Yesterday I heard someone say something interesting.

"The concept of a workday is relatively new. Before, we would work until the work was done, but now we work until a certain number of hours have passed."

Their point was that we work (go to work at Starbucks or Amazon) and we work for an arbitrary amount of hours, even if it's not necessary, and even if it doesn't make sense to do so.

For example, my therapist was forced to go back to work in the building (she didn't, because she quit) during COVID. This includes all of her coworkers.

Why? Because her work system revolves around forfeiting hours of her life to a meaningless cause—going to a building and standing around, waiting for enough time to pass to go home.

In this case, the system would have actually caused her physical harm, since work does not care if she gets COVID or not. Work only cares about her forfeiting her hours "at work." She couldn't work from home, they wouldn't let her (via Zoom, which is what we were doing).

Any of my therapist's coworkers, who were afraid to lose their jobs, would have had to go back to the building and put themselves in danger to appease the system.

In our current work system, you forfeit part of your life to do someone else's bidding, even if it's unimportant, even if it doesn't matter—for a paycheck to survive. But does it have to be that way?

I have no idea if it's true that the concept of a workday is new, but I think it's interesting to think about, at least.

@DavidBlue@mastodon.social @strawberryfieldsforever@qoto.org @lydiaconwell@mas.to

#COVID #Politics #Work #Workday #Starbucks #Amazon #McDonalds