7 ms·

I thoroughly enjoy the silent Sundays. I don't know why so many people require Sunday to be open, especially if so many of them allegedly suffer from stress and

I thoroughly enjoy the silent Sundays. I don't know why so many people require Sunday to be open, especially if so many of them allegedly suffer from stress and a too "fast" lifestyle. Going out on Sundays here is awesome. Yes, of course that requires people working too. Perhaps not fair for the many that need to work, but there are a few advantages.

keiferski 2y ago
Yeah at first, the rules like closed shops on Sunday seem annoying, but as time goes on I now enjoy the forced quietness. If only because it adds some flavor to the week, making Sunday not just another day indistinguishable from every other.
mathverse 2y ago
Because it's an absolute crap. In Germany the workaround is gas stations that were converted into grocery stores. Even in my country where shopping is only closed on pub holidays the gas stations now serve as grocery stores and bake fresh bread on those days. It's just populism.
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
  'Fresh'? Oh! Really?
sebtron 2y ago
I understand that, I guess you can't make everyone happy at the same time :) For me the issue is that those same shops are usually open 10:00 to 17:30 or so. Which is also the time I work, which means I was forced to go on Saturdays (like most other people). If I had other plans for Saturday, tough luck.
sebst 2y ago
I enjoy silent days, too! Yet, I certainly don’t need a government to mark my calendar with those
- rglullis 2y ago
  The alternative is to have everyone being forced (ahem, "incentivized") to work all the time, and having rest days becoming a privilege only for white-collar workers.
  - yorwba 2y ago
    You can have a mandatory minimum number of rest days without fixing when those rest days are. In fact, this is already how it works for those professions that are allowed to work on Sundays; their rest day might just be a Tuesday instead.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      Could you imagine how that would play out in case we started applying this logic everywhere, and we completely lost the concept of "the weekend"? - "I know that this is your day off, but everyone will be requested to come to work this Wednesday because the team is about to miss the sprint goal" - "Now that banks and stock markets open on Saturdays and Sundays, we will have to have everyone on call rotation, all week long." - "We do not have the budget to increase our team by 2/7, so everyone will have to pick up the slack" - "Sorry Jane, your refusal to continue on a strict Mon-Fri schedule is hurting your chances of making progress on this company. Yeah, I know you have children and that schools are not open all week long, but Mary has been showing up whenever asked and she seems to be more reliable". This idea of "individuals should be free to choose all the time" is also another good example of cultural differences between North Americans and Europeans. Look at the American companies that claim to offer "unlimited PTO", but when you probe it a bit further and ask how many vacation days employees took on average, the recruiter will tell you "oh, about 12 days". This idea of "freedom to choose" works mostly to get in favor of the system to get peons pitting against each other. The only way to have the majority of people benefiting from a community-level policy is to apply it at that level.
      - yorwba 2y ago
        It's funny that you bring up PTO, since all your examples could be applied to PTO as well (all-hands meeting when you're on vacation, on-call rotation throughout the year, 24 legally guaranteed minimum vacation days straining budgets, parents timing their vacation to coincide with school break) and the European solution is to have a minimum number of days everyone gets off, but they're free to choose when.

keiferski 2y ago

Yeah at first, the rules like closed shops on Sunday seem annoying, but as time goes on I now enjoy the forced quietness. If only because it adds some flavor to the week, making Sunday not just another day indistinguishable from every other.

mathverse 2y ago

Because it's an absolute crap. In Germany the workaround is gas stations that were converted into grocery stores. Even in my country where shopping is only closed on pub holidays the gas stations now serve as grocery stores and bake fresh bread on those days. It's just populism.

LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
'Fresh'? Oh! Really?

sebtron 2y ago

I understand that, I guess you can't make everyone happy at the same time :) For me the issue is that those same shops are usually open 10:00 to 17:30 or so. Which is also the time I work, which means I was forced to go on Saturdays (like most other people). If I had other plans for Saturday, tough luck.

sebst 2y ago

I enjoy silent days, too! Yet, I certainly don’t need a government to mark my calendar with those

rglullis 2y ago
The alternative is to have everyone being forced (ahem, "incentivized") to work all the time, and having rest days becoming a privilege only for white-collar workers.
- yorwba 2y ago
  You can have a mandatory minimum number of rest days without fixing when those rest days are. In fact, this is already how it works for those professions that are allowed to work on Sundays; their rest day might just be a Tuesday instead.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    Could you imagine how that would play out in case we started applying this logic everywhere, and we completely lost the concept of "the weekend"? - "I know that this is your day off, but everyone will be requested to come to work this Wednesday because the team is about to miss the sprint goal" - "Now that banks and stock markets open on Saturdays and Sundays, we will have to have everyone on call rotation, all week long." - "We do not have the budget to increase our team by 2/7, so everyone will have to pick up the slack" - "Sorry Jane, your refusal to continue on a strict Mon-Fri schedule is hurting your chances of making progress on this company. Yeah, I know you have children and that schools are not open all week long, but Mary has been showing up whenever asked and she seems to be more reliable". This idea of "individuals should be free to choose all the time" is also another good example of cultural differences between North Americans and Europeans. Look at the American companies that claim to offer "unlimited PTO", but when you probe it a bit further and ask how many vacation days employees took on average, the recruiter will tell you "oh, about 12 days". This idea of "freedom to choose" works mostly to get in favor of the system to get peons pitting against each other. The only way to have the majority of people benefiting from a community-level policy is to apply it at that level.
    - yorwba 2y ago
      It's funny that you bring up PTO, since all your examples could be applied to PTO as well (all-hands meeting when you're on vacation, on-call rotation throughout the year, 24 legally guaranteed minimum vacation days straining budgets, parents timing their vacation to coincide with school break) and the European solution is to have a minimum number of days everyone gets off, but they're free to choose when.