April 29, 2002

11:35 AM

I have a bad feeling about this.The UK government has urged employers to be leniant to staff who want to watch the World Cup when they should be working. Isn't this instantly discriminating against people who happen to like football (Soccer) all that much? For example, I'm sure I know what would happen if I broached the idea of turning up for work late on May 16th after I've been to the first showing of this thing.
posted by feelinglistless (15 comments total)

I lived in Chapel Hill for a couple basketball seasons. The whole damn town shuts down if the Tar Heels get anywhere near the Final Four. Leniancy, damn, more like obligitory fanaticism for Carolina.
posted by anathema at 11:39 AM on April 29, 2002

i think we SHOULD be allowed to show up late on the 16th.

that's when spiderman comes out, yes?

;)
posted by jcterminal at 11:42 AM on April 29, 2002

heh, when I worked at a university, we wheeled out a big TV, and would watch full matches from the 1998 cup during 90 minute lunches. When episode 1 came out, half the staff called in sick or used a vacation day to see it.

I'm looking forward to this year's cup, hopefully all the games will be shown on american cable tv. I've got a TiVo this time around and freelance work to let me sit at home and watch them all.
posted by mathowie at 11:43 AM on April 29, 2002

At the restaurant where I work, servers who are caught watching t.v. at the bar are urged to do something--anything. Unless, of course, they happen to be men watching professional (or collegiate) sports. Especially football.
posted by brittney at 12:05 PM on April 29, 2002

I have waited since I was nine years old for George Lucas to make what was then unofficially hinted to be twelve movies about Star Wars. Twenty-five years later it's down to six. I don't understand people waiting in line to see episode two. I've waited this long. I can wait a little longer to when the lines disappear. Same thing with Spidey. That movie's been in development hell my whole life with a bunch of false starts, animated versions and a pathetic attempt at a tv series that probably no one else recalls besides me. I've waited this long for them to get it right. I can wait a couple weeks more than the rest of the world.

As for companies being lenient on sports fans of any kind I do agree that's being discriminatory (if that's even a word). I can't get behind most big sports. I don't understand the appeal. So if an employer was easy on my cube-mate for missing a day due to a Superbowl but got upset with me cuz I chose to go to a Renaissance Faire instead of work, well I'd be thinking I was getting screwed.

RenFaires and football games are a lot alike from my perspective. You drink a lot of beer. You sit out in the sun all day. You buy silly things to wear on your head that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing anywhere else. You make a lot of noise and you have a good time. The only diff is with RenFaires you get to stare unapologetically at cleavage. In football you have to watch those annoying guys down on the field beating up on each other over a bloated piece of leather (american or european 'football' again I don't see a difference). I think if you football fans removed those annoying guys from the event and replaced them with more cheerleaders, then maybe you'd have something.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:22 PM on April 29, 2002

I think the point here is that England have a decent chance of doing well. The 'feelgood factor' when we reached the Semi's in 1990 was tremendous and had a huge knock-on effect throughout the country. Therefore, I think the Government is probably right (or at least thinking logically) to encourage employers to let people watch (especially England's) matches. Otherwise the 'feelgood factor' advantages of doing well in the competition (fingers crossed) are somewhat negated if no-one sees the dang matches. Of course anyone who shows up late for 'Star Wars II' reasons needs to seriously look at their life. I mean... Obi-Wan KNoel Edmunds - No!
posted by boneybaloney at 12:29 PM on April 29, 2002

boneybaloney -- I was just offering a comparisson. In my experience people who like Soccer always seem to be singled out for special treatment...
posted by feelinglistless at 12:58 PM on April 29, 2002

Watching it on teevee just isn't the same as being there, sipping on a piping hot cup of dog juice.
posted by Mack Twain at 1:05 PM on April 29, 2002

feelinglistless - There aren't many examples of preferential treatment I can pick out from my experience. I think all this is going to encourage is a little more flexibility, rather than giving carte-blanche to skive willy nilly.
posted by boneybaloney at 1:47 PM on April 29, 2002

For gawds sake it isn't soccer, it's football. Many, many peope will be skiving off anyway so employers may as well be flexible. It really doesn't compare with some stoopid film, does it, given that a film is likely to be starting within the next five minutes on half a dozen screens within commuting distance.
It will be a shared national experience, like the queen mums funeral.
posted by Fat Buddha at 1:56 PM on April 29, 2002

A shared national experience?

Lessee, losing to Argentina, Nigeria, and Sweden (not necessarily in that order) -- yeesh, you can keep your experience, for I'll have none of it.

Yay yay U.S.A.! We get to lose to South Korea, Poland, and Portugal!

terrific...
posted by Bixby23 at 9:20 PM on April 29, 2002

Hey, JCTerminal, Chris is going with us to spiderman on Friday.. Steve got tickets. We'll do the same on the 16th, see who pulls the short straw to use their two weeks PTO to camp out. ;)
posted by SpecialK at 9:49 PM on April 29, 2002

Also bear in mind that football is the national sport here.
posted by davidgentle at 10:52 PM on April 29, 2002

There is absolutely no comparison: Spiderman is Spiderman, Star Wars is Star Wars but football is much more important...
posted by niceness at 9:02 AM on April 30, 2002

The story is essentially about adopting flexitime during the Cup. This makes perfect sense to me; you want to watch the game and come in at noon, fine, but you stay to 8 or 9pm or you work on the weekend.

I plan on doing the same thing on the 16th, and hopefully I can arrange some kind of sleeping/working schedule to get through World Cup matches at 4:30am.. A quick look on soccertv.com shows that I'll actually be able to watch all the England games this time, hurrah!
posted by SiW at 9:58 AM on April 30, 2002