.....Hmmmm.... Part 2.

I'm having fun with this... so I decided to do a second one... this one is a little bit different, and it's something I didn't seriously think about until yesterday after being here 5 1/2 months.  *sigh*

Our scheduled workday is 0640-1900 (basically 7AM-7PM... vice versa for night shift).  Yes... that equates to just a little over 12 hours a day.  Everyone has one day off per week and one day where they work just 4 1/2 hours (which only started a few weeks ago).  So... going with the current setup... one works on average about 66 hours/week. 

Now comes the fun part... an average "shift" as far as doing the job out on scope is 4 hours.  Some folks sit 8 hours in a day if they work a double shift on another's day off.  In my position we split it differently and work one 6 hour shift on the other 2 people's days off.  Doesn't that make one ask a very reasonable and burning question?  "Why in the world do you need to be there 12 hours when your shift is only 4 hours long (on a normal day)?"  It's ironic that this is the very question I presented to myself (in my mind) yesterday after not really thinking about it for the first 25 weeks!  There's no real reason to make everyone sit here doing mostly nothing for the majority of the rest of their day... and believe me... it's a LOT of NOTHING!!! 

Here are just a few of the things people do in the time they're not sitting out on scope... The biggest one and most necessary is going to eat meals.  That one you really can't help regardless.  The next one that I think is pretty important is going to work out.  Now... in my opinion if you were only working an 8 hour day you would have plenty of time to work out on your own time rather than during the workday without having to give up precious sleep time or time spent talking with family, spouse, etc.  There is one more area that is relatively productive that folks use the time for... and that's doing schoolwork.  Those 3 areas are rather important... and again... would be done in one's personal time if they had more of it (say another 4 hours) available each day. 

Now we come to all the tons of hours of WASTED time... and there is A LOT!  The biggest time waster for people here... Video games!  Some of our folks sit and play video games almost the ENTIRE DAY!  Next comes two things that are pretty close to one another... watching TV and playing on the computer (which can include games, email, blogs (like this one), web surfing, shopping, and so on and so on.  The computer one is where I spend what's left of my day after I have taken care of the top paragraph's things (minus schoolwork since I didn't take any classes here).  Some spend it on the telephone calling home or wherever else... which in moderation can be productive but not when you spend almost your whole day camped out at the phones (not to mention you're not supposed to in the first place for more than 30 minutes at a time).  All of these things above would be done on a person's own individual time if that time were available. 

So... again I pose a question for you all to ponder... why the need to put people here 12 hours a day when they're not WORKING most of it anyway???  What does it really prove?  I know I can't put an answer to it.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, we didn't even get our first full day off until after 2 months here.  Go figure...  Something definitely needs fixing if you ask me.  It's too late for this time around, but it's not too late for the next or the one after that, etc.  I've done the research... working 12 hours a day and/or over 60 hours a week IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH!!!! 

The day off and the 4 1/2 hour day definitely are a HUGE boost toward recovery throughout the week... imagine if you had a day off and only had to spend 8 hours at work...

Peace, Love, and Poker