In the midst of my third 3-day weekend in the last four weeks, I have been engaged in the task of re-designing the calendar, with the avowed objective of liberating humanity from the tyranny of work. Or, at least, reducing the burden.
After analyzing the issue threadbare, I have come to the conclusion that what the world desperately needs to be a better place to live in are shorter weeks and more number of Saturdays and Sundays.
Who doesn’t hate the first day of the work week? Boring rituals to go through. Impatient customers to deal with. Mundane stuff to be endured. At least, from the second day onward, work becomes Tuesdane, Wednesdane…
So, what I propose is that we divide the year into 60 weeks of 6 days each, with each month having 5 weeks. Each week will have 4 working days and 2 holidays. Week will start on Tuesday. Mondays will be eliminated. We will have 12 months of 30 days each. No more worrying about changing the date on the watch when the month doesn’t’ have 31 days. No more 28-day Februaries.
Some of you, I know, are pretty sharp. It must have occurred to you that 6 x 60= 360, whereas it is an unalterable fact that the earth takes 365.25 days to travel around the sun and complete one year.
My first impulse was to get down to basics and single-handedly work at adjusting the planetary orbit of the earth around the sun in a suitable manner. This, I later realized, would be unnecessarily tinkering with the forces of Nature. So, my simple solution to this seemingly unsolvable puzzle is that we declare those 5 days that are dangling loose, as holidays. Every leap year will have 6 such days. These days will not appear in any calendar and will not get recorded in any manner. They will simply get dissolved in the space-time continuum. The world will simply be placed in suspended animation on these days. Only Einstein and I can comprehend how all this works. So, don’t bother to Google.
Some cynics amongst you, no doubt, challenge the very idea. With shorter work weeks, output and productivity will suffer, you point out. That’s nonsense. It’s an accepted fact that half the stuff that gets passed off as work is completely useless. No good to man or beast, as Wodehouse would say. If people work less and are paid less, their consumption of goods will come down, factories will reduce their production proportionately, burn less fuel and emit less CO2. All this will slow down the global warming . This will trigger a virtuous economic cycle that will also be favourable to the environment. Good for everybody, I assure you.
These 5 or 6 days won’t even register as a blip in the history of the 10-billion and 20 year old Universe (I read in an encyclopedia once that the Universe is believed to be 10-billion years old. Since I read this in 1986, I have added another 20 years to its age). Besides, the calendar has always been a matter of convenience and has been altered to suit the need of the times. For instance, there is no evidence that Jesus Christ was born on December 25th. Nor did the months of January and February exist in the Roman times. In the 16th century, the dates October 5, 1582 to October 14th, 1582 simply vanished from the calendar, during the shift from the Julian system to the Gregorian system. The world is certainly not worse off, because this happened. It can be done again. The change will be as inconspicuous and unnoticeable as crossing the International Date Line.
And, my clinching argument is this. When the world transits from the 7-day week to the 6-day week, computers need to be told so, because they don’t have a mind of their own, the idiots. That means more programs. More programs = more software code= more work outsourced to India. Some say that the Indian success in IT owes much to the Millennium Bug that created an urgent need for Y2K-compliant software, an opportunity that the enterprising Indian techies grabbed and never looked back.
So, this could well be the next wave. Millions of Indian software engineers working tirelessly four days a week to make this happen.
After analyzing the issue threadbare, I have come to the conclusion that what the world desperately needs to be a better place to live in are shorter weeks and more number of Saturdays and Sundays.
Who doesn’t hate the first day of the work week? Boring rituals to go through. Impatient customers to deal with. Mundane stuff to be endured. At least, from the second day onward, work becomes Tuesdane, Wednesdane…
So, what I propose is that we divide the year into 60 weeks of 6 days each, with each month having 5 weeks. Each week will have 4 working days and 2 holidays. Week will start on Tuesday. Mondays will be eliminated. We will have 12 months of 30 days each. No more worrying about changing the date on the watch when the month doesn’t’ have 31 days. No more 28-day Februaries.
Some of you, I know, are pretty sharp. It must have occurred to you that 6 x 60= 360, whereas it is an unalterable fact that the earth takes 365.25 days to travel around the sun and complete one year.
My first impulse was to get down to basics and single-handedly work at adjusting the planetary orbit of the earth around the sun in a suitable manner. This, I later realized, would be unnecessarily tinkering with the forces of Nature. So, my simple solution to this seemingly unsolvable puzzle is that we declare those 5 days that are dangling loose, as holidays. Every leap year will have 6 such days. These days will not appear in any calendar and will not get recorded in any manner. They will simply get dissolved in the space-time continuum. The world will simply be placed in suspended animation on these days. Only Einstein and I can comprehend how all this works. So, don’t bother to Google.
Some cynics amongst you, no doubt, challenge the very idea. With shorter work weeks, output and productivity will suffer, you point out. That’s nonsense. It’s an accepted fact that half the stuff that gets passed off as work is completely useless. No good to man or beast, as Wodehouse would say. If people work less and are paid less, their consumption of goods will come down, factories will reduce their production proportionately, burn less fuel and emit less CO2. All this will slow down the global warming . This will trigger a virtuous economic cycle that will also be favourable to the environment. Good for everybody, I assure you.
These 5 or 6 days won’t even register as a blip in the history of the 10-billion and 20 year old Universe (I read in an encyclopedia once that the Universe is believed to be 10-billion years old. Since I read this in 1986, I have added another 20 years to its age). Besides, the calendar has always been a matter of convenience and has been altered to suit the need of the times. For instance, there is no evidence that Jesus Christ was born on December 25th. Nor did the months of January and February exist in the Roman times. In the 16th century, the dates October 5, 1582 to October 14th, 1582 simply vanished from the calendar, during the shift from the Julian system to the Gregorian system. The world is certainly not worse off, because this happened. It can be done again. The change will be as inconspicuous and unnoticeable as crossing the International Date Line.
And, my clinching argument is this. When the world transits from the 7-day week to the 6-day week, computers need to be told so, because they don’t have a mind of their own, the idiots. That means more programs. More programs = more software code= more work outsourced to India. Some say that the Indian success in IT owes much to the Millennium Bug that created an urgent need for Y2K-compliant software, an opportunity that the enterprising Indian techies grabbed and never looked back.
So, this could well be the next wave. Millions of Indian software engineers working tirelessly four days a week to make this happen.
Flash news : Prannoy Roy has just announced that he is changing the name of his news channel from NDTV 24 x 7 to NDTV 24 x 6 . Stay tuned for updates
Absolutely brilliant!!
ReplyDeleteAaha! Orey nalla ennama irukkey :)
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if in the melee you reduced the number of months.. but no you have retained it at 12. Try increasing the number of months please... Our salaries will directly get benefitted because of that!
ReplyDeleteAha! sucha brilliant idea and you left it uncopyrighted in an open blog!
ReplyDeleteJust copyright it and say everyone who benefits from this change when it happens pays you a one time fee of Rs100 or dollar 100 whatever.
And I get 1% because This is MY IDEA!
Great Idea. I am sure husbands around the world whose anniversaries fall on the 31st day of certain months are lustily cheering this idea.
ReplyDeleteIt is no longer their fault.
Sowmya, thanks. (Takes a bow)
ReplyDeletemysorean : No ,No. What I will do is get all employers to pay weekly salaries. You are going to get 60 salaries a year.
Usha, you are right. I should have patented the idea. I'll try to do it, first thing, next Tuesday.
Murali partha : Ah,yes. Do you think we can implement the idea with retrospective effect from 1900 AD?
Nice post.. brilliant idea indeed.. happened to chance upon ur blog only today :)
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! Awesome!! 4 day week - who doesn't love it?? Try to get a poll on this.. and raise a request for it to be done.
ReplyDeleteI'd suppose that we'll have "Tuesday Reds" instead of "Monday Blues" then :))
Is this what is called a original idea ?
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
The church will resist. There will be more sundays and they have to work harder! :)
This is an awesome post. came here from your "There's hope for this planet". You Rock!
ReplyDeletebrilliant, imaginative, hilarious and witty post! good stuff.
ReplyDelete