Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

I've never quite understood the idea of the "5 day" work week (I probably should look up the origins on wikipedia).  These days to me it's a formula for mental and physical burnout.  I've seen people on 6 day work weeks and I can't believe they're still alive (if we talk about office jobs).  But I find the 5 day work week to be offensive and unnecessary.  It's physically and mentally offensive in that you easily can burn out from your job.  People are engrained into the system from an early stage only to continue throughout most of their adult life.  One's body and mind can easily break down from the wear and tear.

So why continue?  I see this as something that might progress a part of society but isn't overly useful.  Some may argue that removing one day would hurt  global productivity.  I thought it might improve things.  Let's see:

- Reduce mental and physical fatigue, ensuring that people's attendance will improve
- Improve morale as people would have that extra day to do other personal business
- Possibly allow for companies to increase their workforce by attempting to fill in the gaps that a person on  leave takes
- Change the mentality of companies from simple 9-5 shops to 24/7 support spots (this applies to large organizations that can afford such a thing)
- Doubling the knowledge of an organization by providing duplicate representatives on key areas.  That is, to fill in for the extra day (or three if we want to change things), we could use one day as a knowledge transfer day between the counterparts in order to proceed with certain tasks
- Improve the support models for companies in all areas
- Increase the job market and usher in a new era of competitiveness

One concern that might come up is pay.  How can a company compensate for this situation for individuals?  Also, would a person in this loop be deducted from pay, thus reducing their ability to afford things?  My response to this is the following:

- Companies can reduce the overall wages of people on such a program, but should receive some for of tax reduction initially to compensate from the government (there are more jobs, thus more taxes that a company will payout, so the government ought to provide some help there).
- There needs to be a kind of deflation for affordability.  Things like cars, rent, etc. ought to be reduced.  I can see huge problems in places like California.  But these are the places that also require this type of system since the commuting and type of work tend to be more intense.

At any rate, I think society has progressed to the point where we need a new system of employment to help in improving the quality of life for people.