Fewer hours, same pay? I’ll take it!
10 ways I’ll spend the extra me time
Jeffrey Denny
I don’t want to work. I just want to bang on the drum all day.
Like in the old Todd Rundgren song played by the Green Bay Packers to celebrate the rare case when they score.
Even if I have no drum to bang, I just wanna work for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
HELP panel Chairman Bernie Sanders wants to make a 32-hour workweek with the same pay the law of the land. So this amazing deal must apply to his committee and personal staff. Some who make well over $100,000 and many above the $75,000 median U.S. household income.
And I’ll bet the staff — including the low and barely paid — would love to work even 40 hours a week.
From my time in a Congressional office, working less than 60 hours a week is quiet quitting on Capitol Hill. The Gen Z/Millennial boundary-setting — only working 9–5 and never on weekends — evokes streams of cry-laughing emojis. Same with most of my career. But then, I’ve been lucky to have demanding yet rewarding work I love, like college grads once were told to seek.
Yes, the Sanders work less/same pay proposal is for people who, for too long, have worked more for less pay and never had my privileges.
It might also appeal to Brooklyn-Berkeley Bernie Bros who bite the capitalist hand that fed many of them. Or even young corporate quiet quitters who dream of escaping the capitalist burnout rat race for work-life balance and become capitalist entrepreneurs, influencers and their own bad bosses. Which of course requires more than 60 hours a week.
My biggest concern is, what would I do with my eight extra Sanders Hours per week?
I have a wish list locked and loaded:
1. Connect with my inner self.
Watch the sun slowly rise or set. Stroll the woods or walk the beach. Spend more quality time with family and friends even if they say no thanks. Roll trousers and eat a peach while reading T.S. Eliot. Zen-savor every moment of extra me time watching people do these things on my phone.
2. Fight for justice.
Spend more time on TikTok watching influencers slam U.S. dictators who are trying to ban free expression guaranteed by Chinese dictators. Who cares about the spying? All governments do it. Heck, Siri just asked me if I want to fight for TikTok freedom. I just wuv widdle kitties.
3. Spend more time on personal care.
For instance, on hair, makeup, David Rose eye cream to combat fine lines and dark circles, proper lighting and background for Zoom meetings. While demanding remote work because I could never pull off my Zoom look in person and don’t love the unspoken lookist shaming violence when colleagues don’t recognize me in person.
4. LaughSurf LinkedIn.
Enjoy the wealth of invaluable job, career, and workplace tips. Especially from super high-performing professionals who manage to carve out time from their busy successful careers and perfect work-life balance to post advice every day, demonstrating how to be impressive and full of merde at the same time.
5. Do more at home.
Like cooking, cleaning, chores and spending quality time with family, pets and condescending Home Depot clerks for endless renovation projects.
This will convince my mate that I bring value to the relationship as she’s on the fence about running off with our sexy septuagenarian Pickleball instructor.
6. Learn YouTube life hacks.
Like how to beat the Pickleball instructor with my new $330 Selkirk Labs Project 003 paddle with a larger sweet spot, more power, and an impressive 20mm thick paddle — the thickest in the market — plus Spin+ technology, Air Dynamic Throat and FlexFoam Perimeter.
By “beat” the Pickleball instructor, I mean hospitalize.
7. Visit all Seven Wonders of the World.
Post-divorce and assault incarceration, my dating profile will lead with how I love to travel. Especially sleeping at JFK for 32 hours and eventually arriving at a remote unpaved air strip on the Condé Nast Traveler list of “World’s Best-Kept Secret Airports for Drugs, Arms and Human Smuggling.”
Then upon arrival, packing into rickety, belching old buses with chatty tourists redolent of ripe Wisconsin cheddar to get to Lindbergh-era prop planes and then barely seagoing migrant vessels to luxury resort compounds surrounded by wretched poverty, with free weak drinks and nothing-you-can-eat buffet.
I got the travel bug from the brilliant 1987 documentary Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I also pick up a lot of travel dysentery bugs along the way.
8. Read more.
Starting with the stack of books on my nightstand, which is a stack of books.
I’ll then read all my unread books on my impressive bookshelf you see behind me on my Zoom calls, which were curated by actual readers to make me look smart and balance the impression I make when I speak.
I’ll reluctantly get to The Art of the Deal because it seems to work as Trump gets out of one big hairy jam after another, and I could use that.
9. Fight the Sunday Night Saddies.
I’ll be so bored I can’t wait for Manic Monday.
10. Write more of this dreck.
Former and Best President Ever Barack Obama just wrote on Medium about the 10-year anniversary of Obamacare and how it brought affordable healthcare to millions of Americans.
Of course, today’s progressives think Obama wasn’t Bernie Socialist enough.
Forget that — a 32-hour workweek will give me more time to write even more Medium pieces that nobody in their right mind reads. Even if they have the time.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
