Medieval Peasants Got More Vacation Time Than Cube Monkeys
NY Post – Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired. But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations. Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too. In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year. As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
Hey monkeys! You hear that? Your life is literally worse than that of a 14th century serf. Peasants and farmhands working 3 days a week while you barely get out of your cage for 48 hours. Mandatory work stoppages. Week long parties anytime someone got married or popped out a kid. Half a fucking year of “PTO” for goddam indentured slaves. Sounds like those cocksuckers who work at those cushy tech startups like Google and shit. I honestly think I’d risk contracting the Black Death Plague if it meant I only had to work 150 days a year. Famine, small pox, countryside strife from warring barbarians. Cholera and dysentery because I don’t have modern plumbing. Whatever. I’d rather live for 30 years as a medieval peasant with 4 day weekends than live 75 years as a Cube Monkey chained to my desk.
The 45 years you spend at work are basically 45 years of death anyway. Think about that. The average lifespan in the Middle Ages was about 30 years. Now, we live to about 75. And what do we do with that new lease on life? We spend 45 extra years ALT, E, S, V’ing in the fucking Cube. All that advancement in science and health and we spend all that extra time on earth rotting away at your desk. At least the commoners and the serfs got to watch wandering jugglers.