For most of human existence, the pace and intensity of productivity varied widely from season to season.
Following the development of agriculture around 10,000 B.C.E., the relationship between work and the seasons became even more structured, with predictably busy planting and harvesting seasons interleaved with predictably quiet winters.
This led to a conception of work as something that should occur at the fullest possible intensity, without variation, throughout the year.
When knowledge work arose as a major economic sector in the 20th century — the term “knowledge work” itself was coined in 1959 — it borrowed this approach from manufacturing, which was the dominant economic force of the time.
Office buildings became invisible factories, with members of this growing class of workers metaphorically clocking in for eight-hour shifts, week after week, month after month, attempting to transform their mental capacities into valuable output with the same regularity as an assembly-line worker churning out automobiles.
Persons:
sapiens