Grab Your Pillow and Give Work a Rest

One day, many years from now, my great-grandchildren will sit at my titanium knees clamoring to hear once again my chilling tales of life in the turn-of-the-century workplace.

“That’s right, kids,” I’ll tell them. “All day long, we had to sit on ergonomically correct chairs inside little sawed-off boxes and stare at computer screens that were bombarding us with e-mail jokes and intelligence-sapping silicon rays. . . . “

“Oh, Gramps,” they’ll cry, “how horrible!”

As a grave aura settles on my brow like a toxic fog, I’ll lean down and deliver the coup de grace: “Worst of all, my sweet ones: In that benighted time, there was no sleeping on the job. NO NAPS ALLOWED!”

Decades from now, they’ll hardly believe it. Sleep will be seen as something good, instead of a waste of valuable time that could otherwise have been spent fretting at our desks. But judging from a report released this week by the National Sleep Foundation, that won’t happen soon.

A nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C., the National Sleep Foundation is a big friend of voluntary unconsciousness. It collects data on sleep. It offers advice to companies that want to educate their employees on the value of a good eight hours nightly. It recognizes pro-sleep government agencies--the Edina, Minn., school board for starting high school later in the morning, the Albuquerque Police Department for its programs to reduce officer fatigue.

As in years past, the foundation conducted a poll on the sleep habits of Americans.

We’re tired, it turns out.

We’re very, very tired.

We’re getting an average of six hours, 53 minutes of sleep each night of the workweek--something like 15% less than the magical eight we are said to need. We’re working more hours. We’re having less sex; people in the Midwest score lowest in this category, according to the poll.

And what little sleep we’re getting verges toward chaos, interrupted by incessant snoring, snuffling, and the harsh, random kicks of Restless Legs Syndrome. All in all, you’d get more rest at a cattle auction than in the average American bed.

No wonder we’re cranky.

“We’re living in a 24/7 world,” ruefully noted Marcia Stein, the National Sleep Foundation’s spokeswoman. “The more we can cram in, the better.”

Yet a substantial number of workers in the 24/7 world spend a good part of their workweek in a semi-wakeful haze.

For instance, more than one in four government workers say they “occasionally or frequently” make errors because they’re sleepy, according to the poll.

One in four fighter pilots? Teachers? Physicians? Senators? Cabinet members? A reasonable person can have only one reaction to such alarming figures: Mandatory nap time.

Incredibly, 16% of the people who answered the sleep poll reported that their employers encourage napping on the job.

We all should have such employers.

If I were to tell an editor I can’t write because I’m too sleepy, I’d be showered with benign indifference, much as if I’d said: “You know, my sister has no middle name.”

But these folks don’t get much sleep themselves.

My modest proposal: Employers should provide sleeping mats and blankies for all employees.

Much of the world has practiced the siesta for centuries. But in the U.S., we’ve been too stern, puritanical and grimly productive for such a humane custom. Perhaps it might help us get into the spirit if we think of ourselves as Baja North.

At 3 p.m., the lights and phones will go down. At 3:30, they’ll come back up, as refreshed employees rub the sleepy-dust from their eyes, sip from half-pints of orange juice and eat cookies.

Production will soar and worry will ebb.

The energy crisis? Imagine how many kilowatts will be saved when millions of employees are curled up in silent, darkened offices for their 30-minute naps.

Road rage? What well-rested person would think of taking off someone’s head over a bad lane change?

The plunging economy? Wake us when it’s over.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at steve.chawkins@latimes.com or 653-7561.