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Comment by megablast | Hacker News Reader

> What exactly is the reason these shipping companies seem to go into a kind of hibernation over the weekend? Surely there are people out there who would be willing to work weekends (if the pay was right)? How much more would it cost them?

This disturbs me, just like forcing shops to open on the weekend. People need a break, and should have a break, just because you can't wait an extra day?

Sure, they have a choice to work, just as shop workers have a choice to work, they can always get a job somewhere else.

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People need a break. People should get a break. They should also hire extra weekend help. Spreading the load out by hiring part-time but weekend-bonused workers would benefit society as a whole. It's not just going to be overtime, it's going to be more interesting and flexible work hours - And society will benefit.

Spreading the load when generalized also spreads the shops income, and will make paying sunday bonuses unsustainable for companies. Sunday work appears great only if a portion of competitors open, it doesnt create income out of nowhere but draws it from closed competitors.

> Sunday work appears great only if a portion of competitors open, it doesnt create income out of nowhere but draws it from closed competitors.

So by the same argument--but in reverse, only opening shops one day a week or even month would not destroy wealth generation, but would just reshuffle income?

What? No one said anything about taking away breaks. People work Saturday and Sunday and take their breaks during the week.

The problem I see is that your kids are in school the week... And you should have at least one day with your kids (society benefits a lot of this, and it makes day care cheaper) . Maybe have either Saturday or Sunday of mandated free time, and then Amazon could hire people either Sunday or Saturday...

Maybe that's why I live in France :-).

Perhaps people with kids are best off if they look for jobs where they can spend the weekend with their kids. But not everyone has kids - some people are busy during the week with, say, university, and might welcome the chance to make a bit of money on the weekend.

Fortunately, here in Italy, Mario Monti got rid of some of the rules about working on Sunday.

But it took France until 2008 to stop sending kids to school on Saturday mornings while the parents were home, so obviously you coped without a complete overlap of leisure time among the family for a while :)

It is impossible to mandate that nobody work on any of the 7 days, because hospitals. So we already admit that some people will be working when most people are not - the question is whether we tell them to suck it up, society is going to ignore them forever, or whether we can re-arrange society so that the family of the ER doctor can also work Sunday and take Wednesday off to be together.

I think there are benefits to us all having breaks at the same time, so we can see friend and family. I think we can survive without everything being available every day of the week.

That ship has sailed...

Public service announcement: that line of reasoning makes you a social authoritarian. You want to tell people when they can and can't go to work because you know what's best for their social life.

It disturbs me that you seem to think that Saturday and Sunday are the only two days a week that someone can not work.

You might want to move to France or Germany.

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