MetaFilter posts tagged with leisure

the four-day workweek

kliuless — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:55:39 -0800

The Environmental and Economic Pluses of the 4-Day Workweek: "Forget everybody working for the weekend. In Utah all government employees have shifted to a four-day workweek, and the state is calling it a win-win-win for its budget, workers and clean air. Utah has saved $1.8 million in electrical bills in the last year, the air has been spared an estimated 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, and workers are thrilled. Eighty-two percent of them say they prefer the new arrangement, which still enforces the 40-hour week by requiring 10 or more hours a day Monday - [Thursday]. Is it time to ask your boss if you can take off Friday .... forever?" (via)

Feliz Dia Del Trabajador

univac — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:36:14 -0800

Hope withers on the vine. A look at daily life among the produce workers in Mecca, California.

Why work?

Joe Beese — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:37:34 -0800

We're a pro-leisure and anti-wage-slavery group of people dedicated to exploring the question: why work? (related)

your leisure is my pleasure

kliuless — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:12:30 -0800

Idle Theory: Life Does The Least

"Happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace." Aristotle

anotherpanacea — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:00:33 -0800

In Praise of Idleness, Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work, and The Five Day Work Week. via

Fashion!

stammer — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 18:06:38 -0800

"Our dress, therefore, in order to serve its purpose effectually, should not only be expensive, but it should also make plain to all observers that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor." The Piracy Paradox: why weak IP laws drive the fashion industry. Headscarves on the catwalk in Jakarta; Almaty Fashion Week draws to a close.

Never work.

jason's_planet — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:08:06 -0800

Never wanna work/Always wanna play/Pleasure, pleasure every day. What happens when the jobs go away and don't return? Should we take the surpluses generated and pay people not to work? What happens to the assumption of scarcity when nanotechology allows us to generate potentially anything we want from grass clippings? Maybe Marx had it wrong all along. Maybe, instead of fetishizing work and the authoritarian mindset that it generates, we should have been reading Paul Lafargue instead. Just as a thought experiment, what would you do if your job category disappeared? How would you spend your time? Would you invest more time and energy in friendships and other relationships? Hobbies? If you were your employer, what technologies would you use to get rid of your position and save money?

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

madamjujujive — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:29:11 -0800

U.S. workers will leave an average 4 vacation days on the table this year, one more than last year, according to the 6th annual Vacation Deprivation Survey sponsored by Expedia. This despite the fact that at an average of 14 days total, we are already deprived, trailing Australia (17), Canada (19), Great Britain (24), Germany (27), and France (39) in holiday time. Why don't we get more time off? And why aren't we using the time we do get? [Full results (PDF))]

It's still the 60's here!

Danf — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 08:09:02 -0800

From colorful Eugene, Oregon, comes the new independent film HIPPIES about a group of folks who have not given up their values or their vices, and set about saving the earth. Trailer here. (Note release date.)

Of course, the Oregon Country Fair is still going strong and weird
(minor muddy boobage in last link)

How much does your lawyer get paid?

monju_bosatsu — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:30:51 -0800

Lawyers appear to missing out on the growth of the leisure class. Despite American's growing leisure time, and despite another round of pay increases for starting associates, lawyers seem to be working more hours than ever. As long as lawyers are tied the billable hour, it seems that greater salaries for associates inevitably means longer hours for associates. Law professor Pat Schiltz argues [pdf] that the longer hours for new associates combined with the high pressures of law practice means that those lawyers often suffer from depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide at very high rates, and are often forced into unethical practices just to meet the requirements of the law firm.

Lazy Like Me

The Card Cheat — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 05:49:48 -0800

Quitting The Paint Factory. Are you feeling overworked? Do you feel like you need more free time? In this essay from the November 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine, Mark Slouka argues that idleness is both a virtue, a health benefit and a requisite for a fully-formed personality. Keep it in mind the next time you feel guilty for doing "nothing" on your time off.

y2karl — Tue, 29 Oct 2002 23:27:45 -0800

Thorstein Veblen , Economist and Social Commentator, who contributed to the common tongue the phrase conspicuous consumption.

Who was Thorstein Veblen--and why should anyone care?

I should like him for his writing style alone:

The appreciation of those evidences of honorific crudeness to which hand-wrought goods owe their superior worth and charm in the eyes of well-bred people is a matter of nice discrimination. It requires training and the formation of right habits of thought with respect to what may be called the physiognomy of goods. Machine-made goods of daily use are often admired and preferred precisely on account of their excessive perfection by the vulgar and the underbred who have not given due thought to the punctilios of elegant consumption. The ceremonial inferiority of machine products goes to show that the perfection of skill and workmanship embodied in any costly innovations in the finish of goods is not sufficient of itself to secure them acceptance and permanent favor. The innovation must have the support of the canon of conspicuous waste. Any feature in the physiognomy of goods, however pleasing in itself, and however well it may approve itself to the taste for effective work, will not be tolerated if it proves obnoxious to this norm of pecuniary reputability.

From Chapter Six - Pecuniary Canons of Taste of the work entire, The Theory of The Leisure Class. Feel free to consume conspicuously.