My company is doing a weight loss challenge to
promote health through November. Ironically enough, this announcement was made
in a meeting that is celebrated by bringing in donuts.
Is weight loss healthy? Yes. Maybe. While the
initial intent of the idea is great I think it misses the point a little. The
better focus would be body fat percentage. Is it better to lose 30 pounds or
10% body fat? There are tons of variables that make answering this question
more complex than a simple challenge.
We also celebrated the fact that we all have
Monday off due to Labor Day in this meeting. Labor day and this weight loss
challenge collide in terms of ideology in a way that I think we can learn from
individually.
What is Labor Day? According to the USDepartment of Labor; Labor Day,
the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is
dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It
constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have
made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
A member of our Talent team made the statement
this morning that it is a celebration of the normal 8-hour work day. What is
“normal” and why are those hours chosen? Is the logic that led to these
normal hours even applicable to our culture now?
These normal working hours are referred to as
the Eight-Hour Day Movement. It started because working conditions
were unregulated in Britain during the Industrial Revolution when large
factories were booming. It was a mechanism to limit abuse of laborers and
children from working 10-16 hours a day. The International Workingmen’s
Association took up the demand for an eight-hour day at its convention
in Geneva in August 1866, declaring The legal limitation of the
working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at
improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive,
and The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working
day. 1866 is where this all started. When this eight-hour day
movement was being initiated it was to protect workers from being over worked
in factories because they were production-based jobs. You could spend
endless hours on an assembly line or in a factor, so it makes perfect sense
that this was a logical and humane course of action. We don’t have many
factory jobs anymore, we have moved on from the industrial stage and working
looks a lot different today than it did even 20 years ago, especially different
from 1866, 151 years ago. Is it not a bit odd that we still use a system
suited from a 151-year-old culture? I’m about progress and don’t think much
can be made without challenging or at least intellectually considering current
systems.
So what? Just poking holes in things like
donuts, weight loss programs, and definitions of celebrations doesn’t do anyone
any good does it? Instead of focusing on things that are only good in a vacuum,
void of any context, let’s evolve and consider contextualized reality. Weight
loss is good where and when needed, however, sometimes gaining weight can be
better than weight loss. Sometimes no weight change at all is great if your
body fat percentage changes. Is an 8-hour work day good? In the context of
reducing abuse of hourly workers, yes. Is an 8-hour work day good for someone
less industrial and more intellectual or analytical in capacity? I’m unsure of
an affirmative answer here. We should celebrate working hard, but just putting
in 8-hour days doesn’t mean one is effective. If efficiency more important than
a simple chronological measure of an individual sitting at a desk?
When working an eight-hour work day, how
effective is the work force? There are all sorts of statistics out there that
measure how much time is wasted by the average worker in an 8-hour day.
However, rather than looking at usage I believe it is more important to look at
effectiveness and efficiency. How effective or efficient are you at what you
do. Let’s not just simply lose weight or work an 8-hour day, let’s be more
effective and lose body fat percentage and use our time efficiently for our
companies.
No comments:
Post a Comment