I don't know what the late-night comedians across the globe did with this one, but a 42-year-old councilman from the northern town of Overtornea, Per-Erik Muskos, made the suggestion with the earnest goal of increasing the birth rate amongst Swedes, or whomever they were proposing to send home from the 550 employee municipality workforce, with an hour off once a month, with the objective that they would have enough unprotected sex that the Swedish birth rate might take an uptick, rather than continue the downward trend it is having.
The story I read appeared in this past Friday's NYT. The reactions to the proposal and the up and downsides are given their due in what is a six-column story, complete with a photo of dancing Swedes in period costume during a midsummer festival. They are seen dancing on a lawn with five grammar-school age children in the foreground. The editor's allusion to using that photo is, I guess, to intimate that the children will what there will more of if the councilman's proposal is adopted. And everyone will be happy about it.
The story is also accompanied by a helpful map that shows you just how far in the north the town of Overtornea is. It is hard by the Arctic Circle, bordering Finland. My guess is the town might not really need any more darkened rooms, probably already getting six-months of daylight, and six-months of night, in varying shades.
In addition to all that is mentioned about what is right or wrong with the proposal, are two aspects of Swedish life in Overtornea that I find interesting. An hour off to get home and get back must mean these people don't work far from where they live. Being municipal workers, living in the town might be a requirement.
Traffic must not be bad at all. Even if taking the extra monthly hour were dovetailed with lunch hour, this would still only give the employee two hours to get home and back, hopefully after taking a shower. But there is no mention that there would be any way of enforcing that.
The other aspect of the proposal is that it implies the person who would be at home to greet the sex-conscripted employee, would also have an hour off to devote to the activity. Either this means the entire town works for the municipality, or that the spouse or significant other doesn't have to work to help provide two incomes to the household. Swedes are doing well, if that's the case.
The company I once worked for had a CEO who was hired at a low point in the company's finances, and had to objective of turning things around. One of his mantras, repeated often and in many formats, was that, "we are short on time." His implication was that everyone's time was needed to be pointed toward insuring the success of the company; You shouldn't devote time of any significance to other activities.
There are at least two vice-presidents who guarded their work time so seriously that they didn't get a room, they had their extra-curricular sex in their offices, lest they waste time checking in and checking out. Eventually their enthusiasm for not wasting company time on leaving and returning to the building came to the attention of others and they were fired. Rather unfairly, I thought.
In the 1980s when Mayor Ed Koch ruled over New York City, he commented on the guard dogs that were set out at night to protect the subway yards from vandals, particularly graffiti artists. The mayor pointed out the male and female dogs found each other, with the result that the female German shepards gave birth to litters of pups. The mayor, never one to miss a beat, declared that was an example of increased productivity.
Sweden, you weren't first.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment