The slogan “8 Hours Labour, 8 Hours Recreation, 8 Hours Rest” isn’t a modern plea to bring about a more humane work schedule.

It’s a plea from 1817.

A plea almost 200 years old.

At the time, we eventually got what we asked for in the form of a 40-hour work week.

Fast forward a couple hundred years and now technology enables us to work wherever and whenever we want (an advancement that like most others has a light side and a dark side) and we seem to have forgotten the key rule of human functioning: in order to produce our best work, we have to balance that work with rest.

This became a cause worth picketing for in 1817 because people were being asked to work 12 to 16 hour days, six days a week. It was seen as inhumane.

Fascinating how history repeats itself.

And yet this time exactly who are we going to picket?

Yes, sometimes it’s the company you work for who is setting inhumane work expectations.

But more often than not the person you would be picketing is…you.