A  five-day  week??  

I was fascinated by Eben van Zyl's suggestion of a Five-Day Week  (Canopus  December 1997)  although I am sure most readers will agree  with me that it is unlikely to come about within our lifetime - if ever.  One of the reasons, of course, is that it is much too sensible. It is well known that governments and other public bodies will generally start by doing things wrong, and then, after a slow  process of adaptation  finally arrive at the right answer. But that is just by the way. There are other more practical reasons.

The picture of pastors "haranguing the flock" was a most entertaining one, but did anyone ever think of the poor pastor, who now has to prepare 72 plus sermons a year instead of the present 52?  Not only that, but he now requires every week 1) one day to prepare his sermon(s), 2) one day to deliver them, 3) one day to be with his family, and that leaves just 2 days for visiting members of the congregation, sorting out personal and domestic problems, attending the many committee meetings, etc.

Then there are the other workers and labourers.  It may be different in other part of the country, but here along the coast the position in the building trade is more or less as follows.  In the (very) distant past both adults and children used to work 6 days a week and had only the Sunday off. (Sunday schools were originally started to teach children reading and writing because Sundays were the only free days). But later on it was felt that people should have time for recreational activities on Saturday afternoons, since sport on Sundays was frowned upon. Somewhat later it was decided that shop attendants should not be left out, so the shops were closed on Saturday afternoons. But now the other workers complained that they could not do their shopping, so they should have Saturday mornings off as well, which meant that they had to be paid on Friday afternoons.  On these days the first trip was to the bottle store, which meant that on Saturdays they were not in a fit state to do any shopping, and the present arrangement is therefore that on Friday they go home at 1 p.m.  As little work of importance is done on Friday mornings anyway, one might foresee that in days to come the whole of Friday will be a holiday, and that work will cease at 1 p.m. on Thursdays.

On Mondays many workers do not turn up for work at all, because they still have to get over the effects of the weekend.   The actual number of working days is therefore now three and a half.  With a five-day week this would probably be reduced to one and a half.  So much for productivity!

However, the most compelling argument against the adoption of a five day week is the fact that it would never work in practice unless it were adopted simultaneously by every country in the world. The present universal adoption of the 7 day week is actually a remarkable example of international cooperation.   Communications across the border would come to a standstill if, say, on a Monday morning one would first have to find out whether in the other country it was Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. And as there are a number of important countries which, for traditional or religious reasons, will under no circumstances do away with the 7 day week, we might as well forget about it.

Jan Hers