Our society wants to take away certain pleasures. This essay is designed to persuade you to hang on to some of the blessings that make us human.

While I was in Dallas, I took on quite a profitable sidelight. Parents of students would pay me a lot of money so that I would stay at their house all weekend, eating their food, drinking their liquor and sleeping in their beds. In addition to those challenging duties, I had to keep a loose eye on their children and make sure that noone brought a keg of Coors through the back door. The parents, who should be in their own beds, drinking their own liquor, were away on various corporate gigs to various branch offices. They lost their weekends to the corporation.

To adults, the weekend has become what the school night is to the teenager; the time to catch up on all the work you couldn’t do at the office or on the job. Our jobs have slowly migrated from the office to the home. At first, we gave out our home numbers on business cards. Then, we started going on business trips that started on Friday. Finally, we began carrying around cellular phones and beepers, so that we were always within reach of the office. The job has knifed the weekend in the alley and replaced it with casual Fridays and free Mountain Dews in the company fridge. As a result, we are richer but less happy. We walk through our weeks on No-Doz. and coffee, waiting for a vacation.

We need to take back our weekends. As we all need sleep in order to make our days productive, so to do we need weekends to make our weeks productive. In the idealized past, the weekend was a break from work. We put the hammers, shovels, and pencils down at five o’clock on Friday, headed off to Happy Hour and wished our colleagues luck until Monday morning. Over Saturday and Sunday, we played golf with our neighbors and cooked burgers for the kids, but did absolutely nothing for the office. Then, on Monday morning, we boarded the train for the city with tales to tell at the water cooler. Once upon a time, we were all “working for the weekend” when our real lives as husbands, mothers, and golfers took precedence over the Vice-President of Marketing.

Now, we always listen to the Vice-President of Marketing and we have given up our real lives. The corporate team has hijacked our real lives. In taking back our weekends, we reestablishing ourselves. Parents would have those two days to coach Little League, make dinner, and read “Charlotte’s Web.” Neighbors could meet and have cook outs, go bowling or play golf. Individuals could even finish books in Barcaloungers and not on planes. We all would become stronger and happier by developing those sides of ourselves that must hide at the job. We could return to being “People doing jobs” as opposed to “Jobs being done by people.”

Ironically, we would probably be a lot better at our jobs if we took our weekends off. First, everyone would want to make his or her time more efficient at the office. The quarterly report probably wouldn’t drag on forever if the writer had a 3 PM tee time. Second, workers would be happier and more successful. Success outside the office would migrate into the office. No longer would the quarterly sales sheet be the total marker of someone’s worth. Finally, the work done would be more relevant to the real world. Parents and voters who are involved in the community will be less likely to make decisions that will destroy a community. The weekend birdwatcher will not design a house that will fill in a marsh. The good parent will not build an unsafe staircase. If we return to weekends, our future could be one with strong families, strong communities, strong individuals, and strong companies.

Otherwise, we will slip into a Brave New World where our corporate lives will crush our other lives. Parenting will be left to the au pair, the babysitter and the day-care center while we meet with clients. When we need to, we will call the kids from the cubicle or from Oklahoma City. Secondly, we will replace our next door neighbors and tennis partners with members of the research and development team. We will drop the town volleyball league and pick up the company one. Finally, we will trade our own books and movies for training manuals and sales videos. We will give up thinking on our own for thinking about the company. We will become the ultimate team players. We will become job titles.