Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Weekends!! Why Saturday and Sunday only??


I have been idling at my home for quite some time and my not so good health is not permitting me to venture out frequently. An empty mind is a devil’s workshop and probably few would realize it better than me. With absolutely nothing to do, some weird thoughts are bound to cross my mind and one such thought that tickled my feather of thought was why weekends mean only Saturday and Sunday? Why can’t other days of the week be made into regular week offs? 

The source of this weirdo is the recent initiative of the Tamil Nadu courts to run family courts on Saturdays and Sundays so as to help working professionals to fight family court cases. One of the reasons for this initiative was the spurt in the number of family disputes (read matrimonial disputes and divorce pleas). While this shows that matches are not made in heaven, but the point of interest for me was the working on so called weekends.

I sincerely feel that this initiative should be extended to other offices too. Rather than having Saturday and Sunday as weekly holidays, we can make a particular day in week holiday for a particular department. Pondering over this I came across some ideas:

Welcoming the Tamil Nadu initiative, it would be better if the same is implemented across the entire judicial set up(Supreme Court, high courts, etc.) across the country. The courts can have weekend on Monday and Tuesday, enabling working people to avail judicial services on Saturday and Sundays.

Considering that state governments and union governments rarely agree on anything, it would better if union government sets aside different days as weekly offs. Starting with the financial institutions (read banks, stock exchanges) can enjoy their weekend on Wednesday while other central government offices can be closed on Thursdays and Fridays.

Idea of having any day of the week as holiday has many fold advantages. The working professionals will not have to take unwanted leaves from their works for just trifle works, resulting in increased productivity. Another aspect is even distribution of traffic ensuring that on Mondays roads are not overly crowded while on Sundays roads lie bare. 

No doubt that such a system would feel chaotic initially and may face stiff social acceptance challenges but over the time it might just prove to be vastly productive.

I don’t know whether this is a great idea or another absurd thought of an empty mind, but I wish to see it being implemented at least on trial basis.      

5 comments:

Smart Primate said...

Yeah... We should just replace the weekdays with weekends and weekends with weekdays... That would go down well with most of us...

On a serious note, it may be implemented in certain departments and situations but i doubt they would be suitable in all but a miniscule number of places. Imagine going to a government office for some work on a Wednesday and realizing that the place is closed on Wed. (In any case, getting some work done in this bureaucratic chaos is frustrating enough)
Now, at least you know that most places are to be avoided on weekends and they are days just to sit back and relax... (the relax part is important here)

P.S. Kuch kaam ki cheez kar le

Anonymous said...

An absurd thought of course!!

??? said...

i have got the perfect solution....

listen to this....

all companies and everything that involves more than seven people should remain in operation 7 days a week.... with each person having an off on a different day... thus production and productivity will increase...and waiting time shall decrease...
what say u?????

Wierdo said...

@SP: As i said it will be difficult to accept this change initially but over the time it becomes a norm. You dont go shopping to hirapur on thursdays or bank more on sundays because you know that markets are close on these days.

P.S. suggest me koi kaam ki cheez

@ Anonymous: yeah i do recon this appears absurd but unfortunately such absurd thoughts have been driving the innovations, else we would never have had airplanes nor cellphones :)

Wierdo said...

@???: Your idea put into practice recently by some PSU banks, but it failed to take off. There were some inherent pronblems:
1. Any office is run not only by officers sitting in cabins, but by 'invisibles' namely peons, sweepers etc. No company will be hiring extra such personels because it will be not financially productive.
2. Another issue was shortage of staff, specially staff at clerical posts.
3. Its difficult to change the mindest of employes and lack of corodination and professional rivalry.