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How the Five Day Weekend Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: stuff you should know. It's Josh and Chuck. You're waiting
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Speaker 1: on me. I was, I was. I was staring right
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Speaker 1: at you, Chuck. I didn't notice. I should have given
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Speaker 1: you a yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, Chuck, I don't
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Speaker 1: know if you've checked out the editorial department calendar recently
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Speaker 1: of our editorial calendar. Sure, yeah, yeah, sure, not not
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Speaker 1: the not the the articles slated, but our actual calendar calendar.
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Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, I know you haven't. Well, you
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Speaker 1: will be pleasantly surprised to find that if you go
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Speaker 1: into the week of Christmas this coming December, we work
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Speaker 1: two days. That's not and you know I'm not working
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Speaker 1: any Are you taking those days off? Oh yeah, I'm
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Speaker 1: taking off a couple of weeks. Wow, you know, I
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Speaker 1: used up almost all my big catient time. I'm very
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Speaker 1: grateful for this, But do you realize what that gives us? Uh? Less,
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Speaker 1: what it gives me? Well, it sounds like a two
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Speaker 1: day work week. It sounds also like a five day weekend. Right,
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Speaker 1: one man's two day work week is another man's five
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Speaker 1: day week. Yeah, it definitely depends on how you look
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Speaker 1: at if your workaholic two day work week, if you're
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Speaker 1: you know, a slacker five day weekend, right, that sounds great?
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Speaker 1: It does. And actually, um our HR department is isn't
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Speaker 1: the first to ever come up with this concept. It
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Speaker 1: is so there's actually a movement of foot chuck called
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Speaker 1: the Friends of the Five Day Weekend. There's actually a
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Speaker 1: constitutional amendment, a proposal for one, which last time I
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Speaker 1: counted had about signatures on it. I wasn't too impressed
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Speaker 1: with that number. By the way, it could be better, um,
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Speaker 1: basically petitioning Congress to say, all right, you know, we're
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Speaker 1: we're going to have a two day work week from
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Speaker 1: now on and the rest is the weekend. Legally, you
2:00
Speaker 1: if you work more than this, you have to pay.
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Speaker 1: You have to be paid over time. Right. I love
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Speaker 1: that this group really went for it there. They didn't
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Speaker 1: go with a three day weekend or even a fourth
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Speaker 1: They just said, screw it, five days off, two days
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Speaker 1: a week will work. Yeah, And we should probably give
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Speaker 1: a little background on this group. I gotta tell you,
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Speaker 1: um it sounds very tongue in cheek. It sounds um,
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Speaker 1: almost satirical and a joke, and it almost completely is.
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Speaker 1: It's um. The group behind it is the Asheville Convention
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Speaker 1: and Visitors Bureau, I Brave Asheville, North North Carolina, and um,
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Speaker 1: this is uh an ad campaign of marketing campaign to
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Speaker 1: get people to Asheville to you know, create this five
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Speaker 1: day weekends so everybody could come to Asheville and spend
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Speaker 1: their five day weekends there. Now, Gina, how it was
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Speaker 1: the idea just to get press, I think so. I
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Speaker 1: think that was part of it, but I think it
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Speaker 1: was kind of like a whole campaign, and then the
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Speaker 1: press aspect wrote itself, especially once they floated a constitutional amendment,
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Speaker 1: So it was kind of a tongue in cheek thing.
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Speaker 1: But actually, um, people reacted to it. They responded to it.
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Speaker 1: You know, Hey, that sounds great kind of thing. Especially
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Speaker 1: I imagine when there's like you know, they they had
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Speaker 1: they held rallies at festivals and stuff like that, and
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Speaker 1: I imagine the more beer there was there, the more
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Speaker 1: of a response there was. You know, yeah, were five
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Speaker 1: day weekend kind of thing. So, um, well, we found
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Speaker 1: out about it here at how stuff works, and of course,
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Speaker 1: as is our way, um, we took a tongue in
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Speaker 1: cheek idea to the nth degree. It's extreme conclusion, and
3:34
Speaker 1: wanted to find out. I mean, like, what what the
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Speaker 1: deal is? Could this even work? What would happen if
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Speaker 1: it did? So it's like you'd be careful making a
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Speaker 1: joke around us, because we'll we'll we'll investigate it and
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Speaker 1: publish it and if if it's a stupid idea, we'll
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Speaker 1: we'll say so. But frankly, these people, I think they
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Speaker 1: have a good idea. I think the friends of the
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Speaker 1: Five Day Weekend they have a a good idea. And
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Speaker 1: they're they're actually pointing something out. What's that they're pointing
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Speaker 1: out that Americans work way too hard and have become far,
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Speaker 1: far too serious. Well, Donald Trump doesn't agree with you, No,
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Speaker 1: he doesn't. But that's the Donald. You know. He said
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Speaker 1: he said the idea was ridiculous. He did he actually
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Speaker 1: he said it in his blog, right. I got to
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Speaker 1: him in the first place. I'm impressed that he knows
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Speaker 1: how to blog. So, um, yeah, he he didn't. He
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Speaker 1: didn't like that. But there's plenty of people who agree
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Speaker 1: with the concept um and actually this this this idea
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Speaker 1: that Americans are overworked is We've got yards of figures here, Chuck, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: how about some figures. I'm the statmn UH in two
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Speaker 1: thousand seven survey was performed by the Conference Board, and
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Speaker 1: they found that a fewer than fifty percent of Americans
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Speaker 1: were happy with their jobs, which is, yeah, that's pretty sad.
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Speaker 1: Though UH in seven had job satisfaction. That's a sharp decline.
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Speaker 1: And you will know note that I think in nineteen
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Speaker 1: eight seven, that was the year that the Michael Keaton
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Speaker 1: pro America movie Gung Ho came out and really kicked
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Speaker 1: the American worker into overdrive. We're not gonna get beaten
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Speaker 1: by the Japanese. Let's get to work, you know, be
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Speaker 1: the lovable Michael Keaton led the charge. Well, I think
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Speaker 1: that's it centered exclusively around the movie Gung Ho. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: pre batman, Michael Keaton. Uh. And then there was another
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Speaker 1: study in two thousand four that um, one third of
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Speaker 1: all Americans feel overworked, which I thought it might be
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Speaker 1: a little higher than that. To be honest, I would too,
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Speaker 1: But I think we we've also developed an endurance over time,
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Speaker 1: Tom and fat lazy pre gung Ho days to like,
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Speaker 1: you know, kind of a lean, trim workforce. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: we have now that's slightly evidenced by and I know
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Speaker 1: something else. You mentioned the article that, uh, a lot
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Speaker 1: of Americans don't use all their vacation days No. Ten
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Speaker 1: of fourteen. Yeah, that's just that was in three thousand
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Speaker 1: and six. That added to five hundred and seventy four
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Speaker 1: million unused vacation days. Yeah, that is one thing you
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Speaker 1: will never catch me with unused vacation That's great. Hats
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Speaker 1: off to you, buddy. I just I don't I don't
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Speaker 1: get it. Time off is good. I'm not lazy. No,
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Speaker 1: you definitely aren't lazy, but you know, you know how
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Speaker 1: to live, you know how to take care of yourself,
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Speaker 1: and the value of time off, it's a value at
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Speaker 1: treasure it. But I think there's a lot of people.
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Speaker 1: I think you could even say a majority of American
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Speaker 1: workers don't know. They don't know how to do that.
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Speaker 1: So that's kind of the point of this five day weekend.
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Speaker 1: It's like, wake up, man, settle down, let's all just
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Speaker 1: kind of chill out here there, learn to live like
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Speaker 1: chuck that kind of right. Well, I think I don't
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Speaker 1: have any stats for this but I bet a lot
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Speaker 1: of these types are the men and women that are
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Speaker 1: after the dollar and that you know, they figure if
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Speaker 1: they're snoozing, they're losing on money. And um, you know
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Speaker 1: people use acidine rhymes to describe their motivations, right, and
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Speaker 1: we're not really like that. We're meager livers and uh yeah,
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Speaker 1: we we know how to be happy and content. Yeah
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Speaker 1: without you know, making three hundred thousand dollars a year,
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Speaker 1: you're not making three Maybe I should renegotiation. So, um,
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Speaker 1: if you'll notice, chuck the end of the five day weekend,
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Speaker 1: Like I said, they proposed a constitutional amendment. Now, if Congress,
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Speaker 1: for some weird reason took this up, championed it, and
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Speaker 1: passed it, it actually wouldn't be the first time that
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Speaker 1: they've done this. Did you know that there wasn't any
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Speaker 1: such thing as a weekend in the United States until
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Speaker 1: nine that's weird. And the weekend was actually created by
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Speaker 1: a congressional act. That's so cool. Yeah, I bet no
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Speaker 1: one that that's that's the your takeaway today, folks. If
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Speaker 1: you want to amaze around the water cooler, that's a
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Speaker 1: good fact. The weekend was created by Congress, right, and
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Speaker 1: it was called the Fair Labor Standards Act. Yeah, we
7:35
Speaker 1: talked about, um, we talked about the the Labor Department
7:39
Speaker 1: in Free Market Regulation podcast if we'll remember um, and
7:44
Speaker 1: you know, they shouldn't exist in this free market. But really,
7:48
Speaker 1: the Fair Labor and Standards Act is one of these
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Speaker 1: shining acts that really protects people. You know. It established
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Speaker 1: a forty four hour work week, you know, Monday through Friday,
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Speaker 1: about eight hours a day. Um. It also established a
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Speaker 1: minimum wage, I got rid of child labor across the board.
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Speaker 1: It was a good act and it's still the test
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Speaker 1: of time, clearly because the forty hour work week is
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Speaker 1: still kind of between forty and still the standard exactly. Okay,
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Speaker 1: So so what would happen if we did go to
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Speaker 1: a two day a week work week? Um? Well, you
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Speaker 1: tell me, you know, you tell me, Well, it depends
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Speaker 1: on are you talking about economically speaking? Yeah, I know,
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Speaker 1: people be a lot happier. Well supposedly, it depends. I mean,
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Speaker 1: can you can you really say that? Well, that's just
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Speaker 1: my feeling. Okay, let me let me tell you about
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Speaker 1: an unnatural law that you might be interested in. Right,
8:44
Speaker 1: here's the first problem with with the two day work week.
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Speaker 1: How are you going to do five days worth of
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Speaker 1: work in two days? Is it possible? Well, stay off
8:52
Speaker 1: Facebook exactly a good start. There's this guy named I
8:57
Speaker 1: believe Alan Parkinson. No, that's Alan Parsons project. I think
9:01
Speaker 1: you know, uh see Northcote Parkinson. He created Parkinson's law.
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Speaker 1: It's like Murphy's law. Um, it's an unnatural law, right,
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Speaker 1: kind of a Rye observation um. And Parkinson's law says
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Speaker 1: that UM work expands so as to fill the time
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Speaker 1: available for its completion. So if you have, you know,
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Speaker 1: a one day job to you know, to do, but
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Speaker 1: you're given a week to do it, it's gonna take
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Speaker 1: you pretty much all week to do that job, no
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Speaker 1: matter how hard you try. So I guess if you
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Speaker 1: put Parkinson's law up to the you know, five day weekend,
9:38
Speaker 1: you could you could probably trim several days off of
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Speaker 1: your work week if you just went all out for
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Speaker 1: those two days. Probably not going to be able to
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Speaker 1: finish everything in two days, but it is possible, right,
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Speaker 1: I would agree? Okay, So, um, So that's that's number one, UM,
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Speaker 1: and then number two as far as the five the
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Speaker 1: friends of the five day weekend see it basically, Um,
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Speaker 1: we're not taking any time for ourselves as it is
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Speaker 1: even on the weekends, because there's a lot of times,
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Speaker 1: so much time spent working that the weekends are often
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Speaker 1: spent doing chores, housework, that kind of thing. And in
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Speaker 1: a strict economic sense and as strict economic definition, actually, UM,
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Speaker 1: leisure time is activities that give direct enjoyment. So just
10:27
Speaker 1: because you have time off doesn't mean you're engaging in
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Speaker 1: leisure time, which is the whole point behind the five
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Speaker 1: day weekend thing. We need more time to have leisure
10:35
Speaker 1: time because, like you said, we're vacuuming, we're running errands,
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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. That's not leisure time. That's working
10:41
Speaker 1: but not being paid for it, you know. UM, So
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Speaker 1: that's another aspect of the whole thing, and there's also
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Speaker 1: a physical aspect to it. Our health could actually improve,
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Speaker 1: UM if we adopted a five day weekend case. In
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Speaker 1: point a two thousand study UM from the University of
11:01
Speaker 1: Pittsburgh and the State University of New York Oswego, they
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Speaker 1: found that there was a there is a direct correlation
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Speaker 1: between middle aged men who are at risk for heart disease,
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Speaker 1: suffering heart attacks, and a lack of vacation time. Right
11:16
Speaker 1: I did a lot of articles recently on the heart
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Speaker 1: and stress, as you know, and it's there. It's not
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Speaker 1: supposed you know, it's those are direct links. Yeah, there's
11:24
Speaker 1: definitely a mind body link, and it appears to be
11:27
Speaker 1: stresses is the most clear um example of it, right right,
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Speaker 1: So okay, so we would technically be able to to
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Speaker 1: do most of our work in two days that we're
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Speaker 1: now taking five days to do. Um, we would uh,
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Speaker 1: we would be able to actually engage in actual leisure time.
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Speaker 1: Our health would benefit. And even more, there's a model
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Speaker 1: already in place for lots of time off and that's
11:53
Speaker 1: in Europe. Correct. I went, I went to Malta. Remember
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Speaker 1: this summer. There's this guy who's a diplomat over in
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Speaker 1: crow Geatia. He's an English diplomat and he had like
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Speaker 1: eighties six paid days off per year. You're kidding. No,
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Speaker 1: I'm not kidding at all. He hardly knew what to
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Speaker 1: do with all the time off that he had, and
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Speaker 1: it was fairly fairly common, fairly standard, and I'm like, wow,
12:15
Speaker 1: I get two weeks off, you know. So yeah, it
12:18
Speaker 1: was kind of um, it was a rough thing to
12:21
Speaker 1: come you know, face to face with, right I'm jealous
12:24
Speaker 1: of your We often talk about our weekend activities and
12:27
Speaker 1: I'm all, you really do do it right at your house. Yeah,
12:30
Speaker 1: but you you you have very you have a very
12:33
Speaker 1: improved house. Well, I'm renovating a house. Some of you
12:37
Speaker 1: may know this, some of you may not. So there's
12:39
Speaker 1: a lot of work to be done on the weekends. Um.
12:41
Speaker 1: I do get pleasure out of that, though, So I
12:44
Speaker 1: guess technically that still counsels leisure time as long as
12:47
Speaker 1: you're driving. Pleasure is a direct pleasure. So, Chuck, let's
12:50
Speaker 1: look at it from an economic aspect. Now we know
12:52
Speaker 1: what the friends of the five day weekend. You're saying
12:54
Speaker 1: that it could be beneficial to us, but you know,
12:57
Speaker 1: would it be beneficial of the economy. Well, this is
13:00
Speaker 1: where you need to school meet, because I know economics
13:02
Speaker 1: is your your one true love in life. I love economics.
13:05
Speaker 1: Actually it's so weird and nerdy, but I've become fascinated
13:09
Speaker 1: by it as I've grown older. And there's this guy
13:12
Speaker 1: who pertains to what we're talking about, um named John
13:16
Speaker 1: Maynard Keynes, and uh he appropriately enough came up with
13:20
Speaker 1: Keensian economics, and um, he wrote a paper basically Keensie
13:26
Speaker 1: and economics is a form of macro economics. So before
13:29
Speaker 1: people would say, okay, um, there's this much much wealth
13:33
Speaker 1: in the world, or you know, people sold this many
13:35
Speaker 1: goods and um, you know there was this gross profit
13:39
Speaker 1: and then you know, minus expenditures, and now you have
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Speaker 1: net profit. And there's economics. And keens is like, well, well, whoa,
13:46
Speaker 1: we're missing like a lot of aspects here, so like
13:49
Speaker 1: our are really um, I guess granular uh view of economics.
13:55
Speaker 1: Now we're we're keeping track of office supply indexes or indicaes. Um,
14:01
Speaker 1: that's all KINSI. And he said we need to take
14:03
Speaker 1: into account debt and taxes and all this other stuff. Right,
14:07
Speaker 1: makes sense. So by the time he writes this paper,
14:10
Speaker 1: UM called um economic go Ahead, go ahead, Economic possibilities
14:15
Speaker 1: for our grandchildren. Right, And he writes that in ninety
14:18
Speaker 1: and he'd already established himself as like the the economic
14:22
Speaker 1: genius of his age. So he writes this thing. Everybody's listening, right,
14:26
Speaker 1: and in it he says, okay, he took a very
14:29
Speaker 1: conservative growth rate of um of the economy and wealth,
14:34
Speaker 1: which he called capital um equipment. Yeah, thank you, um.
14:39
Speaker 1: He said two percent growth per year and seven and
14:43
Speaker 1: a half percent growth of the capital equipment, which is,
14:46
Speaker 1: I believe all the money available in the world, um,
14:51
Speaker 1: and within a hundred years we're going to basically be
14:54
Speaker 1: living in this leisure society. The friends of the Five
14:57
Speaker 1: Day Weekend came up with, Yeah, I love this theory
14:59
Speaker 1: right now. He actually took a his estimates were pretty
15:04
Speaker 1: much spot on, and they were actually slightly more concerned.
15:07
Speaker 1: We've grown more than that, and I believe like our
15:10
Speaker 1: capital equipment has grown much more than seven and a half.
15:13
Speaker 1: I think it's like a hundred or two hundred times
15:15
Speaker 1: or some some really enormous amount, and yet we're still
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Speaker 1: not in this leisure society that Keene's envision within a
15:24
Speaker 1: hundred years. Even though we far exceeded his his predictions
15:27
Speaker 1: for growth, he was off the mark there for sure.
15:29
Speaker 1: He was though, why well, I think you actually didn't
15:33
Speaker 1: interview him, correct, I did two interviews, Uh, And I've
15:37
Speaker 1: always kind of had this idea that if you want
15:39
Speaker 1: to know a question, go to Harvard. It's they They
15:43
Speaker 1: have some really really good interview subjects. And actually I
15:47
Speaker 1: also called a guy from Cornell too, and both of
15:50
Speaker 1: them just turned out to be spot on and um, yeah,
15:56
Speaker 1: from Cornell Robert Frank, and from Harvard Richard Freeman. And
16:00
Speaker 1: the thing is is I call both of them out
16:01
Speaker 1: of the blue. Neither one of them had ever heard
16:03
Speaker 1: of the five day weekend before, and both of them
16:06
Speaker 1: just right off the cuff talked just perfectly, gave me
16:09
Speaker 1: all the information I needed. And as if that weren't enough,
16:13
Speaker 1: both of them had just submitted chapters for a book
16:15
Speaker 1: called Revisiting kens On the very question I called them about,
16:19
Speaker 1: and I had no idea that book was even coming out,
16:21
Speaker 1: So it was all just kind of going, like, you know,
16:23
Speaker 1: we're operating on all cylinders here. I'm kind of I
16:26
Speaker 1: can't sit down while I'm interviewing. I'm very excited. It's
16:28
Speaker 1: economics and all that. Um So Robert Frank from Cornell.
16:33
Speaker 1: His his theory was that we haven't reached this Keynsian
16:37
Speaker 1: leisure society because Keenes grossly underestimated relative needs. So you've
16:44
Speaker 1: got basic needs, right, which are like food and water
16:47
Speaker 1: and say clothing, right, and then there's relative needs as well,
16:51
Speaker 1: which can also be basic needs, like, for example, clothing
16:55
Speaker 1: but instead of you know, tattered rags that keep you warm,
16:59
Speaker 1: relative need would be a nice suit. And what Frank
17:03
Speaker 1: was saying was that, um, in our modern society, it's
17:07
Speaker 1: not enough to just have tattered rags that keep you warm.
17:10
Speaker 1: If you want to have a better life, if you
17:13
Speaker 1: want to provide for your children, you have to throw
17:16
Speaker 1: more into relative needs. So your suit has to be
17:18
Speaker 1: nicer so you can get a better job at an
17:21
Speaker 1: interview and then pay for your children. And it's become
17:24
Speaker 1: much more important. You can't walk into a place in
17:27
Speaker 1: an interview and in rags, this basic need that's been
17:30
Speaker 1: recovered and expect to advance in life. So he it
17:34
Speaker 1: was his opinion that that's why Kenes missed the Mark
17:37
Speaker 1: Freeman and now you interviewed and this was from Harvard, correct,
17:41
Speaker 1: and uh, he just kind of flatly said that Keenes
17:44
Speaker 1: overestimated our desire for leisure and that it's a five
17:48
Speaker 1: day work week is pretty optimal. Yeah, he said that that, Um,
17:51
Speaker 1: that labor and management came to a perfect agreement pretty
17:55
Speaker 1: much to the five day, five day work week, eight
17:58
Speaker 1: hour day. What do you think? I gotta tell you, you
18:01
Speaker 1: you know, I I had sent before that that's I
18:05
Speaker 1: don't like too much time off. It's weird. I feel weird.
18:08
Speaker 1: I feel like I have to do something, I have
18:10
Speaker 1: to produce something, and um yeah, too much time off
18:13
Speaker 1: actually makes me a little edgy. I think a four
18:15
Speaker 1: day work week would be just about right for me.
18:17
Speaker 1: I think it'd be good to pepper it here there.
18:20
Speaker 1: I don't think it has to be standard every time,
18:22
Speaker 1: but maybe like twice a month you get a day
18:24
Speaker 1: or two off or something like that. And we're not
18:25
Speaker 1: talking about telecommuting. It's a different deal. It totally is.
18:29
Speaker 1: It's actually a day off, right, yeah, a day off
18:32
Speaker 1: where you're just not expected to do any work. Um. Okay,
18:35
Speaker 1: So so now we we the friends of the five
18:38
Speaker 1: day week, they five day weekend. They don't, um they
18:41
Speaker 1: they're not the first to come up with it. Keynes did. Um.
18:45
Speaker 1: But I asked Freeman and Frank uh, you know what, really,
18:49
Speaker 1: what would happen to the economy? Epogetically? What would happen? Yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: but you got well, I know the first thing that, um,
18:55
Speaker 1: you would have to do is to convince your employers
18:57
Speaker 1: to pay you a full wage for two day his work,
19:00
Speaker 1: so paying on production rather than time, right, which makes sense.
19:04
Speaker 1: But I don't think either of them assume that employers
19:07
Speaker 1: would be willing to do that. So right there, you
19:10
Speaker 1: you've got two fifths of the wages we have now,
19:13
Speaker 1: which is fine for domestic products. Right, so anything that's
19:16
Speaker 1: produced domestically, Um, it's going to fall down and step
19:19
Speaker 1: eventually to reflect these two fifths of wages that Americans
19:22
Speaker 1: are making. In theory es okay, But also houses would
19:26
Speaker 1: get substantially smaller, cars would get substantially smaller, but we'd
19:30
Speaker 1: be able to survive. Basically, America would take a gigantic
19:34
Speaker 1: step backward out of the rat race as one collective whole.
19:38
Speaker 1: But then it would all kind of catch up with
19:40
Speaker 1: itself and adjust itself. It would, and and everything would
19:43
Speaker 1: be fine. I would be much like it is now,
19:45
Speaker 1: except two fifths is valuable. But for and produced goods
19:50
Speaker 1: in comparison to our lowered wages, the prices of those
19:53
Speaker 1: would skyrocket. Right, So so long Sony plasma TV, because
19:57
Speaker 1: if you would be so, it be is out of
20:00
Speaker 1: out of bounds. Is as you know, a five million
20:03
Speaker 1: dollar home is to the average person. Um, so you'd
20:06
Speaker 1: have that, but again we'd still be fine. Our our
20:09
Speaker 1: relative needs would with lower to to reflect that two
20:13
Speaker 1: fifth wage. But I think it was a Freeman, who
20:16
Speaker 1: predicted sadly that we would still compete with one another, like,
20:20
Speaker 1: we'd still want to get the best TV we could
20:22
Speaker 1: for two fifths of the wages we were getting, and
20:25
Speaker 1: it we'd want it to be better than someone else. Yeah,
20:28
Speaker 1: which is kind of sad that, you know, even after
20:30
Speaker 1: taking a gigantic step backward, we would still compete with
20:34
Speaker 1: one another. There's an interesting article. It'll clearly never happen,
20:38
Speaker 1: but it's interesting to kind of think about what the
20:40
Speaker 1: what if? I think so too. So there's actually quite
20:44
Speaker 1: a bit more to this article, right, Uh, you tell
20:47
Speaker 1: me you wrote it. Well, let's let's let's just advise
20:50
Speaker 1: people to go on to our handy site, look into
20:53
Speaker 1: our handy search bar. Just type five day weekend into
20:56
Speaker 1: the search bar, how stuff works dot com and stick
20:59
Speaker 1: around because it is uh. Listener mail time right, listener
21:04
Speaker 1: mail time, listener mail time? Okay, so, Chuck, who is
21:08
Speaker 1: our listener? Mail from? Our listener is David and we
21:11
Speaker 1: have the last name. We don't know where David's from.
21:13
Speaker 1: But David did not take kindly to our Delta Force podcast,
21:17
Speaker 1: but he was very constructive in his criticism. Didn't just
21:21
Speaker 1: slam us David says, Hi, Chuck and Josh, I usually
21:24
Speaker 1: enjoy your podcast quite a bit, but your recent podcast
21:27
Speaker 1: on Delta Force was way over the line. While I
21:30
Speaker 1: appreciate the bone you threw human human rights activists at
21:33
Speaker 1: the end before suggesting that they may be killed for
21:36
Speaker 1: a policy disagreement, you're over the top adulation for all
21:39
Speaker 1: things military was disturbing. You seem to suggest that any
21:42
Speaker 1: action they took was justifiable, saying how happy you were
21:45
Speaker 1: that they were taking care of business, not every policy
21:48
Speaker 1: decision made by our government, particularly when using shadowy military
21:51
Speaker 1: groups for the best. I'm not going to read it
21:55
Speaker 1: because it's too long, but basically he thinks our opinion
21:57
Speaker 1: of special forces might change if some European Arabian country
22:01
Speaker 1: special forces two tapped their way through the White House
22:04
Speaker 1: to arrest our president. So he was kind of just
22:08
Speaker 1: disagreeing with a little bit. And at the end there
22:10
Speaker 1: David's referring to the colonel of Delta Force back with
22:14
Speaker 1: two tap methods, with two shots to the head of
22:17
Speaker 1: every terror, which I have to say, can we play
22:20
Speaker 1: a clip because we actually warned David and all the
22:23
Speaker 1: other listeners that it could evolve into something like this right, Sure,
22:26
Speaker 1: let's listen. Okay it is Yeah, there's We should probably
22:29
Speaker 1: warn the listeners right now, Chuck and I will most
22:32
Speaker 1: likely devolve into some sort of weird boyhood admiration of
22:38
Speaker 1: all the sick, sick stuff Delta Forces done over the years.
22:42
Speaker 1: So just before warn if we start tittering or really
22:44
Speaker 1: excited or one of us takes our shirt off, don't
22:47
Speaker 1: be offended. Okay, so David actually shamed us a debt.
22:53
Speaker 1: We did feel bad after this one, if I wereall correctly,
22:55
Speaker 1: because we're not big workouts. No we're not. It's just
22:58
Speaker 1: this weird power the Delts Force has over us. Yes
23:01
Speaker 1: we are odd, Yes we got a little a little juvenile,
23:05
Speaker 1: but yeah, David, generally we we would agree with you.
23:09
Speaker 1: We believe in in human rights and UM, diplomacy not
23:14
Speaker 1: military direction is as much. But I think one point
23:17
Speaker 1: that we tried to make it. I don't know if
23:18
Speaker 1: he made it clear enough, is that if there is
23:20
Speaker 1: action to be taken, we would much prefer a small
23:22
Speaker 1: operation UM, rather than some day and thirty thousand troops.
23:27
Speaker 1: And yeah, and just quickly before we go, we gotta
23:30
Speaker 1: a message from another Dave about the same podcast. Hi,
23:34
Speaker 1: I listened to your podcast from the UK and really
23:36
Speaker 1: like the one about Delta Force. Would it be possible
23:38
Speaker 1: for you to do one on European special forces like
23:41
Speaker 1: in Germany and France. Cheers yes and sears to you Dave. Um.
23:46
Speaker 1: We were not aware that France had a special forefront.
23:49
Speaker 1: So some guys like that, some guys didn't. That's great.
23:51
Speaker 1: Oh and don't forget our girlfriend in Sudan who started
23:54
Speaker 1: listening to it through her speakers and and it's an
23:57
Speaker 1: email saying that she felt uncomfortable doing so, so press pause,
24:00
Speaker 1: but she hit was happy with it as well. Great.
24:02
Speaker 1: So thank you to all three of you guys for
24:04
Speaker 1: sending email. Um and David, thank you very much for
24:08
Speaker 1: letting us know how you feel. We appreciate it. If
24:11
Speaker 1: you guys want to send us an email, let us
24:13
Speaker 1: know what's on your mind, whether you like what we said,
24:15
Speaker 1: whether you didn't. Either way, we're cool with it. Uh.
24:18
Speaker 1: Send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
24:22
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
24:26
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