Work and its demands

Greetings!

The option of reducing the working day of in a week to four days instead of five doesn't seem so appealing to me. I'm not currently working in a job with that schedule, but I've worked in an organization where we once tried something similar, and it was hell.
It was when I was working with a mason, assisting with engineering work. I was responsible for providing them with materials like blocks and concrete while they did the main technical work.

There was a particular time when we traveled out of town, and we were working daily. We would wake up very early, work from 6:30 am to 3:00 pm, and then close for the day. It was going fine with no issues until the engineer saw that we were running out of time and needed to finish up before Friday. So, we had to increase our output. We extended our working hours, from 6:30 am to sometimes 5:30 pm or 6:00 pm.

It's not like we worked all the way through without breaks, but the breaks were minimal. We worked tirelessly every day, trying to meet a target that was far higher than what we were supposed to accomplish daily, all in an attempt to finish up and leave town on Thursday instead of Friday.

Oh boy, you should have seen how tired we were every evening. My body was completely weakened, and I had to take medication to keep going. If I was carrying 400 blocks a day, it increased to 600 or 700. Imagine that.

No doubt, we were working with our minds focused on Friday, which was going to be our free day. Although each time we remembered that, a smile would pop up, our bodies were really feeling the strain. Yes, we managed to finish the work within the four days, but our bodies suffered for it, and it took us a while to recover. Some of us even fell sick from the physical strain.

The usual five-day work week is something we've adapted to already, and cutting it short might be feasible later, but it's going to be a very challenging transition.

One might ask, "What if it was four days from the start?" Well, the fact that it wasn't like that from the beginning is what's going to make it a big challenge for people.

Under normal circumstances, life should not be pressured; it should be taken gradually. When a compressed task is given to our bodies, our bodies also feel the compression.

Yesterday, I was talking with a neighbor who does manual labor. He said he wished he could find work that would allow him to finish early and return home to relax for the next day, rather than the kind of job where he leaves at 6:00 am and returns at 7:30 pm. The workaholic lifestyle is taking a toll on him, and he needs rest but can't help it.

Thanks for reading.

Photo used it mine