How 'hard' do you work in your activities at your workplace?
The appropriate response for most individuals in their job in Britain should always be 'very' hard. Britain has now become a workaholic society. Recently I have heard the phrase "we relish the challenge." Nowadays only correspondents from the satirical magazine the 'Idler' profess to do otherwise. We now live in an era of hard work: the intensity of effort for workers has become a crucial question at work in recent years. This has become particularly the case for those who happen to work in public services. To this extent MPs, who are typical public servants, are overly keen to project the right impression.
In Britain this raises the question as to whether we are working too hard in comparison to other European countries. We "enjoy" an opt out from the Working Time Directive. This means that we are free to work ourselves as we choose. In Britain we have lost the ability to value time off. In the more dependably warm regions of Europe where the British people tend to take their overseas holidays, they are conscious of this irony.
In Italy and France they understand how hot weather reduces output and adapt accordingly. The original notion of the dog days were intended to describe those days usually in August when the heat of the dog star combines with the heat of the sun. During this time little effective output tended to be produced.
We are in Britain in angst at the notion that we should do very little.
As we approach the eighth month, Britain's MP's have now broken up. It's summer. August is a traditional time when people should do very little work. The assumption is the weather should be hot. Paris is we are told virtually empty of Parisians. The French have in many ways the right idea. The British by comparison are keen to work themselves into a stupor. The issue is symptomatic of the modern era.
MP's have a total of 38 days of what is described as recess. They dare not admit that they are enjoying holiday; the public would go mad with this description. They are now anxious to stress the work they are all doing.
It is time that we in Britain began to appreciate the value of taking time away from work. We are becoming too detached from this fundamental notion.