In my run down coastal UK town, the past few weeks have been hell for local retailers, with teenagers treating major shoplifting sprees - taking electrical items, clothes, alcohol, not "just a few sweets or a bit of makeup" (assuming you're the kind of person who thinks it's 'fine' to steal 'small' things in the first place... I'm very much not of that mindset...) - as something that's just...a normal part of them not having to be in school, and their parents aren't able to afford to be at home to supervise them. (If they're not actually at a legitimate job or course...lock them in the house. Take every set of keys, including those for the windows, with you...or teach your kids basic morals...)
Parents aren't able to even take three consecutive weeks off from most jobs, let alone six - so, even if you believe parents "should share the school holidays equally if they both work", it's not possible.
In offices and other businesses up and down the country, getting anything done is more or less impossible, as two-thirds of any business are always on leave during August, and the people from different teams or businesses who need to liaise with each other are on annual leave at different times.
Parents aren't able to even take three consecutive weeks off from most jobs, let alone six - so, even if you believe parents "should share the school holidays equally if they both work", it's not possible.
In offices and other businesses up and down the country, getting anything done is more or less impossible, as two-thirds of any business are always on leave during August, and the people from different teams or businesses who need to liaise with each other are on annual leave at different times.
People who aren't actually on annual leave are often "holiday mode" - their work rate declining as they dream ahead to the holiday they will be taking, or think back to the one they've just got back from. Those who weren't able to secure any time off in August are moody and resentful, doing the bare minimum for "people who get to scurry off whenever they like, because of their kids!"
People choke small roads in rural and coastal areas, preventing locals from leaving their own areas - which people living in such areas often have to do in order to get to jobs that are miles away from those rural villages and coastal towns.
Hostility towards teachers ramps up, as people who had neither the forethought nor the intelligence to go into teaching themselves snipe about "must be nice to have all that holiday!"
Parliament is dissolved for the month.
The newspapers are in "silly season" - being deliberately provactive and infantile in their "stories", because "nothing's happening, and no one would care if it was."
Other countries practically "shutter up" for August - perhaps it's time for the UK to do likewise?
But it couldn't possibly work!
People choke small roads in rural and coastal areas, preventing locals from leaving their own areas - which people living in such areas often have to do in order to get to jobs that are miles away from those rural villages and coastal towns.
Hostility towards teachers ramps up, as people who had neither the forethought nor the intelligence to go into teaching themselves snipe about "must be nice to have all that holiday!"
Parliament is dissolved for the month.
The newspapers are in "silly season" - being deliberately provactive and infantile in their "stories", because "nothing's happening, and no one would care if it was."
Other countries practically "shutter up" for August - perhaps it's time for the UK to do likewise?
But it couldn't possibly work!
Couldn't it?
Businesses are itching to find a justification for bringing in AI - a reasonable accommodation between business' "But we want to try this!" and the need of individuals to actually be able to afford their bills in the gap that yawns around the UK government realising that a Universal Basic Income is going to rapidly become a necessity is to hand August over to AI in offices, hospitality, and retail.
Jobs that can't be done by AI can be given, for the duration of August, to young people who have completed formal education, and to those in receipt of welfare. Office work should be prioritised for disabled claimants who feel they could potentially work if they were able to work in fully remote roles, with that full remote capability in place.
That duality gives a genuine compare-and-contrast between the effectiveness of humans and AI, allowing for a rational, logic-based decision to be made for businesses (who, if they choose AI, should be tasked with identifying, and paying for, the solutions to the extreme water drain of the data centres which back up that technology.)
A month of daily work gives a jumping-in point for people who otherwise risk ending up being ignored by employers, and dependent long term on welfare as they tried to convince reluctant employers of their worth. Employers get to see, in action, people they might otherwise have dismissed out of hand.
Essential roles - the NHS, care, core infrastructure, transportation - which require specific experience could be done by those who retired in full health from those roles within the past 2yrs; this facilitates a process of maintained contact, prevents post-retirement isolation, and encourages genuine lifelong learning. It also facilitates a once-per-year "top up" to pension incomes, which could enable older people to add to savings, or afford the associated costs of downsizing - which would reduce demand risk for the welfare bill, as well as freeing up housing stock for families.
Families, relieved of the need to afford holiday childcare, and less stressed by trying to balance extensive school holidays with limited annual leave, would spend more money in the UK economy - when both parents have a full month with their children, there's more sense of time to explore the UK, rather than a sense of a need to rush off to an all-inclusive foreign resort for the snatched two weeks everyone is able to have together.
If the country can function without Parliament for a month, what else could it manage without?
Monthly pay schedules would increase, to enable people to put aside a month's money for August from their other 11 paycheques.
Weekly pay would be made at an enhanced rate through July to cover August.
The six week school summer holiday was originally intended to facilitate children working alongside their parents in agricultural jobs - not to allow them to terrorise and rob retailers while their parents abandon them for 10-12hrs plus to be at jobs that, in many cases, really aren't achieving that much through the month of August.
If Britain "closed" for August, school holidays would run from the 1st-31st August across the country; no random inset days which could be different for siblings from the same family who'd ended up in different school districts. No "when do they go back, again?" - schools end the closest school day to the 1st of August, and return the closest school day to the 31st August. Simple.
If you're a business, and are curious about how "everyone out for August" could work for you - drop us an email: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
Businesses are itching to find a justification for bringing in AI - a reasonable accommodation between business' "But we want to try this!" and the need of individuals to actually be able to afford their bills in the gap that yawns around the UK government realising that a Universal Basic Income is going to rapidly become a necessity is to hand August over to AI in offices, hospitality, and retail.
Jobs that can't be done by AI can be given, for the duration of August, to young people who have completed formal education, and to those in receipt of welfare. Office work should be prioritised for disabled claimants who feel they could potentially work if they were able to work in fully remote roles, with that full remote capability in place.
That duality gives a genuine compare-and-contrast between the effectiveness of humans and AI, allowing for a rational, logic-based decision to be made for businesses (who, if they choose AI, should be tasked with identifying, and paying for, the solutions to the extreme water drain of the data centres which back up that technology.)
A month of daily work gives a jumping-in point for people who otherwise risk ending up being ignored by employers, and dependent long term on welfare as they tried to convince reluctant employers of their worth. Employers get to see, in action, people they might otherwise have dismissed out of hand.
Essential roles - the NHS, care, core infrastructure, transportation - which require specific experience could be done by those who retired in full health from those roles within the past 2yrs; this facilitates a process of maintained contact, prevents post-retirement isolation, and encourages genuine lifelong learning. It also facilitates a once-per-year "top up" to pension incomes, which could enable older people to add to savings, or afford the associated costs of downsizing - which would reduce demand risk for the welfare bill, as well as freeing up housing stock for families.
Families, relieved of the need to afford holiday childcare, and less stressed by trying to balance extensive school holidays with limited annual leave, would spend more money in the UK economy - when both parents have a full month with their children, there's more sense of time to explore the UK, rather than a sense of a need to rush off to an all-inclusive foreign resort for the snatched two weeks everyone is able to have together.
If the country can function without Parliament for a month, what else could it manage without?
Monthly pay schedules would increase, to enable people to put aside a month's money for August from their other 11 paycheques.
Weekly pay would be made at an enhanced rate through July to cover August.
The six week school summer holiday was originally intended to facilitate children working alongside their parents in agricultural jobs - not to allow them to terrorise and rob retailers while their parents abandon them for 10-12hrs plus to be at jobs that, in many cases, really aren't achieving that much through the month of August.
If Britain "closed" for August, school holidays would run from the 1st-31st August across the country; no random inset days which could be different for siblings from the same family who'd ended up in different school districts. No "when do they go back, again?" - schools end the closest school day to the 1st of August, and return the closest school day to the 31st August. Simple.
If you're a business, and are curious about how "everyone out for August" could work for you - drop us an email: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
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