martin Van Buren.
Regardless of disrespect, we chalk up this “day off” as but another one that is to be granted to the workers of this nation.
I hate to burst anyone’s merry bubble, but there are many (raise your hand if you are among them) who worked on Presidents’ Day, and Martin Luther King’s Day, and the day after Thanksgiving and the Monday after Easter and the day after Christmas and, oh yes, even on New Year’s Day.
Some bi-focal wearing number cruncher in a back office somewhere must have calculated the immense cost to the nation in lost productivity on those “holidays.” But, just like the national debt, nobody seems to give a hoot. “We owe it to ourselves” seems to be the pervasive thought. Relax, shop, buy. It’s OK, it’s a holiday sale.
Should we expect anything different from those in the workforce (public and private) who have made an art-form of doing the least amount of work, getting rewarded handsomely, then retiring after 20 or 25 years to do more of nothing?
A news story from the British Broadcasting Co., on Feb. 21 caught my eye, and here’s where this column’s “beef stew” started to simmer.
From across the ocean this story:
“A French minister has responded angrily to the boss of US tyremaker Titan who said he would have to be “stupid” to invest in the country. Maurice Taylor made the claims in a letter to France’s minister for industrial recovery, Arnaud Montebourg.
“On Thursday, Mr. Montebourg replied that Mr. Taylor’s “extreme” comments showed a “perfect ignorance of what our country is”.
“He added that 20,000 foreign firms are in France, employing 2 million people.
“Taylor…was replying to a request for Titan to consider investing in a loss-making Goodyear plant in Amiens, north France.
“I have visited that factory a couple of times. The French workforce gets paid high wages but only works three hours,” Mr. Taylor said in the letter, dated 8 February, and published by French business daily Les Echos on Wednesday.
“They get one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three. I told this to the French union workers to their faces. They told me that’s the French way!”
“He is nicknamed “the Grizz” for his bear-like no-nonsense style. He added: “How stupid do you think we are?”
“French unions had blasted the content of his letter.
“France has a 35-hour statutory working week, brought in by the Socialist Party in 2000, but critics say it is now stifling economic growth.”
Montebourg, naturally, chastised Taylor and noted that Michelin, a French tire maker of renown, out produces Titan which is “35 times less profitable.”
Regardless which side of the fence you sit, union or non-union, worked the day or were off on those Monday holidays, there are still people, like the folks who run this company, who know money does not grow on trees, it must be earned. To earn that wage, work must be done. That’s what productivity is all about. That chap Taylor was simply calling a spade a spade, knowing exactly how much some workers produce in a seven or eight hour time frame.
Is it time to reconsider all of this nation’s “time off?” Imagine if, on those famed Mondays, goals were set to out perform one’s job instead of kicking back and snoozing half the day away.
Someone is watching. We gripe to high heaven about pupils’ test scores that are in the cellar, yet we reward lackadaisical performance with days off. Why not school on Saturday? There are many nations where that is the norm for school children. Does it harm them? Cruel though it might sound, is an entire summer vacation, June to September needed? Wouldn’t a two or three week time off be sufficient for young brains to gear up for the next grade level? By mid-August, if listening to a police scanner is any barometer, calls filter in of youngsters who are idle and get into trouble, just for something to do to kill time. Every parent knows an idle brain is the devil’s playground.
What would happen if workers were pressed to work a 10-hour day?
Could this nation stand it? What of police who work 12-hour shifts? What of nurses who work long shifts? Is it time to start talking about such an impossible dream and labor to restore productivity to an ever higher level? Or would we simply rather take the day off? The world is watching.