Ambition, Privilege, and the 40-Hour Work Week (Dallas, TX)

In his book, The Jungle, Sinclair Lewis made public the shameless horrors one human will inflict upon another in the name of commerce. Child labor, zero time off, ridiculously low wages and horrible abuses of what we now commonly refer to as “human rights”. Since the publication of that novel, our work life has rapidly shifted to what it is today–a 40 hour work-week, week-ends off for the majority, and benefits that no one in Lewis’ time would have ever dreamed of asking for.

Unfortunately, now we wear it as an entitlement. We’ve been trained, and are training our young, that to work in excess of 40 hours a week is a bad thing; that somehow we’re being taken advantage of, so fight back! Do we not have a God-given right to weekends? To not work too much? (I believe I did read that passage in the Book of Entitlements 1:1)

Out of every situation rises opportunity and so it is with the 40-hour week and the public’s right to not work any more than that. Here it is: anything really worth working for is going to take way more than 40 hours a week to build, so if the majority of the workforce is only willing to work 40, they exclude themselves from any opportunity that requires more effort than a 40-hour paycheck. That eliminates most of your competition for the really good stuff!

All you have to do is be willing to work on your dream without measuring it by counting hours.

Counting the hours is something that people who get paid by the hour, do. Get paid by the hour and the most you’ll ever make your entire life is your hourly wage x 168 hours which is all there is in a week assuming you don’t mind not sleeping, or going home. Ever.

The 40-hour work-week was implemented to keep unscrupulous employers from abusing those that could do little about being taken advantage of. It was not intended to place a cap on any individual’s ambition, so don’t view it as a “God-given right” to not work. It’s not. Now go find something worth building and get started.

Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com