Do we need weekends?

Do we need weekends? I think that we do, though they can be mid-week, and you can separate them sometimes but I would prefer to have two together. Most librarians, especially new ones, don't get traditional weekends, but many libraries do try to give a break, and if they can't they are short-staffed. I think many beginning librarians could agree that they have too few hours packed with too much work--and a weekend becomes more important.

This essay also seems to forget that many people need one day that they don't have to pay for child care: Saturday and Sunday when the kids are off, terrorizing the parks. Or, really, home on the Wii, but someone has to watch them. School schedules have a huge impact on the lives of parents--especially single ones--and those schedules certainly structure our work lives. You don't have to have children to have additional family responsibilities: a family member, of any age, could need your care and assistance, forcing changes at work.

People who have just graduated from college are probably scoffing, weekends, that's when I worked my job. And yes, that's true for many college students, but what you did do was something else. Occasionally boring and sometimes fulfilling but you did something other than study. And be honest: some of those days were spent beer drinking or napping during the afternoon.

And notice in the article, it isn't about weekends, it's about work hours and constant access to wage slaves. The article talks about how Gen-Y is so frustrated that they can't be in constant contact all the time and just meet when they need to--which means after hours, and on Saturdays, or Sundays after hours. So instead of eight hours a day, we become Blackberry Minions, answering all types of queries until the wee hours.

But two days a week, if we can afford it, we should be allowed to work on separate projects and be with our families and friends. Sleep in, eat pancakes. Church, or another religious service, if we are so inclined. That's what the weekend is for.