Modern Convenience
"Connor, why are you wearing a dirty shirt?"
"It not dirty. It clean."
Clothes here go into the washing machine and come out nominally cleaner. The dryer can handle 2 pairs of jeans at a time, no more. The oven barely holds my pizza stone and won't hold the pan I use for roasting chicken. I haven't had an ice cube at home in months because the freezer isn't large enough to hold the necessities, never mind a luxury like an ice cube tray.
It's easy to be dismissive of modern conveniences in the United States, probably because we've taken convenience and, like we do with most things, turned it to excess and used it to feed our hyper-speed lifestyles. No one really needs their dryer to come in the choice of white, black, candy apple red, glacier blue, hunter green, etc. etc. The 'gourmet kitchen' is laughable in a country (and among a class) where people dine out more than they eat in. (And besides, how did a kitchen with appliances more suited to a barracks, hospital, or fraternity house become 'gourmet'?)
Among middle class Americans, the industrial size washer and dryer are a necessity because who has time to do laundry? We eat out because we don't have time to cook. Convenience isn't about making things easier, it's about survival. When you're working 50 hours per week, shuttling the kids back and forth to school (and god knows what else), commuting hours on end each week, you don't have the luxury of time to hang your laundry out on the line--and god forbid it rains, because you certainly don't have time to watch your laundry dry.
Again and again during my time here, which was in part about seeing how people someplace else live, I've thought 'There has got to be something between X (the way Kiwis seem to do it) and Y (the way Americans do it).' For instance, there has to be a middle path between a culture that seems to find it acceptable to not return phone calls or follow up on commitments and one that demands everything "now".
The American lifestyle is a choice, albeit one that is easy to get sucked into and hard to get out of. But I can't help thinking that there's got to be something between the American way of using technology to enable an unhealthy lifestyle and the NZ way of simply making do.
What's especially troubling (I know--I'm using words like 'troubling' and 'disturbing' quite a lot lately) is that there's been a lot of talk here lately about work/life balance, as recent studies have shown longer and longer working hours (but productivity that is remaining stagnant). Kiwis want to be able to maintain the 'laid back lifestyle' they are famous for, but at the same time what good is all the leisure time if you have to wear a dirty shirt?
"It not dirty. It clean."
Clothes here go into the washing machine and come out nominally cleaner. The dryer can handle 2 pairs of jeans at a time, no more. The oven barely holds my pizza stone and won't hold the pan I use for roasting chicken. I haven't had an ice cube at home in months because the freezer isn't large enough to hold the necessities, never mind a luxury like an ice cube tray.
It's easy to be dismissive of modern conveniences in the United States, probably because we've taken convenience and, like we do with most things, turned it to excess and used it to feed our hyper-speed lifestyles. No one really needs their dryer to come in the choice of white, black, candy apple red, glacier blue, hunter green, etc. etc. The 'gourmet kitchen' is laughable in a country (and among a class) where people dine out more than they eat in. (And besides, how did a kitchen with appliances more suited to a barracks, hospital, or fraternity house become 'gourmet'?)
Among middle class Americans, the industrial size washer and dryer are a necessity because who has time to do laundry? We eat out because we don't have time to cook. Convenience isn't about making things easier, it's about survival. When you're working 50 hours per week, shuttling the kids back and forth to school (and god knows what else), commuting hours on end each week, you don't have the luxury of time to hang your laundry out on the line--and god forbid it rains, because you certainly don't have time to watch your laundry dry.
Again and again during my time here, which was in part about seeing how people someplace else live, I've thought 'There has got to be something between X (the way Kiwis seem to do it) and Y (the way Americans do it).' For instance, there has to be a middle path between a culture that seems to find it acceptable to not return phone calls or follow up on commitments and one that demands everything "now".
The American lifestyle is a choice, albeit one that is easy to get sucked into and hard to get out of. But I can't help thinking that there's got to be something between the American way of using technology to enable an unhealthy lifestyle and the NZ way of simply making do.
What's especially troubling (I know--I'm using words like 'troubling' and 'disturbing' quite a lot lately) is that there's been a lot of talk here lately about work/life balance, as recent studies have shown longer and longer working hours (but productivity that is remaining stagnant). Kiwis want to be able to maintain the 'laid back lifestyle' they are famous for, but at the same time what good is all the leisure time if you have to wear a dirty shirt?
posted by Jon A at
8:18 AM
1 Comments:
I do my laundry at work.
Does that mean it's only a matter of time til I start sleeping under my desk?
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