Another excellent read. Thank you, Joan, though I beg to differ on one very tiny point:
After [Frederick Winslow] Taylor, time was something you either used, or you wasted - no third option.
To appreciate the third option, we need to recall that since 1972 the time lords occasionally apply a leap second to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) so that atomic clocks accommodate irregularities in the Earth’s rotation. To date, there have been 37 leap seconds declared – all positive, that is, added to the length of the day/year, though apparently there could be negative ones in principle.
The leap seconds in this century have occurred in 2005, 2008, 2012, 2015, and 2016. On one of these, the first if I had to guess, the producers of the National Public Radio news program ‘All Things Considered’ sent a sound crew out on the streets of Washington, DC, and asked passersby this question: “A leap second is about to be applied to official clocks worldwide. What are you going to do with that extra second?”
Most of the answers were predictable and offered with the same tongue-in-cheek spirit of the question. For example:
- I’ll hit ‘snooze’. Can always use a little extra sleep.
- More quality time with my family.
- Extra time with my morning coffee and the newspaper.
- The dog will enjoy a longer walk.
I don’t recall anyone saying, oh, I’ll stay at work longer. But one person had a distinctive answer, the one that prompts this post:
- I’ll save it. Then, the next time someone asks me, “Got a second?”, I can say “Yes.”
So, per that brilliant, quick-witted response, you can use time, waste time, or save time. Not save in the efficiency sense of Taylorism, but held close and dear as with other things that you value highly, whether artifactual or abstract or ethereal.
I have been saving my seconds from those five years, but Joan’s newsletter was important enough that I just now used them to edit this post. 