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Good Morning and big thank you Forum Moderator for creating another page for me to continue on with my thoughts and stories about life and lives. Thank you, Leprachaun.
Dear Forum members, I have been unable to post new chapters for the story Avan Aval Adhu for the past few days and the reason is I am not in Chennai right now. I will return home in a few days and will begin anew again. Thank you.
*Duryodhan & Rahul Gandhi*
```Both without talent. But yet wanted to be rulers on the principle of birth-right.```
*Bhishma & Advani*
```Never crowned. Got respect & yet became helpless at the end of their lives.```
*Arjun & Narendra Modi*
```Both talented. Reached the highest position due to being on the side of dharma. But realise how difficult it is to follow and practice.```
*Karna & Manmohan Singh*
```Both intelligent. But never reached anywhere being on the side of adharma.```
*Shakuni & Kejriwal*
```Both never fought a war, just played dirty tricks.```
*Dhritrashtra & Sonia*
```Both were blind for love of their sons.```
*Lord Krishna and APJ Abdul Kalam*
```We celebrate both of them but do not follow what they taught and preached.```
*This is MAHABHARAT and BHARAT.*
Fewer Hours, Same Workload?
By Lora Kelley, The Atlantic, August 8, 2023
The idea of a four-day workweek sounds enticing: Work efficiently over a shorter period of time and then reap the benefits of three-day weekends. In the process, workers could find balance and flourish in their personal life. Some employers are game for it too, as they seek to improve employee wellness and retention. But execution matters. Best-case scenario: Shorter workweeks boost productivity and reduce burnout. Worst-case scenario: Workers who are already scrambling to get all their work done face unsustainable pressure to get it done even faster.
Companies and governments around the world have been flirting in recent years with the idea of reducing worker hours while maintaining pay, especially in white-collar industries with standard 40-hour workweeks (of course, many people in those industries end up working more than that). A nonprofit advocacy organization called 4 Day Week Global, which conducts trials with academics and promotes shorter workweeks, released new findings from a yearlong research period with companies that volunteered to participate. After six months of aiming to work 32 hours a week, participants reported overall boosts in well-being and job satisfaction, which remained higher than baseline levels another six months later. Companies and workers included in the report rated the trials positively, and most said they would like to continue four-day workweeks. (Crucially, employees were paid the same amount as they were when working longer hours.) The report notes that participating companies were not “required to institute a particular type of 4 day week.”
Recent reports from 4 Day Week Global raise interesting questions, Nick Bloom, a Stanford economist who studies work, told me in an email. However, skeptics of the benefits of shorter weeks are waiting to see more robust independent research. Now Bloom is gathering his own survey data on four-day weeks.
Bloom noted that as far back as 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that workers could move to a 15-hour week. At that time, many Americans were working 50 hours a week. During the Great Depression, 40-hour weeks became the norm, and they were eventually enshrined into law in 1940. Later, union leaders—and President Richard Nixon—predicted even shorter weeks. But in the past few decades, various factors including Americans’ worship of work and simple inertia have led most companies to stick to standard 40-hour schedules.
A four-day workweek can lead to improvements only if it’s implemented properly. For those workers required to shoulder an unmanageable workload to begin with, trying to complete work in fewer hours could lead to burnout. How workers spend their off-hours matters too. If an employee spends Friday relaxing at the park or enjoying time with family, it’s easy to see how they would come back refreshed and rejuvenated on Monday. But if a worker spends Friday answering emails from clients who are not on a reduced schedule, that may not be the case.
For a four-day week to be beneficial, employees need to know that their time off is really their own, Emma Russell, an associate professor in occupational and organizational psychology at the University of Sussex, in England, and the director of agiLab, told me in an email. Workers facing economic precarity may also use the extra time for another job, Russell noted—and if they are exhausted from moonlighting, they may not reap the wellness rewards of reduced hours in their primary job. It may not be universally helpful for companies to implement the one-size-fits-all solution of a reduced schedule, because workers have varied responsibilities and needs, she added.
Dale Whelehan, the CEO of 4 Day Week Global, acknowledges that shorter weeks are not necessarily a panacea. Companies need to buy into the idea of rethinking workloads too. “It’s much more than a reduction of working time. It’s completely reprioritizing how you work, why you work, and what way you work,” he told me. Whehelan argues that many people are already effectively doing four days of work hidden under five workdays’ worth of hours, because they are not working as efficiently as they could be. To him, the four-day workweek is a way for companies to work smarter rather than assuming that the arbitrary norm of a five-day week is best.
That message may go over well with executives who are eager to mix things up and reimagine their organization. But it may feel insulting to companies that are already doing all they can to be efficient. As Bloom put it in his email, “I doubt we could just work 20% less time and produce the same, otherwise we would have done this already.”
“Nobody likes work,” he added with a smiley-face emoji.
I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.
After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie.
By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.
There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.
'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.
She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.
She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her.. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.'
'Oh, you're such a good boy,’ she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive
through downtown?'
'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly..
'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice.’
I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice.. ‘The doctor says I don't have very long.' I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.
'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.
We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.
Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.
I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse.
'Nothing,' I said.
'You have to make a living,' she answered.
'There are other passengers,' I responded.
Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.
'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.'
I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life..
I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.
We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.
But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~ THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance..........
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