According to a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune - which I cannot link to because they expect payment to access their archives…the fuckers – on-the-job drowsiness costs American companies $18 billion per year in productivity, the costs of which could be recovered by allowing as small as a 30 minute nap during the work day.

30 minutes a day = $18 billion dollars of extra money in our economy. Sounds pretty good to me.

In fact, I think companies should take things a step further. Forget the measly 30 minute nap. Forget the lousy $18 billion. What companies should do is let employees sleep all day on the job. For the average, full-time, 8-hour day that would be an increase in productivity of $288 billion dollars. That's an extra $288 billion per year pumped into our economy.

The companies could even be patriotic about their new wealth and give half of it to the federal government for the war in Iraq - the government could make a big campaign out of it. They could show commercials of people sleeping in hammocks set up in cubicles and factory floors all around the nation. Slogans like "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You But How Much Sleep You Can Get For Your Country" or "Uncle Sam Needs You...To Sleep" or "If You Love Your Country You'll Sleep On The Job" would signal this new era in patriotism.

Sure, people would still brag about putting in 10, 12, and 15 hour days but they would be doing it in their hammocks.

When people got off work, they would be ready to hit the town and spend their new wealth, and they wouldn't need to stop going out and having fun and spending money until they returned to work the next day, ready for a good, hard day's sleep. All the spending would further spur the economy to hitherto unattainable heights.

The only problem I can see with all this is waking people up for lunch. Whole new industries would have to be created in order to deal with the morning mouth, bed head, and general crankiness of waking up. The silver lining in this, however, again, would be these new industries providing new jobs and even further stimulating an already orgasmic economy.

Sleeping on the job is the right thing to do.

Sleeping on the job…do it for America.

Wilhelm has a desk job where he sleeps four hours of his day and collects his drool in a cup.

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