[TulliusCicero]

Kind of have this in Germany, where many businesses are prohibited from being open on Sunday. For example, grocery stores can't be open unless they're at a central train station or airport.

In practice, to me it just feels really annoying and limiting. Means I basically have to plan any larger shopping trips for Saturday, even if that doesn't work well for my schedule. I get that they want to make sure workers have enough time off, but you could mandate days off for each worker without banning Sunday for everyone.

Not to mention that it being Sunday very obviously favors Christianity over other religions that might have a different holy day. The integration of church and state here turned out to be more than expected.

[sonnyblarney]

"In practice, to me it just feels really annoying and limiting."

As a Canadian who's spent time in Germany and France, I found it 'annoying' for about 3 months and then I got used to it. When I came back to Canada ... I found the noise and business to be crazy.

I've come to the conclusion that the 'annoyance' of limitation is better than the hustle and bustle of noise and business on Sunday and I prefer the Franco/Germanic model.

[antpls]

In Paris, some stores started to open on Sunday. I find it useful, and I now prefer when stores are open on Sunday.

You can buy anything on Internet on Sunday, electricity and water are available on Sunday, telecommunications are available on Sunday, our cars work on Sunday. If we use all those (for those of us who don't observe religious laws), it makes sense to keep going the entire economy 24h/7, IMHO. Automation may help to have 100% uptime availability on more services, but it is definitely better when things are available on Sundays too.

Not having to plan for a day to go shopping is a cognitive burden freed from our mind. However I agree we should use automation to achieve that level of reliability, rather than make people work on Sunday.

[avip]

As we live in a society, it makes sense to have a common day of rest - consider that schools, hospitals, public transit etc. are also resting. Plus your family and friends.

[Broken_Hippo]

Hospitals are certainly not resting. You might not have a scheduled procedure on the weekend, but those places certainly aren't resting. Public transport depends. Airports certainly aren't closing. Taxis still run. Some places will halt bus service, basically meaning poor folks cannot spend time with family on that day - other places don't halt much at all or simply have fewer buses. Gas stations are generally open. Emergency services are open and tow trucks are available. Many places have on-call HVAC folks available (for when heat breaks) and/or emergency plumbers/electricians. Utilities still have folks on-call to fix those. In some places, a pharmacy is open due to a hospital being nearby (mostly because the hospital won't really give out prescriptions).

"A common day of rest" depends on a portion of society doing their jobs on that day of rest, not to mention the ability to do the stuff they need to do the rest of the week.

I don't even think it makes sense to have a common day of rest - perhaps save a few (3-4) holidays a year. I don't see the issue with someone wanting to not miss work for the doctor and go on Sunday afternoon instead. Nor should it be odd for a family to get together on a Wednesday afternoon. Just make sure folks have the flexibility to do these things. The individual should definitely get days off, but that doesn't mean society should stop one day a week.

[TulliusCicero]

> consider that schools, hospitals, public transit etc. are also resting.

Pretty sure two out of three of those aren't really resting. You think hospitals stop working or trains stop running?

> it makes sense to have a common day of rest

Eh, nah. I'm mostly a social democrat, and I'd be all for better worker protections in general in the US, but I haven't heard any socialists or labor advocates pushing for "oh yeah, let's pick one day and force everyone to have it off". If nothing else, in the US this would be seen as a pretty gross abrogation of separation of church and state to make it Sunday (and every other day of the week would be even less practical).

People should absolutely have time off, but I think being more flexible is generally preferable.

[canadaduane]

There was a study 4 years ago regarding weekends--specifically, why do the unemployed also experience greater emotional well-being on Saturdays and Sundays, if they have basically free time any day of the week? It turned out that having a designated day (or days) for time off is a "network good"--felt by the entire network because it allows for more coordinated time together, all things considered.

"Increasingly, however, people are looking for individual time off when it is individually convenient. But personal flexibility can be a double-edged sword, the researchers found.

"Time flexibility is good for an individual, but it is bad for groups," Young said. "To make the most of modern life, we should search for temporal coordination – to work at the same times, and have time off together."

https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/february/time-value-jobl...

[wnissen]

I heard an advocate for the sabbath who was an observant jew but felt that in the US we should protect Sunday, essentially for this reason.

[sonnyblarney]

"If nothing else, in the US this would be seen as a pretty gross abrogation of separation of church and state to make it Sunday"

No. It's as cultural as it is religious, and there are 0 'Social Democrats' against the notion of Sundays off on religious grounds.

"People should absolutely have time off, but I think being more flexible is generally preferable."

And no, there is generally no movement for this nor will there be.

The last thing we need is everything happening 24/7/365.

[TulliusCicero]

> No. It's as cultural as it is religious, and there are 0 'Social Democrats' against the notion of Sundays off on religious grounds.

Totally, utterly wrong. If you tried to mandate Sundays off anywhere in the US, the entirety of the left would oppose it. If you don't realize this, you may not know much about US politics. The left there is very concerned about any signs of state-sponsored religious favoritism, and this would very obviously qualify.

[kwhitefoot]

> You think hospitals stop working

Here in Norway that is exactly what happens. Those who do not need round the clock treatment or monitoring go home for the weekend and the hospital runs with a very much reduced staff. I know this from painful first hand experience over the last three years and it works very well.

[TulliusCicero]

> I know this from painful first hand experience over the last three years and it works very well.

??

It's painful but works very well?

[kwhitefoot]

Sorry, I expressed my meaning carelessly. The experience was painful because of the reason that I have the experience. Not because of the going home at the weekend feature.

[avip]

I guess it depends. In Israel all public transportation shuts down (annoyingly so for many), and hospitals are only doing emergency procedures. London's underground also has reduced operation on Sunday. Likewise in many other EU cities. It's not something unheard of.

[craftyguy]

Teachers definitely do not rest during the weekends, they're preparing lesson plans, grading papers, etc.

[yoz-y]

We have the same thing in France with some weird exception for Paris. I was really glad when I moved to paris and could finally found a shop open at a time when it suited actually employed people.

I strongly believe that people's work times should be as desynchronised as possible which would not only make it easier for everybody to handle administrative stuff without having to take off-time from work, but would also help reducing congestion.

[sonnyblarney]

I find this position to be woefully lacking in cultural perspective.

What is it about we Engineers that we want to put everything in such mechanical terms, like 'handling admin' and 'congestion'?

There are considerable advantages in having most people off on the same time, not the least of bit the inherent deeper relaxation of knowing the rest of the world is off. It's completely another experience when everyone else is down, than when 'just you' are down.

I think a better solution to 'handling administrative stuff' would be to have days for this, and for some things to maybe be open a little later/earlier.

And if congestion is a problem with people on normal hours than this has to be dealt with.

I have this terrible feeling that if we let the cultural secularists at it, we'll all be waking and sleeping at different times, and everything will be 24/7 - after all, 'hey minimal congestion if 1/4 of us are rising at 11pm and going to bed at 2pm!'. Consider the great opportunity for GDP growth!

I think it might be a lifestyle thing ... from 18-34 I too would have felt limited with everything closed Sundays, but now I prefer it. Ironically it was living in France (outside Paris) that made me a 'believer'. It changed my whole view of living.

[yoz-y]

Although our positions differ, one point we might agree on is that the current situation is not good at all.

What I see is a three hour congestion in front of my appartement in the morning and a four hour one in the evening. People easily spend 2 hours trying to move about 4 kilometres.

Then you have the admninistration. If you come as late as 15 minutes after opening time, you better have a very flexible work time or have taken a half day off because you will be waiting for at least an hour or two.

I don’t think that opening “a little” sooner or later would help. They need to either be open when people can get there or eliminate the reasons why people need to be there in the first place.

[devdas]

> It's completely another experience when everyone else is down, than when 'just you' are down.

It's stressful and not relaxing.

[sonnyblarney]

You definitely have a right to your feeling, but I don't know a single person who reacts this way. I really do feel that in generally, overwhelmingly, most people relax better when everything is 'off'.

[foepys]

Supermarkets are open from 7am to 10pm Monday-Saturday even in small cities. When you can't plan your week around this, you have other problems that won't be solved by abolishing Sunday laws.

If you are living in a small town, you can always move to a bigger city at any time to get the benefits of longer opening hours.

[TulliusCicero]

I live in Munich. Here the stores close at 8.

> When you can't plan your week around this, you have other problems that won't be solved by abolishing Sunday laws.

Oh look, we got a logistical badass over here. Because you never ever need or want anything spur of the moment on a Sunday, right?

Look, it's not an enormous deal. But it does kind of suck. It's a decent sized decrease to convenience and a slight decrease to overall quality of life. Convenience is nice.

> If you are living in a small town, you can always move to a bigger city at any time to get the benefits of longer opening hours.

...Munich is the third largest city in the country. And I can't really just move, not a ton of Google-level jobs around. You sound like US conservatives: "don't like [insanely regressive policy]?? Why not just leave the country?!" Maybe because even if I don't like something, there's more than a single variable that I use to determine where I live?

[foepys]

While you want something "spur of the moment on a Sunday" others are happy to have a day off where almost all their friends and family do, too.

You are thinking very egoistically. Maybe try working shifts for half a year with only getting to know the schedule 2 weeks before, before you demand that everybody should jump to serve you. Or try to raise a child that has school Mon-Fri while you have to work Sat and Sun from 1pm to 10pm.

Berlin has supermarkets open sometimes even beginning from 6am, and a lot of "Kiosks". It also has a huge demand for programmers and other IT specialists. There is little reason not to move there if being able to buy whatever you like on a Sunday is so important for you. The rent is a lot cheaper, too. If Berlin is not enough, there is also Hamburg with offices from Adobe, Microsoft, Google, etc.

[dubbel]

> I get that they want to make sure workers have enough time off, but you could mandate days off for each worker without banning Sunday for everyone.

It is not about individual working hours. Those are restricted by other laws.

It is about having the same hours off as (most of) your family and friends, so you can spend time with them.

[bnjms]

And what if your family and friends are Jewish or of a 7th-day protestant church? Banning Sunday work causes unnessecary difficulties at the state level. It. I feel it is positive as a societal norm but I myself recognize Saturday as the Sabbath and find it bizzare that protestants maintained the Sunday practice after leaving the Catholic church.

[refurb]

Interestingly, I can remember back to my youth in Canada there being a huge uproar about this exact thing. Laws existed that forbid stores from opening on Sunday. Some stores opened anyways and were fined. Eventually the law changed in the late 1980s.

[briandear]

In the US, those were called “Blue Laws.”

[noja]

Are you German?

If not, what do the Germans think of this?

[TulliusCicero]

Nope, just moved here a couple years ago from the states.

Most people I know here seem to think it's annoying, but I work at Google, so we got people from all over, I don't think Germans are even a majority of the devs.

edit: apparently 61% of Germans think stores should be able to decide themselves whether to open on Sundays: http://m.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/einzelhandel-mehrheit...

[detaro]

I'd be curious if and how those numbers change when it is instead "companies should be able to decide themselves if they are open on Sundays".

Anecdotally, that question complicates it for quite a few people, despite probably being the fairer change.

[blattimwind]

It's of course great when people work for you on your day off. Unsurprising, though markedly short-sighted.

[TulliusCicero]

If you're working weekends and your days off are on weekdays, this principle still holds true: stores are still available for you. So I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

[devdas]

I would be far happier working on weekends, and having my weekend in the middle of the week.

[blattimwind]

> If not, what do the Germans think of this?

I am a certified German and most people very much enjoy the six day week (de-facto five day week if you're in an office or unionized), though some people inexplicably want to do "sunday shopping".

Sunday having a protected status is actually part of the Grundgesetz (~constitution).

[TulliusCicero]

I mean, I just posted a poll that says a majority would prefer businesses get to decide, so perhaps not as much agreement with you as you think?

[blattimwind]

You did not. You posted a poll asking "Hey, would you like to go shopping on sundays?", which for the huge majority of people is a different question from "Hey, would you like to work on sundays?".