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The unfair thing about retail and service industry establishments not being closed on sundays while white collar office jobs are, is that schools are only open during the week, thus retail and service industry workers don't get tax-payer funded child-care on those days, kids of blue collar workers don't get to hang with their parents on the weekend furthening inequality inherent in our society. Obviously noone is per se forced to work on the weekend but in practice at every retail and service industry job I have worked at throughout my life there was immense pressure to work at least one weekend day i.e you won't even get these jobs if you aren't willing to work on weekends.
In the US, Chick-fil-A is a fast food chain that closes 100% of their locations on Sundays. And I think that's wonderful for exactly the reasons you're describing.
Adorama and B&H, photography stores in NYC owned (IIRC) by Hasidic Jews, are closed on Saturdays. IIRC, they don't even take online orders.
There's a lot of reasons I don't like Chick-fil-A, but I did work for them briefly precisely because they are closed on Sundays, which is so rare. I was freelancing at the time and had hit a bad dry spell with no work coming in, so I sent out some applications for whatever jobs were around, food and retail stuff. None of them would budge on not working on Sundays because the weekends are their busiest hours, and I wouldn't agree to work on Sundays for religious reasons.
Chick-fil-a was the single worst job I've ever had, but at least I didn't work on Sundays.
With increasing rents on retail space, how sustainable is that policy? Could the difference between customer flow 7 days a week and 6 days a week make or break a location?
Chic-fil-A is controversial because of it's political contributions and stated political preferences, but as far as I'm aware it has some of the better working conditions out there.
It's estimated that Chick-fil-A loses billions of dollars every year because of this.
I've noticed that a ton of locally-owned restaurants in my area are open on Saturday-Sunday and closed on Mondays. Owners (who often work insane hours, living at the restaurant from open to close) prefer to be open on high-value weekend days and take a less profitable weekday off.
Right, it's clear why owners would want this and how they benefit. They were talking about its effects on workers however.
Monday restaurant closings used to be a lot more common at least in some big cities. (Probably aligned with a lot of theatres being dark that night as well.)
This seemed to get a ton worse in the ‘00s. A lot more stuff used to be closed on Sundays, have no holiday hours, and close earlier.
I'm sure the change happened at different times in different places. But in the the late 70s, even in a big city like Boston/Cambridge, almost nothing was open on Sunday. If you played sports or had other activities on a Saturday, you basically had to find a way to carve half a day out of classes etc. to run errands.
And to one of the parent's points, when the debate about Sunday store closing laws came up in Louisiana in the 80s, one of the arguments against making changes was that mom and pop stores, largely staffed by the owners, couldn't realistically open for seven days while, for the big chains, it was just a dollars and cents calculation.
implicit assumption that having things closed one day a week is bad.
It is perhaps less convenient, but that doesn't make it bad. Lived in an EU country until recently, where everything is closed on Sunday. It makes that day much more restful, and it doesn't take long to learn to get your shopping done on Saturday.
Also, it is still illegal to use power tools outside on Sunday. Which means you aren't disturbed by your neighbor's leaf blower.
Honestly, I prefer 1 day a week of true rest over more convenience but never a true rest.
A commandment that one shall not view one's work e-mail, nor one's Teams, nor one's Slack or anything else work-related for one day in each seven would do a remarkable amount for mental health in the modern world. It would also send a signal to employers that there's a part of their employees' souls they do not own.
(Yes, emergency services and all that. Modern Israel has already thought of that one.)
Am I weird in that I don't touch my work computer outside of my Monday-Friday work hours, and have never felt pressure to do so?
I’m the same, but in most workplaces I’d been the odd one out. Many colleagues would check Slack even on holiday, so I had to be really explicit that when I’m not working, I am _really_ not working.
Edited to say that this attitude never got me in trouble. Given the conversation on mental health, work-life balance etc this clear boundary seems to be well respected. I’m in the UK.
To quote from the fine article
in Deuteronomy, it is written: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you.”
I.e. you are already not supposed to do any form of work on Shabbat just based on the existing commandments. Naturally that includes work via email or IM.
> (Yes, emergency services and all that. Modern Israel has already thought of that one.)
Modern Israel doesn't have anything close to a commandment that one shall not view one's work email on the Sabbath :)
More seriously, while a large percentage of Israel are religious Jews, a large part of it are secular Jews who don't keep the Sabbath, and a large part are Muslims.
There are some things that are closed on Saturday, and there are laws about things having to be closed, but in lots of cities many things are still open.
It is still true to say that a lot of stuff is closed on Saturday (most stores are closed), and this is a big problem, since for many people, Saturday is their only day off, and they can't do any shopping on that day. If you need to e.g. go with your kids to buy new shoes, you can't do it on your one day off, so it's a pain. (Fridays things are open, but close early, and most kids have school on Friday.)
So all of this is a mixed bag, honestly.
> A commandment that one shall not view one's work e-mail, nor one's Teams, nor one's Slack ...
Religion could be useful if it could simply ban shitty software like those examples.
For some people yes. For others, like me, being able to see that there is no disaters waiting can be nice. I have no issue leaving work til monday, but its nice to know I don't have to start monday with a looming disaster.
I love Sabbath rest and want others to enjoy it too. One very small thing we do is designate Sunday as a "no-delivery" day for our house, which you can configure here for your address: https://www.amazon.com/a/addresses?ref=ya_address_book_edit_...
That link just took me to my addresses page. To change delivery dates, I had to edit my home address, click the dropdown labled "Add preferences, notes, access codes and more", then open the accordian header for "Can we deliver to this address on weekends?", which reviews yes/no buttons for both Saturday and Sunday delivery.
My spouse and I do an internet / technology sabbath on Saturdays. No social media, no streaming services or video games. Mostly listen to the couple of records we have, read books, and do other analog things. I started after reading How to do Nothing, and thinking a lot about unplugging from the attention economy.
I find that it does a really good job of resetting / breaking the dopamine cycles. Going a day without being online every so often results in me at least being less tied to the Internet for well being the rest of the week.
That is an interesting view, that the cycle can be broken in 1 day. I guess looking back, if I go an entire day without using the internet, it is very easy to avoid distractions the next day. I'm going to try this our, albeit in a less rabbinical way.
When I bought a new kitchen range half a dozen years ago, I was surprised to find that several pages of the owner's manual were dedicated to something called "Sabbath mode". I guess it is a way to allow for cooking without violating Sabbath rules.
Then there's this practice I only recently heard about, "The Wire That Transforms Much of Manhattan Into One Big, Symbolic Home"[0]
[0]https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisib...
It's for keeping food warm. Observant Jews don't cook on Shabbat. All the food is prepared on Friday before Shabbat starts.
Elevators in some Miami Beach hotels have a Shabbat mode where they simply stop on every floor, open the doors, wait a minute, then close the doors. It's to allow observant Jews to use them without operating a switch.
We Jews are a funny bunch, finding ways to work around our 613 commandments without breaking them. You're generally not allowed to tear things on Shabbat, so observant Jews will pre-tear toilet paper and set aside a bunch of squares for the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_mode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/484233/jewish...
There are Eruvim all over the world, almost wherever there is a concentration of Orthodox Jews:
An excerpt from one Jewish view of the Sabbath:
The rubric under which all the actions prohibited on the Sabbath fall is referred to as melakhah. It is an expansive term, first used in the Hebrew Bible to describe the full range of activities which God engaged in to create the world. The only term which really approximates its scope is Jacques Ellul’s la technique, defined as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.” The heuristic which the rabbis of the Talmud used to determine melakhah is simple: if the action was performed in the course of the building of the Tabernacle, which after all functioned both as a mikrokosmos in the technical sense and as a microcosm of human society, it was forbidden on the Sabbath.
Jacques Ellul, a very underrated philosopher, especially concerning technology.
If a company has global support centers - for example in several time zones - one can even have 24/7 support while allowing everybody to rest on a specific day (be it Saturday/Sunday/Friday) or even mixed - according to employee personal belief or preference...
Beliefs and their specific holidays are an interesting facette of a diverse workplace that I feel is often overlooked in hiring for oncall and 24/7 jobs.
No need to have to shutdown the business or for employees to skip every second Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan, Friday prayer, Sabbath etc if you have colleagues from other religions cover for you.
While the seven day time period ("week") has been around for a long time in 'the West', it didn't really take hold as a form of scheduling until the early-1800s in the US:
> With meticulous archival research that draws on a wide array of sources—including newspapers, restaurant menus, theater schedules, marriage records, school curricula, folklore, housekeeping guides, courtroom testimony, and diaries—David Henkin reveals how our current devotion to weekly rhythms emerged in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Reconstructing how weekly patterns insinuated themselves into the social practices and mental habits of Americans, Henkin argues that the week is more than just a regimen of rest days or breaks from work, but a dominant organizational principle of modern society. Ultimately, the seven-day week shapes our understanding and experience of time.
* https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271157/the-week/
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57615569-the-week
Yes, Christianity has been around for two thousand years, and the Lord's Day was celebrated, but in the pre-Reformation days there were many feast days for saints, both on a national and international scale, but also more local/regional celebrations, so folks had Holy Days (holidays) sprinkled between Sundays as well. People would often tell time not in day-of-week or day-month, but with regards to (liturgical) seasons and feast days, e.g.:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Crispin%27s_Day
Also, pre-Industrial Revolution, most work was fairly agricultural, which was much more 'continuous' in that you couldn't really 'shut down' a farm: livestock and such had to be taken care of.
It was the combination of a more Protestant and industrial US that allowed for there to be mostly one 'special' day and the ability to not have to 'go to work' (in a factory) that really solidified the week as a time period.
In the rural Europe, attendance at church on Sundays was more or less socially or even legally obligatory even among the agrarian majority, but distances from farms to parish churches were sometimes so vast that the journey to church and back could take all day (in the Nordic countries it could even take two). Therefore, the idea of Sunday as a “rest day” might not have been so well-entrenched, but it was already a “no work” day for many farmers.
My grandfather was a strict Methodist and wouldn’t do any housework or projects on Sundays after church, for what I’m sure was at least 50 years. Typically he would visit with people or study his bible or do other reading. He would go as far as not supporting other people working, such as going to stores or buying gas. I don’t recall whether he watched TV or not on Sundays; I seem to recall a few baseball games on.
My wife's entire family are retail workers (mostly Walmart). Walmart has been very good to them, employing them despite almost zero knowledge of English. But Walmart's hours are brutal.
Nominally muslims, they would love to have a day - any day - guaranteed to be free for all of them to get together.
My preferred way to read the first of the 10 words is as anti-religion.
The minority tribe in many places wanted relief from the majority religion (then coupled with slavery/work and promoted through great works like idols and pyramids).
So they essentially said:
1. Any limited or concrete representation is not authoritative
2. Any priesthood is invalid (as taking the name of the lord in vain)
3. We get a day off
Most interesting for this discussion was that (3) was expressly extended to wives, slaves/workers, et al. (though without speaking directly to them as agents).
The liberation theology of the 1970's-80's and Islamic radicalism both created a protected space for anti-oppression, but for the most part religion and government have renewed their mutual protection racket in every corner of the world, dropping antagonistic aspects in favor of courting each other. It's unlikely either would operate as a real limitation on the other -- ironically because we are in an era when legitimacy is so contended.
Unsurprisingly, Less Wrong has covered this one too: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/p7hW7E3fHF3PDzErk/sabbath-ha...
If we weren't stuck with closed-source, corporate-owned messaging apps we could arrange it to have a rest from any work-related communications during the weekend.
PS - The IWW has long advocated for reducing work hours during workdays rather than just having the Sabbath/weekend to rest from it; see:
Anybody who likes the idea of a sabbath should experiment with a digital one. Lock the screens in a box and look around the room, or get outside. I did it accidentally by leaving my phone in a locked room overnight and it was really liberating to get off the junk dopamine train and stop reaching for my pocket.
What Im always confused about is why Christians of most/all stripes seem to gravitate back to the Torah's "10 commandments" (which there are 20 of them).... And not go towards the Beatitudes.
* 2 different sets of 10 commandments: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2896/jewish/W...
* Beatitudes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes
I was somewhat curious about what that first article had to say, but found it impossible not to be distracted by the constant G-d and L-rd. Presumably this is a workaround to deal with somewhere being told not to use the name of God or something.
This sort of hack around commandments and other holy decrees seems incredibly odd to me. Either you think it matters and obide by the spirit of it, or you don’t, in which case crack on and just say “God”, if there is an omnipotent being who cares deeply about this I doubt they’re going to be fooled by you running a quick regex on anything you publish.
I feel similarly about the various hacks used around the Jewish sabbath, as mentioned elsewhere in these comments. Great wires around entire cities are not going to make God think “ahh, got me there lads, you’ve turned Manhattan into one big living room”. And if you believe in the sanctity of the sabbath then it feels off to me to work around that by hiring a bunch of people who aren’t Jewish to work then instead.
The second set of commandments is like watching a movie (the first ten commandments) with director's commentary. It's a lot of insight and clarification but fundamentally the same thing
> And not go towards the Beatitudes
The 10 commandments and the Beatitudes are fundamentally different and serve different purposes. The 10C gives very specific things that you should and should not do - very concrete and prescriptive. The Beatitudes are very poetic and descriptive, not prescriptive.
The Torah's 10 commandments are equally relevant. After the beatitudes, Jesus says:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” (Mat 5:17, KJV)
He says that before giving more commands in the sermon on the mount (the next two chapters of Matthew), much of which extend the old law/10 commandments.
The beatitudes are much more difficult, with some of them unlikely to be prescriptive (blessed are those who are persecuted), some of them being unclear (blessed be the meek) and others that are difficult to translate to actions (blessed be the pure of heart). In contrast, the simple rules of the ten commandments, most of which just tell you not to do a basic thing you probably weren't doing anyway (thou shalt not steal) are much easier to follow and much easier to confirm you are doing well in. People resonate more with simple yardsticks like the ten commandments than with the vaguer "be a good person and it's ok if things are bad for you now" beatitudes.
People find it easier to follow rules rather than principles.
The 10 commandments tell you what to do/not to do. The Beatitudes offer values and require interpretation to put into practice. They also are more ambiguous in their punishment/reward on the physical/spiritual level.
Compare:
"You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal."
vs
"3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." ... "25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry."
I grew up in a heavily Jewish area and most Jewish owned businesses that didn't absolutely require the owner present just had non-Jews working on Friday evening and Saturday.
Similarly I've swapped on-call shifts with non-Christians so as to accommodate religious holidays.
The only command in the ten commandments that explicitly says "Remember", guess what? The pagans removed it and replaced it with their own. They even tried but will fail, to change the order of days from Saturday to Sun-day.
In Germany most businesses are closed Sunday.