Dec 21, 2022
Life is Short: People Want Time Off, not Money
The battle to have a work-life balance
It all boils down to this: no one wants to spend their entire week working in this shithole. And, of course, not all workplaces are shitholes, but most suck because they don’t allow a life-work balance — period.
We became completely docile and subservient to the industrial model of slave mentality. But covid lockdown did the trick on our minds. A good trick. It was like when appetite meets good food. We became exposed to that which we have been missing—time off. Let me try to explain.
This long covid episode made us do a worldwide about-face, which we are still in the throws of. It changed the value of things. People, and I mean a large portion of the population, had some interesting paradigm shift insights that are changing how we work and live. Some of us realized that a change was needed, that the conventional is no longer sustainable, and that only our relationships with family and friends bring us satisfaction. Maybe this was brought to you by the spice of death?
During covid, people started to realize how fragile our existence is. The realization that any of us could die just because we inhaled the wrong air made people look at life in a new light. We evaluated our craving for silly material possessions in a different light. It spiritualized us in a powerful collective way. You might want to reflect a little more on that.
We end up having more time. We had time to be alone and think about everything; our lives and our future. It also offered us a window for change. Working from home or simply inventing a new life for ourselves. The covid epidemic has radically changed us no matter how you cut it. And when we contemplate this phenomenon on a global scale, its consequences are profound.
The value of money has shifted for many. The spell of seeking more money and material goods as a reward has faded and become clear. And for a brief moment, we could, as if the clouds have lifted, see that we’d been bamboozled. So it became a paradox between time versus money. People want time.
And one weekend off, something some people don’t even have is not enough. We need lots of time off. Enough time to reflect, relax, experience the world, and meet and socialize with people. No wonder people in the U.S. have a terrible social life. They have no time even to make new friends.
Everyone needs money and a comfortable life. But the money I’m referring to here is a hypothetical one. We only desire to acquire more material wealth because we have forgotten about what time is. Time has become more precious than ever.
By having more time, people realize time allows for creativity. Time and ideas are what wealth is made of. We realize that our imposed lack of time is only a deterrent to our generation of ideas. Workers are not allowed to think too much. They get paid to perform tasks, and it is better to just keep them busy, so they don’t have time to think. They might figure out they are being ripped off. Or, they will crack the rules of the game.
But covid made us stop and think. And people realized that without them, the worker, nothing would ever be done. So, they decided to test their powers. And here’s an example.
I will speak of what I know as a nurse. Nursing is a hard profession. And hospitals and facilities cannot find nurses to work; it is a big crisis. But the reason they can’t find nurses is not that there is a lack of nurses but because nurses don’t want to work that much or that hard.
It’s over; the deception is over. Gen Z nurses, in particular, are very aware of this. They are offered more and more money, and still, no one will apply. Some institutions are becoming desperate and can’t figure out why no one is applying after they offer substantial raises. And the answer is simple: no one wants to work this hard and work for that many hours because they can’t have a life pure and simple.
They don’t want to spend five days a week, which usually turns into six days due to forced overtime. And they are fully aware that there are plenty of jobs, so they only show up when they want. The scheduling disruptions are severe.
It is beyond me why management can’t figure out that these professionals want to have time off so they can also have a life. Work is essential, but if work is to the detriment of our living, then work must be re-evaluated. If employers were smart, they would pay employees more time and not more money.
The old model of simply extracting everything from people and then paying them some money has to go. Until they realize their employees' life-work balance is where the value is, they will never have an effective staff. Again the patients and customers are the ones who will suffer. But we all suffer in the end.
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Photo by nappy
