Time was, no one worked in the summer.
Summer vacations are an interesting thing. Schools are let out for the summer, supposedly because "back in the day" kids were needed to work on the farm. But considering the major times for labor on an old-fashioned farm were plowing and planting (Spring) and harvesting (Fall) one wonders if that stated reason makes sense, What did the kids do all summer? Weeding?
I wonder if perhaps the real reason was that putting kids in an un-airconditioned schoolhouse during 90-degree days was just pointless. I mean, the smell alone would get all the teachers to quit. You laugh, but when I was at Carrier, we had a handbook which listed the required air circulation for a given building or room. The underlying data came from a study done of British schoolchildren at the turn of the Century (circa 1900). Even back then, they knew!
Before the widespread implementation of air conditioning, much of our country was sparsely inhabited. As I noted before, in the 1970s the "sunbelt" movement started, with young people migrating away from the "rustbelt" Northeast to the South and West, where new opportunities lay. Air conditioning made these areas more attractive to live in, particularly in the summer. The sunbelt population boomed, and towns and villages in places like Texas or Arizona grew to become major cities. We watched it happen.
When I worked at the Patent Office, we were located in Crystal City, Arlington, which was a "temporary" move made in 1968 so they could install air conditioning at the Commerce Department. Yes, as late at 1968, many government offices did not have A/C. And it was a nightmare. Patent Examiners would sweat profusely in high-ceiling offices with large open windows. Fans were everywhere, as were "paperweights" which were more than desk souvenirs back then. Examiners wore green transparent visors to deal with the glare from overhead lamps. And on their arms were black cloth sleeves, worn over their dress shirts and secured with elastic on both ends, so their sweat would not soak through their clothes and onto the documents.
Most everyone took vacation in the Summer - July and particularly August, although September could be hot as well. If you worked there long enough, you could accumulate up to eight weeks of vacation, leaving in July and returning in September! There were advantages to government employment, even if the wages were not as competitive. So by mid-August, the PTO was a ghost town, with only junior Examiners (who had only 2-3 weeks of vacation) hanging around, sweating on the Patents.
It was not just the Patent Office, however. At General Motors, there was an "annual model changeover" in the summer - two weeks or longer - where the tooling would be reset for next year's new cars. This could have been done at any time - the Fall, for example. But summer made more sense, for non-airconditioned factories. Most assembly line workers would be sent home, and use this time - in addition to vacation time - to go fishing in a cabin in Northern Michigan or whatever. Today, as the linked article suggests, annual changeover has shrunk and sometimes doesn't exist, as car models are changed little from year to year, other than to change grill and taillight designs or offer different colors.
The rise of air conditioning meant that workers could schedule vacations anytime during the year - not just during the summer. Since working conditions were tolerable in air-conditioned offices and plants, there was no need to ditch work - or indeed school - in the summer months.
As a result, generous vacation times have started to slip away. Most workers today are lucky to get a lousy two-weeks a year, even after decades of service. Meanwhile, in Germany, they still get eight weeks off - or more. More and more schools are talking about (or going to) a year-round schedule, and as schools morph into child-care centers, most parents are grateful for the extended schedule.
Air conditioning allows this. Air conditioning killed the summer vacation.
Of course, it didn't need to be that way and still doesn't have to be that way. Somehow, we got snookered into this idea that both spouses need to work to support a family - doubling the productivity of the average American household, while not substantially increasing income, if at all. Ironically, Republicans call for a return to the "tradwife" and stay-at-home Mom, which is not necessarily a bad idea. However, the GOP doesn't say how families are supposed to pay for this, with a 50% decrease in household income. I guess the savings in making your own granny dresses covers this gap.
"Productivity" they call it, has increased year-by-year and companies point to the productivity gap between the Europe and the US as a sign that we are somehow better. Those French! Working only 35 hours a week! Don't they realize they could be more productive working 40, 50, or even 60 hours a week? With unpaid overtime, of course, according to Donald Trump.
I visited a goat cheese factory in France, back in the 1990's, and at the end of the tour (given by the owner of the company) they broke out several cheeses and sliced baguette along with wine pairings. Not only did we indulge in this treat, the entire factory staff (a dozen or so) joined in, as well as the delivery driver who stopped by. I tell you what, make fun of the French all you want, they know how to live, they have the joie de vivre. Who really is the fool here?
"No one goes to their grave wishing they spent more time at the office." Or on their phone, or watching television, or playing video games. Work should have a purpose - to improve the quality of life for us all, not just for a select few. Sadly, in my lifetime, I have seen all of us get on this hamster-wheel of work, willingly and goaded on by employers who have saddled us with this idea that jobs are scarce and we are "lucky" to sell our bodies and the limited time we have on this planet, for a pittance, to billionaires, so they can have another private jet in their fleet.
And this seems to be a cycle - that may be turning in the direction of the workers. Every so often, the billionaire class crashes the economy so that us poors will feel lucky to grovel at their feet for a few pesos. They did this in 1929 and again in 1979 and again in 2008. They seem poised to do it again - laying off people even as they are hiring, just to make people nervous about losing their jobs. It is not a paranoid fantasy - some employers are bragging about this strategy on Linked-In, gloating about how they enjoyed firing some poor sap, just so the remaining workers remain nervous.
When I was in High School, this nonsense started, as the economy was in recession due to oil price shocks. We were told we were lucky to have jobs (although I managed to remain continually employed without much effort, throughout the next decade). Politicians ran on a platform of "job creation" - something that was an anathema to Republicans throughout the ages. If only we cut taxes for the very wealthy, the benefits would "trickle down" to us little people! But in the end, we were just pissed on.
I am digressing quite a bit, I know, but it all fits together in a puzzle. When you cut taxes for a rich guy, he might higher a maid or chauffeur, but that's about it. Down at the factory he owns, it makes no difference. You hire people to make money for you, not because you got a tax cut and are "passing on" the benefit to the unwashed masses as a generous gesture. But again, this ties into the idea that we are lucky to have jobs and they are a gift from the wealthy and not vice-versa.
Maybe we need to slow down our economy and lives and live more simply. Everything today is optimized to maximize profit and shareholder value. For example, back in the day, airliners would sit at the gate, sometimes for hours, between flights. And when they flew, they were half-empty (or half-full, depending on your perspective)/ Today, accountants run the airlines, not pilots. And accountants run the airplane factories, not Engineers.
Accountants tell us that an airliner on the ground is an airliner not making money. It is only when there are "wheels up" that the plane is generating revenue. And in some instances, airline employees are not paid for time spent on the ground! The goal is to flip the plane as quickly as possible, load people in and out like cattle, cram them into as tight a space as possible. The net result is human misery - and we all know this and they know it, too! Why, as rational (mostly) human beings, do we go along with this concept?
Oh, right. We only have two weeks vacation. So we have to fly to our vacation spot. And if anything goes wrong, well, the whole vacation in ruined and Karen has a meltdown on the plane, And in a way, can you blame her?
All because of air conditioning!
