Friday, April 25, 2014

"The Work Song Nanocluster"

"The Work Song Nanocluster" is the eighteenth episode of the second season of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The episode first aired on March 16, 2009.
It's what I thought of when I saw this at the Financial Times:

Yuppy Stakhanovites give work a bad name
What matters is not how hard we toil but what we have to show for it, writes Izabella Kaminska 
“A ‘super’ working class is emerging made up of well-educated rich people who work longer hours than the poor and who do not see leisure time as preferable to the office.”
The Daily Telegraph, April 21
 
The less you need to work, the more you end up working? 
So say Oxford university sociologists Jonathan Gershuny and Kimberly Fisher. In a recent paper, they conclude that people who have completed more education end up working a larger part of each day.

I’ve heard of champagne socialism. But what’s this – champagne Stakhanovism?
Guess you’re not keen on the idea of overtime yourself.
But, you know, there is such a thing as a workaholic.

Such people exist but surely they’re the exception. No friends. No family. Lonely. Unfulfilled.
 
Are you working now?

No. I’m having a coffee. 
 
Ah, but you’re reading the Financial Times.

And a fine read it is, too.
 
So you take pleasure from reading financial news? Even at the weekend?

Er, pass me the Life & Arts section. But, yes, I like to stay informed.

Why’s that?

Because it makes me better at my job.... 
...MUCH MORE
 
I had to look up Stakhanov.

Here's BBT Season 2-Episode 18:
Here's the transcript.

The song Penny and Sheldon are singing was named one of the 10 Manliest Sea Shanties by the Art of Manliness blog.
This is not Sheldon