For all of my working days, since starting at a bakery aged 16, I have had to accept working weekends. Because I have spent most of my days in some form of education, working weekends was the easiest way to get extra money. And even when I got away from working just weekends, I had moved on to working evenings with a Saturday once a month. Now, I am contracted to work Tuesday to Saturday. Which sounds painful, but it is not as bad as I ever thought it would be.
Working weekends is something that most workers have to accept as part of their job. And because of this, the sense of a standard ‘working week’ is becoming more unusual. The majority of people I know don’t work 9-5, and life works around that. With the change in the working week, people need to be more forgiving with friends and family when planning events. I have seen friendships end pointlessly because someone is stuck at work with no time off. It’s sad, because it isn’t exactly someone’s fault if they can’t get a holiday.
But with banks having 24 hour phone lines and supermarkets being open all day everyday, the world no longer stops at 5pm. It’s getting harder to switch off from everything seeing as it doesn’t stop. It’s hard remembering that every so often, it’s good to step back and enjoy what time off you do get.
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