Sure everybody thinks we’re slackers in B.C., but what if we’re actually working too hard?
Sarah Efron
From the April 2005 issue
http://www.bcbusinessmagazine.com/displayArticle.php?artId=400
A group of men and women dressed in business attire rush along the sidewalk of Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver, whiskers painted on their cheeks, pink rodent noses strapped to their faces and long, black tails trailing from the back of their nicely pressed suits.
They speed down the sidewalk, periodically slowing to jump through giant plastic hoops, before gathering on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery to listen to a woman in a business suit with a laptop give the presentation Power Corrupts, PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely. After a very brief coffee break, the men and women all hurry toward the finish line – a red banner with the word ‘RETIREMENT’ on it.
Performed in October, the ‘Rat Race’ was a piece of satirical theatre put on by B.C.’s newest political campaigners, the Work Less Party. The group of environmentalists and political activists is definitely not a serious threat to the Liberals in next month’s election. However, the organization does have a message for voters: their website encourages people to spend less time in the office and have more time for “music, family, art, education, community, friends, adventure,sharing and sanity.”
Tom Walker is one of three candidates (so far) running under the banner of the Work Less Party. “The ‘Rat Race’ is meant to highlight the ridiculous behaviour that people act out every day,” says Walker, a 56-year-old man with a grey beard and glasses. “The money that people work for isn’t buying them a better quality of life. You end up having to buy things to compensate for the life you’ve given up in the time you’ve spent working.”
Here’s the party’s basic platform:
In North America people have been working longer and longer hours, driven by the pressure to buy more things. If we choose to live simpler lives, less dependent on consumer goods, we can afford to live on less money and put in fewer hours at the office. The result is more time for family, hobbies and communities, and fewer consumer goods created, preserving our natural resources and reducing pollution.
[article continued in the print version of the April issue of/ BCBusiness.]