It is 24/7/52 not 24/7/365
March 11th, 2006
Every Era has its’ own form of toughness and performance. The Agricultural Age had farmers bragging about being up before dawn, taking care of all the animals and tilling acres of land in a day. The Industrial Age had workers talking about how many overtime hours they worked at the factory. The Information Age is developing its’ own form of ‘talking tough’.
The Internet culture has spawned a new form of macho. Along with the power bragging about needing only 4 hours sleep there is the overused phrease “24/7”. Obviously this phrase came into being during the Internet 1.0 era when it created the “always on” era.
“Our tech support line is 24/7”
“We are available 24/7”
“On-line business is 24/7”
“Our corporate culture is 24/7”
“I am connected 24/7”
“I work 24/7”
Ok, ok, I got it. Your company is fast, adaptable, is always available and you can live on no sleep. Cyber Superman! This is the new hip caffeinated version of macho.
I can live with 24/7 as an occasionally used phrase. I cannot live with 24/7/365.
Write it out: twenty-four hours a day/seven days a week/three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
What? There is a choice here. Either
twenty-four hours a day/three hundred sixty-five days a year – 24/365 or
Twenty-four hours a day/seven days a week/fifty-two weeks a year – 24/7/52
Pick one: 24/365 or 24/7/52 or just stay with 24/7 when beating your chest. But that is what is sounds like, Internet Age chimpanzees thumping their chests as they rapidly say “24/7” “24/7″ 24/7”
OK, rant over, thank you!Š
August 25th, 2010 at 2:14 am
Exactly what I feel and was always asking. 24/7/365 seems so illogical – it does not form logical series like 24/365 or 24/7/52.
Actually, I recently raised this query on one of my forums – http://www.IOHO.net. Please go have a look. Thanks. And I just quoted this post of yours there.
BTW, I have a few 24365 and 24752 domains.
August 25th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I totally agree with you. 24/7/52 is a logical sequence while 24/7/365 is not.
This is genuine appreciation of your post and not a spam comment. My previous comment was not published. I even quoted you on my forum.
June 29th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
I was saying this to my mum the other day when she said ’24/7/365′ and she just told me to shut up so I just wanted to say I completely agree with you.
June 15th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Thank you. Finally! Since “24/7/365” became the new “24/7” empty cliche, I’ve been wondering if I’m the only one who’s been bothered by it’s redundancy. Although, in defense of those who resort to such illegitimate claims of awesomeness, “24/7/365” sounds way more impressive than “24/7/52”. It has more numbers in it. The latter actually sounds awkward compared to the former. 24/7/365 sounds balanced; 4 syllables in the ‘twentyfourseven’ part and 4 syllables in the ‘threesixtyfive’ part.
In terms of legitimacy, or lack thereof, of the claim “24/7″, (i’ll ignore the 365 part for now), I’d be impressed if an individual could back up the claim. Taking a ” Cyber Superman” wannabe as an example, I’d want to be there at about the 6th hour after the first 24 of the promised 7 to watch “CS” enter “ggggkbi6666ttitt5i5gjl55hj77yynbnblrjr5j5” with ones forehead on the keyboard. I’d be impressed if a person is able to back up the claim 24/3 (twenty-four hours a day, three days a week). Frankly I’d impress myself if I could deliver 8/5 (I’m disabled now and was a government worker before so I have yet to impress myself). Certain businesses and service agencies can back up the 24/7 claim and I am grateful. If by chance I was viciously attacked by psycho blog stalker offended by my blogs who found out where I live and pummeled me with a wireless keyboard, I would hate to hear on my phone “9-1-1. State your emergency…at the beep. Our hours of business are eight a m to five p m local time. As we are not funded enough and we generally don’t care enough to offer twenty-four seven three sixty five service (as we are also closed for business on all national, civic, religious and personal wellness holidays), we cannot get to your emergency until our next in-business hour. If you still have an emergency, press 1 to redirect to a list of nearby religious organizations. They tend to care and want to be helpful. Thank you.”
I actually feel sorry for weeks. Seconds, minutes, hours, days months and years seem to get the glory. Weeks are like their ugly, awkward, embarrassing cousin. You hear sixty seconds in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, we all know and accept there’s 30, 31, 28 or 29 days in a month, 12 months in a year. Poor weeks tend to get ignored maybe because it’s awkward to state the number of weeks in a month. Even though days in a month are variable, weeks in a month come out as a fraction and 2 versions of a fraction. There’s either 52.142857142857142857… weeks in a year or 52.26571428571428571428… in a leap year. Fractions/decimals tend to freak people out. Maybe this is why people subliminally refuse to adopt the 24/7/52 progression: it’s ugly and it’s mother dresses it funny. It’s actually not accurate.
Speaking of accuracy, 24/7/365 is not accurate either. In the Julian calendar, which we use, it should be 365.25, but it’s a fraction…freak. If I had a business and I was holding interviews for employees and an applicant promised my company 24/7/365 dedication, I’d reply “So you’re saying every four years you plan to take 24 hours off? Or do you plan to take 6 hours off every year? Sorry, I’m looking for somebody completely dedicated. I can’t hire you.” I’d then probably get a comeback like promising to give 110%. I’d reply “Everybody gives 110% these days; actually, 120% is the new ‘110%’ and that’s almost obsolete. 110% was the beta version. My security guard downstairs gives 110%. He stares at 6 camera screens all day and night and pushes a door lock button occasionally and doesn’t do much else.” Just to be fair, I’d offer him a chance to prove himself (I use “him” since I tend to hear the declaration come from men mostly; woman tend not to declare the claim, they just do it – no, I’m not a woman, if your thinking that). I’d put him in front of a computer, put him to work. When I see “…ggggkbi6666ttitt5i5gjl55hj77yynbnblrjr5j5…” on the monitor probably early the second day, I’d wake him up then fire him. I would give him a bit of positive feedback by telling him his forehead on the keyboard gave 110% for the whole half hour it was there…
Quickly moving away from the “110%” issue before my monkey brain gets going on this one…
As a bit of a side note, a guy I know awhile back started ‘mimicking” 24/7 like a parrot for almost anything. He said it about 20 – 30 times a day even when it didn’t make sense. I think he’s the “week” of the family (like above – ugly, awkward, embarrassing). I finally asked him if he knew what it meant. Not a clue. He thought it was a code for something really cool since other people used it but had no idea what it meant. Knowing he was generally out of his depth in a parking lot puddle or likewise his gate’s down, the lights are flashing but his train ain’t coming, I told him what it meant. He was surprised. He said that it was a stupid saying and that nobody can do something 24 hours a day for a week. ” They’d miss Wheel of Fortune every day “. he then added. He stopped using the saying…mostly because he was afraid of missing “Wheel..” if he was forced to back up his statements. He demonstrated a degree of intelligence over and above those who throw around the saying like confetti. I can’t think of anything someone can do 24/7 for at least the first week. I know I’ve tried to do this with one task: not thinking of anything whatsoever. Try it – get comfortable, turn off all media equipment and try to not think of anything (thinking of nothing is thinking of something: nothing). I’d anticipate most can’t get passed 10 seconds. Since I’m generally in a self-induced coma most of the time, I can achieve much, much longer periods of nothingness…
So personally, I can tolerate 24/7, no matter how inane and meaningless it has become. It’s about as meaningless and cliched as a professional athletes’ answers in an interview. I will applaud 24/7/52, no matter how numerically inaccurate it is. I will not tolerate 24/7/365. Every time I hear it in person, I will respond “don’t you really mean ’24/7/52.142857142857142857…’ (if it’s not a leap year; otherwise I’ll insert the extra “…2657). If he insists on 24/7/365, I’ll reach into my pocket change and give him a specific coin. When he asks about it I’ll tell him ” You’re short a quarter”.
Thanks again for offering up this long awaited topic. I’m a ‘blogarasite’ (blog parasite): I don’t have my own blog site; I just latch onto other sites and infect it with long, draining excerpts from my ‘ANALs of ANALogy’.
P.S. I know combining the word “infect” with a computer is sort of like saying “bomb” on an airliner, but don’t worry, my typing digits (all 10 of them, really) have little condoms on them (not really, but you’ll never know for sure (the ‘condoms’, not the ‘infect’)).
April 26th, 2013 at 5:18 am
thank you. this has been pissing me off for years.
when people say 24/7/365 i just calmly ask them what in particular is so significant about this seven year period to which they refer.
“wow. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 weeks every 7 years? that’s a lot of uptime.. but what’s happening in 7 years? this some doomsday prediction?”
24/7/52, 24/365, 24/7 ok
24/7/365 and i want to grab someone by the back of their neck and slam their face straight down into the nearest piece of furniture.
July 1st, 2013 at 6:43 pm
24/7/52 is less accurate than 24/7/365. With seven days in a week, that adds up to 364 days, so you miss an entire day. We’re talking about always being on duty or being available after all, aren’t we?
Yes, there is a leap year every four years where you have to be on duty an extra day, but in the other three years, there are only 365 days — not 365.25. If you’re going to argue that 24/7/365 is wrong because the last number should be 365.25, then 24/7/52 is more inaccurate because it misses the mark by 1.25 days a year — not .25.
I don’t really care if somebody wants to use 24/7/52 because they think that weeks are next in the sequence after hours and days. It’s not something that’s going to bother me as long as they take a laissez-fair approach with what others prefer to do.
However, to argue that 24/7/52 is right and 24/7/365 is wrong is patently absurd.
I know that I am the only person who has taken a different view from you, David, but I’ve never let that bother me.
As Mark Twain once wisely suggested: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”