>I tried the 28 hour day In 1973 I worked for Aetna Life and Casualty. The company's computers ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The operators there worked 12-hour shifts, so we only had two shifts of operators, not three. In order to work (more or less) 40-hour weeks, they really worked 36 hours, so there would be one team for the first part of the week, and one team for the second part of the week. That left one day "uncovered", so one team worked a 48-hour week (four days), then they would "switch off" and the other team would work a 36-hour week. The company tried to make it so each team would eventually would get a Saturday and Sunday off (a "real" weekend), and each team would average out working a "normal" amount of hours (~40/week) when averaged out over the year. Ergo every two weeks the team that had been working four days would work seven days in a row, and the opposite team would get a week's paid vacation. When the second team came back from vacation, they would work 3 days, the first team would go to four days, and the whole cycle started again. It was complex, but just like the xkcd cartoon, they had charts that helped people plan. While the one-week of 12 hours/day twenty-six times a year was grueling, the seven days of no work twenty-six times a year (more or less) was also nice. Plus, since the jobs were basically the same, the operators could "trade off" if some special event came up that they wanted to attend. Holidays? You just got double time....and since you could trade off easily, and since Aetna was an equal opportunity employer from day one, it was easy to find someone who would work for you if you wanted the time off. Thanks for the memories. md -- Jon "maddog" Hall Executive Director Linux International(R) email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association Board Member Emeritus: USENIX Association (2000-2006) (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. (R)Linux International is a registered trademark in the USA used pursuant to a license from Linux Mark Institute, authorized licensor of Linus Torvalds, owner of the Linux trademark on a worldwide basis (R)UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the USA and other countries. _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/