Am I the only person who finds it inefficient to have the majority of our population need to be somewhere at 8am? I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and witness a process called a "commute" unfold twice every day. This commute is an incredibly illogical way to get employees to work. It must cost employers thousands upon thousands of work-hours every year with their employees being late all the time. Well the problem is just that we're sending too many people in the same direction at the same time. But have you ever been on the roads during non-commute times? It's not too bad. In fact, in the wee hours of the morning, traffic is phenomenal!
Now, since we are living in a truly global economy with worldwide communication and commerce churning 24/7/365, why haven't we all gone into 24-hour shifts? Why haven't we opened all businesses and services to 24 hours a day? If everybody worked in a distributed blocks over the 24 hours, the demand for services would be constant and the demand on services - like circulation - would be alleviated by spreading it out.
So imagine, everyone works a nine-hour shift (eight plus lunch), but nine hour shifts are spread throughout the day, and they overlap. For example, "A" shift is from midnight to 9am; "B" shift is from 6am to 3pm; "C" shift is from noon to 9pm; and "D" shift is from 6pm-3am. And then you start over again. Everyone would be assigned a shift and life would go on as usual, just a bit less crowded.
It also could solve the employment problem because it would force businesses to hire to meet the demand of being open 24hours a day. But more workers means greater productivity, no? It seems like a win-win for everyone, but maybe especially for those of us who hate sitting in commute traffic.
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