How Did the Clock Become Your Boss?

It's Sunday, Dev has nothing to do, and he feels guilty about it. Why? For most of history, people worked until the task was done: the tide, the harvest, a rice-cooking. Then came monks with bells, clocks on towers, factories that bought hours (and sometimes cheated on them), railways that forced whole countries onto one time, the punch clock, the stopwatch, the eight-hour day... and the phone in your pocket. Plus the 2014 experiment where people chose an electric shock over fifteen minutes alone with their thoughts. When did time stop being something we lived, and become something we owed? 00:00 Guilty Sunday 00:32 Task time 01:12 Monks and bells 01:47 The boss buys hours 02:42 Railway time 03:35 Punch in 04:09 Fighting back 04:34 The boss in your pocket 04:55 Doing nothing 05:27 The ending Sources: E. P. Thompson (1967), Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism, Past & Present 38: http://tems.umn.edu/pdf/EPThompson-Pa... James Myles (1850), Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy (quoted by Thompson): https://libcom.org/article/time-work-... The Rule of Saint Benedict (the Divine Office): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedic... Turret clocks and the first mechanical clocks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turret_... Railway time (Great Western Railway, 1840): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway... Library of Congress, The Day of Two Noons: https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-... Royal Museums Greenwich, Greenwich Mean Time: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/time/gr... Bundy Manufacturing Company (time recorder, 1888): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundy_M... Scientific management (Frederick Taylor): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scienti... Eight-hour day movement (Robert Owen, 1817): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-h... Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_La... Library of Congress, Whose Time is it Anyway? (Standard Time Act of 1918): https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2024/11/who... Wilson et al. (2014), Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind, Science 345: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Dev is a fictional guide. Thompson's account of "time discipline" is influential and also debated by historians. Credits: Music: "Carefree" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Thatched Villagers" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Dreamy Flashback" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Investigations" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Bumbly March" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Sneaky Snitch" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Cheery Monday" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Local Forecast - Elevator" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Deliberate Thought" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Music: "Clean Soul" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Additional sounds: Joseph SARDIN - BigSoundBank.com