Happy & Healthy
WORKING 9 TO 5
As Dolly would say: working 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’. She sang this with slightly different intentions than I mean it, but a small detail. By the way, at Amayzine's editorial office, it's roughly from half past nine to six, so no rust in such a routine. And then I won't whisper anything to you about the nicest evenings, lovely breakfasts, or blazing weekends.
No nine-to-five scenes and we thrive on that. Situation sketch: it's Sunday afternoon, the Christmas tree and candles AND Skyradio are ON, just a little wine (two, actually) with lunch and now I'm happily typing away. And what does the emancipation monitor 2016 reveal? That many more women want that, those flexible hours.
Logical, right? I start for convenience at the moment your alarm goes off. If you don't have kids for whom you need to provide hand-and-foot services, then you must be an intensely bad morning person (or you exercise, just like our Simoo). The world becomes more enjoyable if you have that extra hour on the clock. I already struggle with dressing myself and feeding in the mornings, so hats off to the supermoms and athletes among us. After that, you get in the car, together with all of the Netherlands. Or you zigzag through the city on your bike. Oooof you’re standing on the train, because sitting in that vehicle is almost pre-war, we can't remember. Look, that cramped situation on the railway or highway is such a waste of your precious time. In those minutes, you rattle off all your emails at the kitchen table at home. The mean-mail-machine and the traffic monster are solved in one fell swoop. It's that easy, says Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen-Maas Geesteranus (man, something with double last names). You have to sit at the table with the directors, that brings you joy.
“When the end of the workday is in sight, the routine just starts again.”
When the end of the workday is in sight, the routine just starts again. Friend X had an extra babysitter who picked up the little man from daycare. For a quarter of an hour (yes, you read that right, fifteen whole minutes). And that quarter of an hour of work she did with love later in the evening when the young man was tucked in, but that didn't happen. I find that strange. Yes, I express myself softly. It could have been so nice, but it turned into an overheated young mom who ran around like crazy from daycare, to work, via the babysitter and back home.
Why, oh why does a clever boss still make you show up from (half) 9 to 5? The emancipation monitor even says that women want to work more if they can set their own hours. Is it just me or are these beautiful things on a silver platter? A well-rested woman counts for a hundred thousand and she works even more too. Saves a ton of part-time work. But that same monitor also says that emancipation is going painfully slow, so I foresee career tigers swinging laptops on the Dam to please be allowed to work more flexibly. Strange, actually.
