working 9-5...Unnatural

Great Debates
1

Unnatural

Hi guys, I was wondering if you could help me with a thought. Hope that it is a great debate and not a GQ.

The standard working day around the world is nine to five. Although many start and finish slightly earlier, or later, and this observation of mine does not take into account many shift workers and other similar beings, it seems that the majority of people are working roughly nine to five.

But my question is, is this standard working day natural?

I’m a university student and although I try to keep to a rough working day, I am in a minority. As I am sure you will all know, students reputation for staying in bed until the afternoon and working until the early hours of the morning is well deserved.

Is this because they are lazy? Or is it because without an enforced work pattern they revert to a more natural state?

OK, OK, I can hear the responses now.

“No, they are just lazy.”

But what is the natural time to work? It strikes me that something similar to a farmer’s day, starting work at, or just before, sunrise and finishing when it gets dark, would be more natural. But this would mean that nine to five is actually less than we are capable of working.

And what about breaks? When hunting and gathering, would we have had three hours hunting Woolly Mammoth, a break for lunch at 12, and then four hours straight gathering before going home to the wife and cave?

Can anyone set me straight?

Thanks all

mccauley.

2

Natural? Of course it’s not natural! It’s an abomination!

That being said…
I’ve heard the normal human cycle isn’t 24 hours… it’s a bit longer. So if everybody slept when their circadian rhythms told them to, and woke up when they ‘wanted’ to… everybody would constantly be revolving around the clock. Wake up at 8am… then 810… then 820… eventually you’re waking up at 5pm!

Needless to say, big businesses don’t want this kind of scheduling nightmare. Show up at 8, period. So there we are.

3

Yes, it is an abomonation. However, I think if you try to define “natural” you’ll understand your confusion. Simply put, most people assume that modern civilization is not natural. Hence your hunter/gather example (which had me laughing out loud, by the way). But why is that? Are we not creatures of nature? You could argue that we have not evolved to be mentally or physically suited to a strict 9-5 type schedule, but I would argue that we have evolved to be flexible enough to survive, even thrive, in many different situations.

4

I know it’s possible to survive on this 9 to 5 (or in my case, 8 to 4) schedule.

But there’s no ‘thriving’ going on.

I am naturally not suited to getting up at 6:30 every morning. My body says ‘be awake at night’. I wish I could find a job that would agree.

5

Cat:

Ever considered being a night watchman? How about night club owner?

yeah, the whole 9-5 thing can be done, but it sure is a drag.

6

I read somewhere that people who work live longer than those who don’t. I’m not sure if the standard 8 hour work day is necessary, but I for one would gladly shave off a year or two of my life if I could get away with a 4 hour workday.:smiley:

7

Possibly incorrect nitpick:

I don’t think the standard workday is 9 to 5, at least for U.S. office workers. My fulltime, hourly jobs were nine-hour days, with an unpaid lunch hour in the middle.

8

Bah. Everyone knows that 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. is the only natural shift for a happy, healthy mind and body. Why, I’ve been working that shift for a little over a decade now and…umm…I’m a wreck ;).

But I’m sure that is entirely coincidental :p.

  • Tamerlane
9

I’m with TWDuke. I’m not trying to hijack, but I have never even understood where the expression “9 to 5” comes from. Does anybody get paid lunches or is there a 37.5-hour week standard that I’ve never heard of?

My current theory is that it is an abbreviation of “9 to 5:30”, which has two more syllables. Okay, I’ll quit hijacking now.

10

Perhaps you should investigate biorhythms, to see what time of day most people thrive.
No doubt it has to do with the sun… but I wonder how electricity has changed that. (i read that since electricity and people’s exposure to more light, is a factor in girl’s periods starting earlier)

11

I think you’ll find that construction workers usually start ealier, office workers next, then retail and similar careers.

Of course, one also needs to consider health care, police, miltary, fire fighters, and variuos industries with two or three shifts.

I’ve never had a 9-5 job. (Remodel, construction, etc… is my line) Sometimes, I’ll work 12 -14 hrs a day in order to finish something. Other times, like Summer, I’ll work 6- 2. It’s just too damn hot. And I also will work longer to finish something on a particular day if it gives me a 3 or 4 day weekend. It’s nice being self employed.

12

In New York, and other places, I presume, the standard work week for staff is 35 hours/week. There was an interesting study recently, IIRC, which demonstrated that people who work nights are inclined to live lives which are shorter and less healthy than those who work during the day. Finally, there was a fascinating book by Sebastian de Grazia, “Of Work, Time and Leisure” written a ways back, 1960 or so, which came to a lot of well-researched conclusions, one of which was that the 9-5 schedule is indeed artificial, but also, that the work day is effectively longer than that, that is, part of your workday would need to include your commute, the grooming schedule, and any other job-related oblgiations as to time commitments. So that, in fact, the workday is effectively much longer than simply 9-5.

13

It may be less in the summertime, but speaking for myself, 9 to 5 is more than I’m capable of working, when it’s winter and the sun goes down at 3:30 in the freakin’ afternoon. Which I guess makes sense if I was trying to conserve enough energy to make my food and light supply last until spring.

But now we got lotsa light and lotsa food, and I gotta work when I’d much rather be home hibernating.

It’s all Edison’s fault. The bastard.

It’s interesting to note that in tropical regions where day lengths don’t vary as much, they do the siesta thing. So what’s up with that?

14

Completely unnatural. When I was in Barcelona, everything shut down around 2, people went home to sleep (or to the bar to drink), and rose later in the day.

Similarly, when working on a farm in the tropics, we got up with the sun (6 am), worked until 11 or so when it started to get really hot, ate lunch, napped until it got cooler (4-5 ish), and got up then.

Now that I’m back in North America, I find my rhythms don’t work in this 9-5 schedule. I am most productive in the morning (except when my morning is interrupted by a trek through rush hour), least productive in the afternoon, and productive again in the evening. Informal polls tell me that ‘nap time’ would be a popular introduction to our working day. As it is, I need a 3:00 injection of sugar if I am to make it through the rest of the day.

15

I’ve always been told that I’d get used to waking up early, and that eventually I would just do so naturally.

Well… I’ve been that route most of my life, and I still can’t stand getting up early in the morning. No matter what time I go to sleep, I don’t feel rested and I don’t wake up naturally until around 11 am. On the flip of that, I just start to feel awake and ready to go and get something done around 6 or 7 pm and that usually lasts until 4 or 5 in the morning. I have to force myself to unwind that energy to go to bed at night, and I might as well be a zombie on my drive to work in the morning because my brain isn’t anywhere near awake and my body sure doesn’t want to be.

I think people have unique ryhthms. Mine seems to be sleeping the five hours between 6 and 11 am and doing all my mental work (or other work) the rest of the time, with the occasional couple days when I need a lot of sleep every five or six weeks. At any rate, working 8 to 4 is harsh. I can much more easily go a 14 hour day if I get up at 11 am than I can an 8 hour day getting up at 6. Maybe I’m wired different.

16

I agree with John Mace. We’re flexable enough to work (I don’t know about thrive) in all sorts of times and conditions.

Last year my company hired a consulting firm to upgrade our schedules here at work. We used to have 3-4 shifts (from 7:30 to 12 noon) to cover work until 9 pm (I work at a call center). They devised a work schedule of 4 days, 9:15 + 1 9.45 min shift (to make 37.5 a week). They claimed that this kind of shift is better than the normal 9-5 type shift because we tend to waste a lot of “active” time everyday that could be used to form a better work week.

These coleman (that’s the firm we used) shifts aren’t popular at all (we still have a lot of normal shifts). I’m doing one now (I work everyday but tuesday and weekends, 9:30 to 7:45 mon, wed and thurs, and 9 to 7:45 on friday). I am tired at the end of the day and don’t do a whole lot until tuesday. Also, I end up working for huge stretches (4 hours on the phones!) without any breaks (my lunch [which I’m taking right now] is 6 hours after I start work!).

I was told we normally revert to 25 hour days so the longer schedules work that in.

17

To answer Boris B, I work at a place with a 37.5 hour work week, although I’m salaried so I’ve rarely ever worked only 37.5 hours.

9-5 is nasty, brutish and wrong, at least to me. My natural inclination is to get up at noon and stay up til 4-5 a.m. I’ve had a 9-5 job for 10 years and I still am not used to the schedule.

18

My office works (in theory) four 9 1/2 hour days, four days a week. I am the office manager, and I never work less than ten hours a day, usually more. [sub]Not counting stuff I do on the “off-work days, but that is because I am an idiot. I don’t even charge my time for THAT stuff.”[/sub]

Anyway, I think a four day work week is the ticket. After all, wouldn’t you rather be there a bit longer and have a whole extra day to have a life? We at my office certainly feel that way.

Our work hours officially start at 7:45AM and end at 4:45PM, Monday - Thursday. [sub]not that MINE do, but my employees do…mostly.[/sub]

Anyway, we love it.