“Leisure Sundays” stress me out

March 10, 2011 - 4:28 PM by

"You shall have your day of rest!" - Silvan Shalom commands

David wrote over the weekend about Vice Premier Silvan Shalom’s renewed campaign to turn Sunday into an official day off in Israel, as with other parts of the world. The Anglo community has embraced the idea; David was more reserved. As for me, I’m dead set against it.

How could anyone be against Sundays, you might ask? Isn’t that one of the biggest complaint immigrants from Western countries have? Especially for the religious, Friday is dedicated primarily to preparing for Shabbat; it’s certainly not a day for hiking, shopping and barbecuing.

Have these same immigrants forgotten their own miserable experiences in the old country? I haven’t. Back when I was more religious, Fridays were a nightmare, mostly because you had to explain to your employer why you had to leave early in the winters and how you’d make it up on weekends (oops, there goes Sunday).

Even if your boss was flexible, your co-workers might not be so supportive. I remember one Friday when I was working towards a looming software deadline, I told my lead programmer I was leaving while he would have to toil into the wee hours. He had a few choice words for me that probably spurred my aliyah.

Then there was getting home minutes before Shabbat (if I didn’t get stuck in the inevitable Friday afternoon traffic) and having no down time before showering, changing into Shabbat clothes and rushing off to shul.

Having Fridays off in Israel is, by contrast, one of the aspects to Israeli life that I most appreciated.

Now, MK Shalom assures us that implementing “leisure Sundays” would be different in Israel. We’d only work a half-day on Fridays. And we’d add extra hours to the rest of the week.

Sure, Silvan. And have you ever worked in a hi-tech company where the hours of that so-called “rest of the week” already stretched well into the evening? The pressure to work late on Fridays could be just as forbidding as my experience back in the States.

Here’s one more downer to rain on the weekend parade. I remember years ago, when I was CEO of a startup, discussing what it took to “make it” in the Internet age. “We work 24/7,” boasted one of my colleagues. When I told him in Israel we only work 24/6, he thought I was nuts. How could we possibly compete? So now we’re going to be 24/5.5?

So, sorry guys, I’m voting against this proposal. Not that it matters. The proposal has come up several times in the past decade and never made it out of committee (if it even got that far). My beloved one-day weekend is safe for now.

Tags: • Category: Israeliness, Politics 

Comments

2 Comments on “Leisure Sundays” stress me out

  1. Moshe Sharon on Fri, Mar 11th 2011 5:12 AM

    2. The word “Stress” actually relates to wear and tear as when the rubber meets the road on a tire or the brake pads pressing up against the rotor in the wheel. The term as it applies to living organisms was first introduced by Hans Seyle in the 1930’s who defined it as the consequence of the failure of an organism (human or animal) to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats, whether actual or imagined. Thus stress symptoms are the manifestation of a chronic state of responses to stress triggers that are actually benign. Even a thought can set off the same response mechanism that would be in play while standing in front of a hungry lion. Hence, Seyle’s definition still reaches to the heart of stress management; the idea of the response being inappropriate and engaging in a process of altering ones misperception of pending disaster or imminent danger.

  2. Abigail on Wed, Mar 16th 2011 6:27 PM

    3. Much as I miss Sundays, I have to agree with you, Brian.
    Maybe a better answer is building more national holidays (not Jewish ones) into the work calendar so that there would be more family and leisure time.

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