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The Economist - Why is everyone so busy?
The predictions sounded like promises: in the future, working hours would be short and vacations long. “Our grandchildren”, reckoned John Maynard Keynes in 1930, would work around “three hours a day”—and probably only by choice. Economic progress and technological advances had already shrunk working hours considerably by his day, and there was no reason to believe this trend would not continue. Whizzy cars and ever more time-saving tools and appliances guaranteed more speed and less drudgery in all parts of life. Social psychologists began to fret: whatever would people do with all their free time?
This has not turned out to be one of the world’s more pressing problems. Everybody, everywhere seems to be busy. In the corporate world, a “perennial time-scarcity problem” afflicts executives all over the globe, and the matter has only grown more acute in recent years, say analysts at McKinsey, a consultancy firm. These feelings are especially profound among working parents. As for all those time-saving gizmos, many people grumble that these bits of wizardry chew up far too much of their days, whether they are mouldering in traffic, navigating robotic voice-messaging systems or scything away at e-mail—sometimes all at once.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 26 2014, @03:14AM
There are 85 million in school, which leave 48 million to do the work.
Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government. This leaves 19 million to do the work.
Four million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 15 million to do the work.
Take from the total the 14,800,000 people who work for State and City Government and that leaves 200,000 to do the work.
There are 188,000 in hospitals, so that leaves 12,000 to do the work.
Now, there are 11,998 people in Prisons. That leaves just two people to do the work.
You and me.
And you're sitting there reading this.
(Score: 0) by emg on Friday December 26 2014, @05:54AM
Bingo.
We're busy paying the taxes that pay for all the free stuff that people have voted themselves since WWII.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cellocgw on Friday December 26 2014, @07:01PM
And this is why we need a Mod called "-5 intolerably stupid and counter-reality"
Physicist, cellist, former OTTer (1190) resume: https://app.box.com/witthoftresume
(Score: 5, Funny) by NoMaster on Friday December 26 2014, @01:50PM
One of you should take the time to update this joke - it clearly hasn't been touched in over 30 years!
(I'd do it myself, but you'd just complain about your jobs being outsourced overseas...)
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...