In This Economy?

Good morning students, and welcome to Assy Economic Vocabulary 101.

Today’s Lesson: Weisure.

What do you do if you’re not at work, but you’re not quite on vacation either? Well, there’s a new trend in this economy. Sure, you get vacation from your job, but if anyone were to drop the ball on one of your projects, or if you were to be deemed a slacker while you’re away, it could be pink slip party time for you. So what’s the solution? Weisure, of course! It’s a new world out there, folks, and in this one we work-play. We used to keep our friends and co-workers separate. We’d never do business with a bestie, or hang out with a higherup, but these days, those two spheres are uniting as our live-work-play lifestyles are merging. It’s a proverbial mullet: business in the front, party in the back. The best of both worlds. Or is it?

Work = Fun!

As a member of what CNN calls “the creative class,” I would agree with their assessment that one of the reasons for this shift is that work has become more fun for we creative folks. And I admit I rarely turn off the solid-gold idea generator that is my brain. And if I think of something that will help me out at work while I’m out for drinks with friends, I’ll certainly jot it down. But I’m not about to pull out my laptop and start really working from the bar if I don’t absolutely have to. Is that weisurely? I don’t know.

Always ON.

According to the article on cnn.com, we’re losing our private selves due to this growing trend. We’re always “on” as it were, available to chat with co-workers on Facebook, share what we’re reading on Twitter and even recommend someone on LinkedIn. When we get an email we’re psyched — even if it’s work — just to know someone wants to communicate with us. I for one am just a drooling Pavlov’s dog when it comes to email, so I completely understand. Also according to our friends at cnn.com, “Eventually the weisure class could merge with a “getting back to basics movement” and form something new.” I can totally see that. It’s two years in the future, and we have become so bogged down in our electrical, Internet-reaching technological and work-riddled selves that we don’t know who we are anymore. Picture a scene from 1984. We live in a world of frazzled, emotionless, Borg-like semi-consciousness that’s now just an innocent “trend” called “weisure”. The someone, a maverick of sorts, breaks through and reminds us what it’s like to just unplug and be real, live humans again. People sans computers, smartphones and “douche-tooths”. Then, suddenly the nightmare has ended! And there’s a new trend.  One toward lazy, beach vacations where you leave your cell phone buzzing far behind you. Where your out-of-office email says “Need to reach me while I’m out? Tough titties!” I’m positively swooning at the mere notion of it all.

And Finally, Balls.

What do you think? Should we unplug when we go off the clock? Should we even receive work email on our personal smart phones? Should we perhaps get paid to “weisure” around all weekend? Does the thought of working while you’re not working make you want to kick your boss in the balls? Let us know in the comments below.

Read more commentary on “weisure” here.

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Tags: boss, creative, economy, leisure, vacation, vocabulary, weekend, weisure, work

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 9:20 AM and is filed under Bad News, Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.