DAVE ROSS
Ross: Do we still need a 40-hour work week?
Remember the first desktop computers? I do. I even remember an old IBM advertisement for them from 1977.
You’re looking at a small portable computer called the IBM 5100. It’s helping a lot of different people do their work more productively. It weighs about 50 pounds. You can plug it in anywhere.
Yes! Simply lash it to your back on business trips. In the 40 years since that 50-pound wonder debuted, productivity has exploded. And yet – a study published in Forbes found that last year 47 percent of Americans still refused to take all their vacation, saying it’s just too hard to unplug! And of those who did vacate, close to 20 percent still checked their emails every day they were gone. Which is crazy.
RELATED: Generation Z should ask for a raise
So last week a British Labor Union promised to push for a 32-hour, four-day work week, saying new technology should make it feasible. But could a four day work week ever come to America?
It absolutely could!
We would just set it up so that at midnight every Thursday, the government would pull the big red switch and turn off the Internet. The Internet would play the National Anthem, display “Error 404 Page Not Found,” and then sign itself off. Like TV stations used to do. And finally all of us could relax. Can you imagine?
And the best part – Putin’s trolls would have no choice but to brainwash each other.
-
Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
