Everybody’s sleeping!

May 08, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

One of the things that I have always dreaded is attending the after-lunch sessions of a conference or seminar. I struggle to keep my eyes open during these sessions.
There is the tendency, especially if it is a government-arranged event, to have a sumptuous lunch. All manner of food is dangled in front of the participants at lunchtime.
And since it is free, most people over indulge, with the effect that their brain is forced to signal to their body to send extra blood to the stomach and abdomen to aid in the digestive process. The result is after-lunch drowsiness.
It takes an effort to keep your eyes open after one of those heavy meals. However, there are other problems. There are some persons who suffer from a condition that makes them drowsy not just after eating a heavy meal. Almost at any time they can doze off into a sleep.
Sleep experts have found a way to elevate these incidents. They now refer to it as a power nap; something that they say allows the body to be recharged.
My position, however, is that if I am paying you to work eight to ten hours, I am paying you to work and not sleep on the job. Do not come to me with talk about a power nap. Take your power nap at home, not on the job.
Furthermore, if you are the boss, you need to set the example. You cannot be sleeping on the job. Otherwise those working under you would want to do the same.
Everybody will demand his or her half-hour power nap. There are a lot of persons sleeping when they should be awake.
And it is not just taking place in offices. The television cameras in Guyana have caught persons dozing off in the most important institution of the land, parliament.
Now imagine, there are persons who have to make decisions about our lives and yet these persons during important deliberations are caught sleeping.
I had suggested some time before that parliament should be convened either in the morning or in the afternoons so that the effects of after-lunch drowsiness are less pronounced.
I have seen at exciting sporting events, people sleeping. I could not believe it. One day I was in a movie house and heard snoring next to me. When I looked around there was a guy who was snoring, leaving his female partner embarrassed.
It is truly an embarrassing thing to be caught sleeping on the job. One day a guy was caught by his boss sleeping.
When his boss tapped him on the shoulder and he opened his eyes sleepily he realized that he was in big trouble. He looked at his boss with a dry face and said, “Man, you had to disturb me while I was saying my prayers.”
As you get older your body needs more rest. Many of us do not realize this and therefore suffer the consequences.
Age catches up with all of us and therefore we need to know whether we can continue or what lifestyle changes we need to make so as to avoid sleeping on the job because no employer should tolerate staff sleeping on the job, none.
Ever since the advent of television a lot of persons have been up late at night watching various shows. They are depriving themselves of rest and this has led not only here in Guyana but in many countries of the world, to something that is medically known as sleep deprivation.
In my day people did not need to have all those cups of coffee at work to keep them alert. You went to bed early and your rose early. This is not happening as much as before.
I am sure that today if a survey was done, it will be discovered that most Guyanese are not getting out of their beds early.
And many of them are not getting sufficient sleep at nights with the result that they cannot function properly at work during the daytime.
Employers and the public that they serve are being short-changed when persons cannot function at their best because they are not getting enough rest.
Perhaps when persons are dismissed for sleeping on the job, the message will get through that work is made for activity, not rest.

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