Take a break

Throughout the 20th Century, prognosticators predicted that Americans would enjoy more leisure time. Technological advances would mean shorter workweeks, they said, leaving laborers free to frolic and muse.

Those forecasts turned out to be dead wrong, just like the ones that said we'd be flying around in Jetson cars by now and controlling our weather. High-demand, high-stress jobs mean we're working more than ever. Leisure time remains as elusive as world peace.

Brace yourself. I'm going to throw some numbers at you now.

--Americans labor more hours than workers in any other industrialized country. We clocked an average of 1,966 hours in 1997, up nearly 4 percent from 1,883 hours in 1980, according to a study by the International Labor Organization. That's nearly two full weeks more than workers in Japan, where average hours on the job dropped from 2,121 hours in 1980 to 1,889 in 1995. The French logged 1,656 hours in 1997 and the Germans worked 1,560. Those dynamos of productivity, the Norwegians and the Swedes, worked 1,399 hours and 1,552 hours, respectively.

--A recent Roper Starch Worldwide Inc. poll of 2,000 Americans found that leisure hours have declined from 38.2 per week in 1993 to 35.3 in 1998.

--In that poll, commissioned by Hearst Magazines, respondents were asked what they would do with an extra hour or two per day. The No. 1 response was sleep, followed by spending time on a hobby, reading, exercising, doing nothing, watching TV and making love. (How's that for priorities?)

For the 10 percent of Americans who work in home offices, the situation is even more severe. Many of us feel a moral imperative to work, work, work, partly because our spouses are the ones bringing home the real dough and partly because our work surrounds us all day. Along with the profit-making work, there's the housework and the yardwork and laundry and cooking. Throw a couple of kids into the equation, and it adds up to maybe 10,000 hours a year. (Let's see the Japanese top that.)

Since a year has only 8,766 hours, at-home workers soon learn there's not enough time to do all the jobs and do them right. The only way to include any sort of leisure activity is to let some things fall by the wayside. Mopping, for instance.

To find time for leisure, you have to prioritize. I suggest making a list of the jobs you must accomplish each week. Rank them in order of importance. Then lose the list. That way, maybe you'll get lucky and forget some of the chores you'd planned to do.

Or, you can squeeze leisure time into your workday. Use your lunch hour to exercise or pursue a hobby. Use all those minutes spent on hold to read a favorite novel. Peruse the newspaper while your computer reboots. Sleeping at your desk, I'm sorry to say, doesn't count.

However you do it, you must make time for yourself. For example, I skip out one night a week (while my wife bravely ferries our sons to Cub Scouts) to visit my best buddy. We play Scrabble and drink Cokes and eat M&Ms -- a couple of wild and crazy guys -- and try very hard not to think about the work we should be doing. It's true leisure time. And it's one activity that helps me keep my precarious grasp on sanity.

Follow my lead, you at-home workers. Get out of the house, get away from the piles of paperwork and dirty laundry. Find some activity that takes your mind off work. Plunge into doing nothing productive, at least for a few hours a week.

It'll keep you from going crazy. It might even make you a better worker and a better parent. But most importantly, it'll make you a better poll respondent. When the pollsters come calling, tell them your leisure hours are on the rise, that you're working less, that you've never been happier.

If we all pull together, we can at least make it LOOK as if we're not working all the time. Otherwise, Americans eventually will say they've had enough. We'll see a brain drain as we lose productive workers to other countries.

I'm considering Norway myself.

(Editor's note: The data in this column are old, but the situation, alas, is unchanged. I didn't move to Norway, but I moved to California, which is sort of the same thing.)

Mother of inventions

During the recent turn-of-the-millenium binge, we heard a lot about the greatest inventions of the millenium (the printing press) and the greatest person of the century (Andy Kaufman), but it seems to me folks were looking too far afield. The most crucial technological advances are the ones we enjoy right in our own homes. Their creators should be our heroes.

I'm writing this on a computer, which will later deliver it to the newspaper without me leaving my chair. Simultaneously, machines are washing my clothes and my dishes and drying them. A machine that would suck the dirt off my floors would be operating, too, but the kid who was running it went off to play basketball. Thanks to the marvels of telecommunications, I could any second talk with anyone around the world, though it'll most likely be a chat with the doctor after my son takes the basketball in the kisser again.

You see my point, though, right? Say what you like about the printing press, it won't warm up cold coffee. You need a microwave for that. Self-cleaning ovens are a boon to all mankind. And where would we be today without the TV remote? Jumping up to change the channels, that's where.

Considering these marvels of modern ingenuity inevitably brings us to other concepts and inventions that won't fare so well in the History of the Household. We also have a millennium full of goofs. File them under the category Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.
You undoubtedly can come up with many of these on your own, but we'll get you started:

--CALL WAITING. I say, let 'em wait. I got through first, I get to conduct my conversation uninterrupted. I knew this had gone too far when my own mother put me on hold.

--SQUEEZABLE MAYONNAISE. I bought this before fully pondering its ramifications. Any mayonnaise worth having isn't "squeezable." And it looks like toothpaste when you squirt it on bread.

--READY-TO-ASSEMBLE. What's the point of buying a new piece of furniture if you have to put it together yourself? Isn't that the furniture-maker's job? Do I ask furniture-makers to come to my house and write stuff?

Ready-to-assemble means we parents have countless stray parts to toys and basketball goals and bicycles lying around the house. We still don't know what they're for.

--GARBAGE DISPOSALS. I know many of you swear by these, but what could possibly be smart about sending food sludge down your drainpipes? It's just a disaster waiting to happen. One day you wash the English peas down the drain; the next day, your front lawn is swallowed by a sinkhole.

You can always tell the homes that have garbage disposals. All the spoons have been chewed up around the edges.

--TOFU. It tastes like nothing, therefore it tastes like whatever you mix with it. That's what people say. But if it tastes like nothing, why put it in your mouth? Why not just eat the stuff you were going to mix it with and call that good?

Sure, tofu's supposedly good for you, but there are folks in the South who say the same thing about clay.

--SALAD SHOOTERS. Need I say more?

--CELLULAR PHONES. Yeah, yeah, they're convenient. But do you really want to be available 24 hours a day? Is anything more annoying than the sound of someone else's phone ringing in a crowded movie theater? Don't you find yourself shouting at weaving motorists: "Hang up and drive!"

--COMPUTERS. They make many things possible. Scientific advances (coming soon: the Nuclear Salad Shooter) and medical breakthroughs (ditto). The world is a smaller place because of the Internet. But do we want a smaller place? Wasn't the world a perfectly fine size before?
With computers, the focus of a job often is the tool, not the end result. They often mean half the productivity in twice the time. And we entrust our work, investments, addresses, shopping and record-keeping to machines that don't function when the power fails or when they get sick with a virus.

If that's not a boondoggle, I don't know what is. But at least I don't have to get on a horse and carry my column across town to the newspaper.

Marching orders from General Dad

Here's a comforting message for all of you who have children under the age of 6: It gets easier.

As children get older, parents move from the trenches to the rear guard, in charge of logistics rather than patrolling the sleepless front lines of the home front. So it's like a promotion. And, in many ways, there's less incoming flak.

When they're toddlers, kids seem to be in constant danger -- teetering on stacked boxes to reach stuff, experimenting with matches and electrical sockets, teething on the dog. With experience, children learn which things to put in their mouths and where not to stick their fingers. They discover that you'll reach high shelves for them if they whine enough.

As children learn to solve their own problems, parents can relax a little. They can get a full night's sleep occasionally. Most importantly, parents can bend over a lot less, which becomes crucial with age.

A case in point: We bought these bean bag chairs so our two sons could drag them around and flop into them in front of various television sets strategically placed around the house. The bean bags look like big old prunes lying on the floor, and you can trip over them in the dark, but they keep the kids off the good furniture, which is important, particularly when they're noshing Pringles.

One bean bag sprung a leak -- thanks to the dog -- and my 7-year-old recognized the leak as a problem he could solve. He went to the junk drawer in the kitchen and got out scissors and duct tape (that's my boy!). He crouched over the bean bag, cut tape to the right length with the scissors and -- voila! -- the repair was made. And he didn't approach me for help.

How did I even know he'd accomplished this on his own? Well, the junk drawer was hanging open, for one thing. Duct tape and scissors sat out on the counter. He hadn't put anything away when he was done.

If this seems like shoddy workmanship to you, then you're missing the point. He'd done part of the job himself. And it was the part that involved bending over.

When I was a kid growing up in the South, my parents considered my brother and me to be their own personal remote controls. We could be out in the yard playing, and they'd call us inside to change the channel or fetch some more tea. My parents believed it was easier to shout a kid down from upstairs than to get up and cross the room and turn on a lamp.

From a tender age, I hated this. I didn't see why I needed to interrupt my important activities -- which usually centered on slaying imaginary Nazis -- just because a parent didn't want to dislodge from the La-Z-Boy.

Now that I'm a middle-aged parent of two strapping boys, I do the same thing. I'm General Dad. I sit in my comfy chair, a newspaper spread across my lap, my coffee within arm's reach, and I invariably spy something that needs doing. Time to summon the troops. Yo, boys! Come here and hand me that/pick that up/clean that up/put that down/turn that off.

They mutter and drag their feet, but they do it. And I don't have to wrestle my way up out of my chair.

I see now why my parents used my brother and me as their servants. Parents are tired all the time. We never really catch up on our rest from those 2 a.m. feedings. And bending over and picking things up off the floor becomes increasingly difficult for aging spines. Better to let the kids do it. They need the exercise. They're limber. They're shorter than us so they're already closer to the floor.

I know this won't last. Before long, my boys will be teen-agers, and I'll be lucky if I can find them, much less get them to help out. And shouting the length of the house for assistance does no good when the kids always wear headphones spewing rap music.

But until then I've got helpers, my own little chain gang. Now all I need is a La-Z-Boy.

'Fessing up at Gamers Anonymous

Hi, my name is Steve, and I'm a computer game junkie.

(All together now: "Hi, Steve!")

I'm a little nervous. This my first time to come forward. I've been in denial for a long time. But I was sitting in the back there, swilling coffee, and I thought: Stand up and say it. Admit it to these strangers and maybe you can finally admit it to yourself. So that's what I'm doing. I'm confessing my sins. Who knows? Maybe it'll help.

My story is a familiar one. I started out small, just a little Solitaire when no one was else was around. Maybe do a little shareware at parties. I told myself I was just experimenting. A taste of computer poker never hurt anybody, right? I still functioned in my everyday life, though sometimes I'd have a virtual hangover the next morning from staying up too late, zapping aliens.

Pretty soon, I was no longer just joy-popping. I moved up to the harder stuff -- advanced games like Tetris that eat up your time and lead to debilitating physical problems, such as carpal tunnel syndrome.

My addiction started to crop up during the workday. I'd be itching to play when I should be doing something productive. I began to ignore my chores in favor of computer chess. I'd get irritated when the ringing phone interrupted a game that couldn't be paused. I skipped bathing and eating and other everyday activities that might take me away from the computer screen. I'd bark at my children when they broke my concentration, pestering me with some minor problem, like a house fire.

I was blind to all these signals, of course. I thought I had my habit under control.
The first recognition that I had a problem came when I started attributing human motives to my computer, which is just a machine after all. The computer seemed out to defeat me at any cost, and I began to treat it like a real live human enemy. I'd curse at it and pound the keyboard and choke the mouse and generally act like an idiot.

Some of you are nodding. Guess you've been there, too, huh? But I went even further. I started believing the computer was toying with me.

Here's an example: One of my obsessions is a simple little game called Evolve. You fly around in a spaceship, shooting kamikaze aliens that are trying to crash into you. A silly game, really. It's called Evolve because the aliens change if you don't shoot them soon enough. They go from green to yellow to red with an increase in speed and agility in each incarnation. At first, I just played the game, win or lose, it didn't matter. But then I began to notice a pattern. Just when I'd killed nearly all the aliens and was relaxing a bit, bracing to move up to the next level, one of the few remaining aliens would evolve suddenly and run right at my ship at twice the normal speed.

How else to explain it? The evil computer was out to get me.

Another game involves moving virtual marbles around a board. I started to believe the computer was counting ahead two or three plays, so it could be sure to trap me. It took all the joy out of the game. Now, I get so caught up in trying to read the machine's motives that, boom, I lose all my marbles.

It's insanity to play a counting game against a computer anyway; counting is what they do best. But I kept playing. I was hooked.

And now I've admitted it. I know I have a problem. I'm planning to get with the program and kick the habit.

Withdrawal will be rough. My hands will itch to play again. My brain will desire the strategy, the competition, the occasional victory. I'll hear the beeping and blooping of the games in my sleep. But I think I'm ready. I just hope it's not too late.

I know you're supposed to stop cold turkey, but I was wondering, could I do just a little more Tetris before I get on the wagon? I'm ready to quit. Really. But first I want to teach that computer a lesson.

Bad case of call-itis

Here's a tip for you who work at home: You're calling your spouse at the office too often if the receptionist recognizes your voice before you get past "Hello."

With no co-workers to natter at all day, we stay-at-home parents tend to snatch up the phone with the least provocation. We speed-dial our spouses to consult, to complain, to comiserate. Every scraped knee, every development with a client, every household "emergency" such as minor flooding merits a quick call.

What, you might ask, is wrong with that? It's part of the marriage contract that we share everything, right? Wrong. Your spouse is busy earning a living. He/she is in meetings, making decisions, pumping out paperwork. If you call frequently, your spouse will get very little done and become as unproductive as you. This is not the best approach to job security.

But how much is too much? Is one call a day permissible? Three a day? Once an hour? As a rule, if you answer the phone saying, "Hi, it's me again," you're calling too often. If you spend more time on hold with your spouse's workplace than you do with your children, it may be time to unplug the phone. If you sing along with the Muzak, you may need professional help.

A typical case of Spousal Call-itis:

9:03 a.m.
Housespouse: "Oh, good, you're there already. Do you know what Johnny did with his homework? No, I haven't looked under his bed. Why would it be under his bed? Hold on a second."

(Working Spouse casts longing look at coffee urn, where co-workers are gossiping.)

Housespouse: "You were right. It was under his bed. Go figure. OK, have a great day. I'll talk to you later."

(WS hangs up, fighting off sense of foreboding.)

10:27 a.m.
HS: "Hi, it's me again. Your mother called and . . . "

(WS tunes out, busy with incoming e-mail.)

HS (several minutes later): "So it's all right with you if I tell her we'll come over for dinner on Sunday?"

WS: "Yes."

HS: "OK. I'll call her back. Hope the rest of your day goes well."

10:33 a.m.
HS: "Me again. Your mother now says Sunday's no good. How about Saturday?"

WS (balancing a teetering stack of paperwork that rivals most landfills): "Yes."

10:45 a.m.
HS: "I'm back. She now says Sunday would be better after all. I swear, I don't know what's wrong with that woman . . . "

(WS loses focus, busy making placating hand gestures to red-faced supervisor, who's pointing at wristwatch.)

1:02 p.m.
HS: "Oh, good, you're back from lunch. The refrigerator is making a funny noise."

WS (sighing heavily): "What kind of noise?"

HS: "Sort of whish-whish, then a clunk."

WS: "That's the icemaker."

HS: "Really? How come I've never noticed that before? I swear, I'm going goofy, working here all by myself. Listen, while I've got you on the phone . . ."

(WS closes eyes and clenches jaw.)

2:17 p.m.
HS: "Me again. I was wondering, do we need new drapes in the living room? I've got a catalog here that has some that might do nicely . . . "

(WS feels drops of blood popping out on forehead.)

3:23 p.m.
HS: "I know you're busy, but how about meat loaf for supper?"

WS: "Yes, yes, yes. Meat loaf would be wonderful. I've got to go now."

HS: "You want the meat loaf with gravy or with that gooey ketchup all over the top?"

WS: "If I don't get back into that meeting, I'm going to be meat loaf myself."

HS (hurt): "OK, sorry. Bye."

3:46 p.m.
WS: "Hi, it's me. Sorry I was abrupt before. But I was in this meeting and my boss . . . "

HS: "Hmph. If I'm bothering you at work, you can just say so. Am I calling too often?"

WS (seeing life flash before eyes): "Not at all, sweetheart. I know it's important that we stay in touch throughout the day. You call whenever you want."

HS (somewhat mollified): "All right then. Only one more question for the busy, big-shot decision-maker. Mashed potatoes or fries?"