Did you realise today is National Leave Work on Time Day?
Well it is. So what that means that if you’re not already in the habit of watching the clock as the last hour of work passes you by and then jumping out of your desk as soon as it chimes then today you have full permission to do so.
And apparently we need it.
NSW Unions secretary Mark Lennon told News.com.au today that the majority of us toil away for at least 70 extra minutes per day for free.
That adds up to about 2.14 billion of unpaid hours every year.
That’s certainly a lot of time. But I think the definition needs to be extended to include ‘no work outside the office just for a day’.
Because in the age of remote access and the Blackberry what does going home on time really mean?
Are our late finishing times less a result of demanding management and spiralling to-do lists or more the fact that despite our myriad tools of convenience we actually just find it harder and harder to let go?
I used to live in a street that was an old brickyard. The bricklayers cottages were in such close proximity to the brick pit (now a park) that no time would have been wasted getting to or from work.
This was probably a blessing given that back then an average day was well over 16 hours of manual labour amongst the dirt and dust.
Workers were also crammed in a tiny row of cottages while site managers lived in the sprawling double terraces directly across the road – but that’s another matter.
But essentially finishing work then meant downing the tools and really switching off.
So how many of us actually do that? Be honest with yourself.
How many people work an odd or regular weekend? Or if you’re not confined to a desk job how many hours you end up staying back to get “on-top” of the paper work.
And how many can admit to logging onto the laptop on the way home, checking the odd-email while you are cooking dinner – just so you can “stay in the loop?”
Because if we really want to make the most of the rest of life that is not work, that’s got to stop too.
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