Five O'Clock Somewhere

Welcome to Five O'Clock Somewhere, where it doesn't matter what time zone you're in; it's five o'clock somewhere. We'll look at rural life, especially as it happens in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, cats, sailing (particularly Etchells racing yachts), and bits of grammar and Victorian poetry.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Work: the worst sailing innovation ever

The number one cause of people not sailing

Over at Proper Course, Tillerman has issued another writing challenge. This time around, he's asking members of the sailing blogosphere to write about what they consider to be the worst sailing innovation ever – the one invention that most detracts from the experience of sailing.

I would nominate work as the worst innovation. In the Peanuts cartoon, Snoopy once commented, "Work is the crabgrass in the lawn of life." It is something that sucks the time out of one's week until there is little or no time left for sailing. Take a look at just about any sailing venue, and especially on a weekday, you will mostly see people sailing who do not work – typically, they're retired. Those of us who do have to work are often working 40 hours a week, and sometimes more. That's time that can't be spent sailing. It's also time that can't be spent working on boats to keep them in sailing condition, or reading about sailing in order to improve one's ability to sail, or blogging about sailing.

I'm somewhat lucky in that I don't generally have to work on Fridays – those are reserved for faculty meetings, and my contract specifies that, as a part-time instructor, I can't be compelled to attend them. But even though I only get paid for five hours per class per week (generally 15 or 20 hours), I do still have a lot of other work to do: grading papers, preparing lessons, copying class handouts (or cursing at the copier for preventing that task). In reality, I probably do work close to 40 hours a week.

Other people have even more demands on their time. For example, Bonnie of Frogma frequently complains that she has to work overtime, at night, or on weekends. And in the current economic climate, many companies have laid off some workers and overburdened the others, who in turn feel compelled to work overtime in order not to risk being the next one laid off. Then these overworked people are so stressed out about work that even when they're not at work, they have a hard time enjoying themselves at pastimes like sailing.

As someone once said, "Work is a four-letter word."

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8 Comments:

Blogger Carol Anne said...

As you might guess from the time stamp, I created this post at ... work. I was babysitting the copier, typing out the post in between unjamming it -- I even had to bring out the butcher knife at one point, and I also broke a nail. Sigh.

Wed Feb 10, 09:05:00 PM MST  
Blogger bonnie said...

I have been thoroughly enjoyed ALL of the results of the latest Tillerman Challenge (or at least the ones I have read), but if he calls for a vote at the end, you have mine.

Thu Feb 11, 08:14:00 AM MST  
Blogger Tillerman said...

Great suggestion. I'm retired now, but when I look back at the hectic schedule I had when I was working I don't know how I managed to find the time and energy to go sailing as much as I did.

On the other hand perhaps it was the ability to dream about sailing during the working week and the escape from the daily grind that sailing brought me at the weekend which together kept me going all those years.

Thu Feb 11, 08:47:00 AM MST  
Anonymous EscapeVelocity said...

Work gets in the way of getting so many more useful things done. Although it's in the 30s and raining here today, and there's no race, so I wouldn't be sailing anyway.

Thu Feb 11, 09:45:00 AM MST  
Blogger Carol Anne said...

Programming note: Visitor #68K was somebody from Little Rock who linked here from Proper Course.

Fri Feb 12, 12:25:00 AM MST  
Blogger Pat said...

Doo dad sidebar note: score of 73 on the nerd test

Fri Feb 12, 09:51:00 PM MST  
Anonymous Capt. Puffy Pants said...

Work is for chumps. Remember back in the 80's when we all bought computers and we were supposed to have all this new free time because the computers were going to do everything. What happened? I remember hearing about 3-day work weeks, what a joke. I don't blame computers, I blame corporate greed. More productivity, more money for Wall Street. Oh yea, and Larry gets a new $250m boat and bragging rights for a few years. OK, I'm done ranting now...

Tue Feb 16, 05:12:00 PM MST  
Blogger bonnie said...

Rant on MacPuff!

Wed Feb 17, 09:53:00 PM MST  

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