The long awaited overdue 18 hour load shedding will greet us
sooner than we can digest all the grease from mutton hogging this Dasain. For a
change we might just have to bear with only 14 hours of load shedding per day
if the country adopts five days work week. The present government wants to try
a five days’ work week to reduce energy consumption and thus reduce load
shedding. Strange but the load shedding and our country’s inability to harness
energy might just be a blessing in disguise. What is the hum about trying a
five days’ work week?
There are 196 countries in our world and almost all of these
countries implement five days work week. The governments that took reins after
Gyanendra have changed everything from our national anthem to our currency. The
popular move for these movers and shakers would instead be to cut the six
working days to five. If the Maoists,
the Congress and the MLAs thought working six days a week produced more results
I am afraid this could be one of the reason why our CA was dissolved in the
first place and has never revived. The sad part is more than half the
government employees do not adhere to 9 to 5 work hours and are often seen
tending to their own businesses. Some are on special leave to work for the UN
while others are washing dishes in the US (and are still a government
employee). Where in do we seek efficiency and productivity?
One day weekend have hit the working women employed in
private organizations the hardest. I have come to realize the worth of a ‘Sunday
is a holiday’ only after I left my INGO job to work in a private company. The
one day weekend i.e. the Saturdays are spent mostly on attending to my
daughter’s typical Saturday routine. I am incapable of attending to any task as
all the banks, financial institutions, and luxury stores are closed on
Saturdays. I am left with a list of tasks which I have to complete during the
week and for which I trade my prized paid holidays bestowed upon me by my
employer. There is so much to do, attend my daughter’s singing show at school,
take her to the dentists on odd days, and visit stores and banks which drastically
shrink my number of personal accumulated paid holidays. It’s frustrating at the
personal level because I am constantly trying to juggle my tasks even if that
means sacrificing my paid leaves and at the professional level because I have
filled too many leave forms and this might hamper my appraisal when due.
So what is a working woman supposed to do in Nepal? Where is
our right to spend quality time with our loved ones and where is our right to
take paid vacations? Shouldn’t the revival of the five days work week be more
practically fought for rather than shutting offices to reduce the consumption
of energy?
Working six days a week is a burden for many. The fact is
majority of us spend more time with our office colleagues than our families.
One of my colleagues Salina says, “Working six days a week with one day off is
not enough. My Saturdays are spent resting at home as after a long week I don’t
feel like doing anything and I am back to work on Sunday. I miss out on almost
all the social gatherings and I miss out on a lot of catch ups and family bonding.
It would be really nice to have two days weekend.
I am sure many of you have similar thoughts resounding
Salinas. The funny thing is most successful men and women often stress on the
importance of spending quality time with family and that work should be a
priority only after family. So why is our government bent on souring our family
relations? Ours is a country that relies more on family than the state so why
isn’t our government thinking about our social welfare. Why should a two day
weekend become such a big deal after all?
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