My opinion on this is that eventually it won't matter.
I think that the further along we get into globalization
through the use of the Net, the less dependant we'll become
on the Sun to determine the times to get up and go to bed.
I beleive that in a number of years, many services will
remain open 24 hours a day. Already we have convenience
stores and large scale grocery stores (At least the one
near my home) that are open 24/7. We have the credit
card customer support lines that have people taking calls
all night long. I agree with the previous post saying
that some degree of cohesion is good and it'll probably remain, but in a mutated form. There'll be those who work in the day,
those who work in the evening, and those who work late at
night. Folks will probably come in on the hours or half
hours, because of the tendency for people to like
round numbers.
Aside from that they might just come in whenever, knowing
that no matter what time they arrive, the client will be
there as well. (A rather harrowing prospect)
This will of course have profound changes on the rest of
the work "day". In a best case scenario, rush hour will
even out and distribute itself across the day, providing a
constant low key amount of traffic. Worst case scenario
is that rush hour will be permanently bad. We'd also need
a drastic shift in the economy, since we're doing good
with employing the population in one eight hour shift
with only minimum staffing of the other two. At the rate we're going populationwise, we'll have the requisite number of bodies by that time.
Nonetheless I think this'll happen in the next
50 years.
Anyone else agree?
~W
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(kudra: there are also movements away from 24/7 culture) RE: RE: What time do you think geeks should have to get to work?
by kudra (Vicar) on Sep 11, 2000 at 09:51 UTC
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I think that you're looking a lot at how the US is and
not so much how other countries are. Take the Netherlands
for example. It's only in the last couple of years that
I've seen grocery stores open until 9 in the evening,
instead of closing at 5 with the exception of Thursday
or Friday (late shopping night). They're still all closed
on Sundays. There are 'nightshops', but these are small
and sell only a few essencials, and they are really only
found in cities like Amsterdam. Credit card support at
all hours? Hah! Credit cards work through bank accounts,
so you get the same hours as for banks (something like
9-4, except on Mondays, when, like most shops, they don't
open until the afternoon). Public transport stops for
a few hours--for about 5 hours in the city I live in.
Try getting a pizza at 4 in the morning.
Now it's probably clear why I said in my
other post that I need flexible hours
just to get anything done for myself.
Will this change? It's already changed a little bit,
and it will probably change a bit more, but it will take
a while before there is acceptance for even the amount
of night jobs in the US, in my opinion. I believe that
working at night is considered unpleasant and therefore
people who work at night get extra pay (Jouke or ar0n
would be better at verifying or refuting this). It just
costs more to have people work at night (you need more
lighting as well).
But the main reason shops aren't
open at night is that it isn't seen as fair and isn't
allowed without a special permit. It's thought that if
large supermarket chains can be open all night, smaller
grocery stores wouldn't be able to compete (which is
probably true). It's also thought that if smaller shops
were forced to close it would be a loss to the community.
This viewpoint can also be seen in the US: for example,
many communities have objected to the establishment of
Barnes & Noble bookstores on the grounds that the
company deliberately pushes local bookstores out, thus
robbing the community of the culture surrounding these
bookstores.
The future could hold a 24-hour monoculture. But it might
not. | [reply] |
