Letting Employees Have A Saturday or Sunday off is a mistake.
According to CNN, a recent law that was passed Virginia now requires all employers to allow their employees to have either a Saturday or a Sunday off (depending if it is their religious Sabbath or not). This is not what I find shocking, what I find shocking is that this is considered a mistake. Essentially the law removes a number of exemptions that certain businesses, particularly retailers have enjoyed under previous laws.
Now granted, I like most other Americans have enjoyed taking advantage of shopping on Saturdays and Sundays and at least for the foreseeable future that will require people to work on those days. However I wonder if we are not trading something more important in the exchange.
Until I suppose about 20 years ago, most stores other than grocery stores and a few other stores would be closed on Sundays. Now generally the argument was that such laws allowed families to have at least one day together. In reality of course, just like having the weekends off in the first place, the laws were enacted in deference to our Judeo-Christian background. Such deference of course would be unconstitutional according to 1st amendment prohibitions.
All that being said, requiring that the vast majority of people did in fact have Sunday off did have beneficial effects. Sunday was once a day reserved for God, Family and Friends (well and NFL football, but back then the seasons were shorter too). Because people couldn't shop, couldn't run errands, they didn't. Prior to that Saturdays were reserved for those activities (and while I am not sure of it, I expect there was a time, when most business were closed on Saturdays as well). Now many people, even people who nominally work Monday to Friday, work on Saturdays and run their errands on Sunday. And of course, every year we probably see larger and larger numbers of people working on Sundays.
Our culture has descended so far into materialism that we are in a constant quest to get more stuff. Bigger faster cars and SUVs (how many people really need a car that will do 0-60 in 5.4 seconds and has a top speed of 140 mph?), more complicated and technical stereo systems (Does one really enjoy a rock concert or a symphony more when heard with 6 speakers as opposed to 2?), and houses. We, all of us, have forsaken spending time with our families, and if we believe in him, God so that we can get more of these things. Does this really make us any happier? I don't think so.
When I was growing up, and even today, my happiest times involved spending time in my parent's kitchen listening to them and occasionally my Dad's brothers and sister (None of my Mom's siblings live in the USA, so I saw them much less often) talking about growing up in Ireland. Both my parent's grew up on farms and under conditions that in our modern age would have been considered abject poverty. Yet my parents never really knew they were poor because everyone else around them was as well. Yet for all their lack of stuff, for all the chores that come from working a farm without any modern equipment, I always sensed that their childhoods were filled with much happiness. I doubt that kids playing Nintendo today are any happier and perhaps less happy than my Parents were growing up.
Does this mean I think we can be happy by giving up all our stuff? Well maybe, but I don't think that is really the answer. The answer relies on no longer worshiping our stuff. We need to start recentering our priorities to Family and God. Do we really need that promotion or do we want it because of the extra prestige that goes with it? Is it worth missing a minute of time with our families? Is it worth missing hours every day? Days every year?
When we die, would we prefer that we are remembered as a good friend, father/mother, brother/sister, daughter/son or that we be remembered for having lots of stuff, working 70 hour weeks, and climbing to the top of the corporate ladder?
Now granted, I like most other Americans have enjoyed taking advantage of shopping on Saturdays and Sundays and at least for the foreseeable future that will require people to work on those days. However I wonder if we are not trading something more important in the exchange.
Until I suppose about 20 years ago, most stores other than grocery stores and a few other stores would be closed on Sundays. Now generally the argument was that such laws allowed families to have at least one day together. In reality of course, just like having the weekends off in the first place, the laws were enacted in deference to our Judeo-Christian background. Such deference of course would be unconstitutional according to 1st amendment prohibitions.
All that being said, requiring that the vast majority of people did in fact have Sunday off did have beneficial effects. Sunday was once a day reserved for God, Family and Friends (well and NFL football, but back then the seasons were shorter too). Because people couldn't shop, couldn't run errands, they didn't. Prior to that Saturdays were reserved for those activities (and while I am not sure of it, I expect there was a time, when most business were closed on Saturdays as well). Now many people, even people who nominally work Monday to Friday, work on Saturdays and run their errands on Sunday. And of course, every year we probably see larger and larger numbers of people working on Sundays.
Our culture has descended so far into materialism that we are in a constant quest to get more stuff. Bigger faster cars and SUVs (how many people really need a car that will do 0-60 in 5.4 seconds and has a top speed of 140 mph?), more complicated and technical stereo systems (Does one really enjoy a rock concert or a symphony more when heard with 6 speakers as opposed to 2?), and houses. We, all of us, have forsaken spending time with our families, and if we believe in him, God so that we can get more of these things. Does this really make us any happier? I don't think so.
When I was growing up, and even today, my happiest times involved spending time in my parent's kitchen listening to them and occasionally my Dad's brothers and sister (None of my Mom's siblings live in the USA, so I saw them much less often) talking about growing up in Ireland. Both my parent's grew up on farms and under conditions that in our modern age would have been considered abject poverty. Yet my parents never really knew they were poor because everyone else around them was as well. Yet for all their lack of stuff, for all the chores that come from working a farm without any modern equipment, I always sensed that their childhoods were filled with much happiness. I doubt that kids playing Nintendo today are any happier and perhaps less happy than my Parents were growing up.
Does this mean I think we can be happy by giving up all our stuff? Well maybe, but I don't think that is really the answer. The answer relies on no longer worshiping our stuff. We need to start recentering our priorities to Family and God. Do we really need that promotion or do we want it because of the extra prestige that goes with it? Is it worth missing a minute of time with our families? Is it worth missing hours every day? Days every year?
When we die, would we prefer that we are remembered as a good friend, father/mother, brother/sister, daughter/son or that we be remembered for having lots of stuff, working 70 hour weeks, and climbing to the top of the corporate ladder?
