"... concocted what seems in hindsight like a ludicrously ambitious plan to keep [[Soviet]] factories running every day of the year, with no breaks. Henceforth, **he announced in August 1929, a week would be not seven but five days long: four days of work, followed by one day’s rest. Crucially, though, the idea was that not all workers would follow the same calendar. Instead, they’d be divided into five groups, identified by a color—yellow, green, orange, purple, red—each of which would then be assigned a different four-day workweek and one-day weekend, so that operations would never have to cease**, even for a day. Meanwhile, [[Soviet]] authorities argued, there would be numerous benefits for the proletariat, too: more frequent days off, plus less overcrowding of cultural institutions and supermarkets, thanks to the steadier flow of customers. "But the main effect for ordinary citizens of the [[USSR]], as the writer [[Judith Shulevitz]] has explained, **was to destroy the possibility of social life. It was a simple question of scheduling. Two friends assigned to two different calendar groups would never be free to socialize on the same day**." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[teaching-anecdotes]], [[work-life-balance]], [[resting]], [[network-effects]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]