Not a very long time ago, people avoided working at night because they didn’t have enough light. But for those who did have to work at night, they had to make do with whatever source of light they had.
Up to the early 20th century, people had little in the way of light after dusk. Night was very dark just about everywhere. Farmers had to be back from the fields and shops closed before dusk. Travellers raced to the nearest inns as soon as the sun set.
But even without sunlight, people still had jobs to do. Farmers woke hours before sunrise to prepare their stuff, livestock, and equipment before heading out to the fields. Shop owners cleaned their stores and wares before they opened. Accountants recorded the past day’s sales & expenses to keep their clients’ books up to date.
And because there was work to be done at night, people used candles and oil lamps to get whatever light they could.
Candles and oil for lamps weren’t simple to source. In ancient times, people milled olive oil from olive trees which were readily available. By the 19th century, sailing shipping crews harpooned whales to harvest their blubber into lamp oil. Candle makers made their products also from whale oil, although they later used vegetable oil. Oil and candles were commodities that therefore depended on supply chains beginning from whales and agricultural crops which then passed through manufacturers and middlemen before reaching town markets.
The people who worked at night would buy the oil from their local markets and fill their lamps with it. But the light provided was just so much for people to see their way around or read.
Candle light and lamps brought limited illumination in the darkness. If people had to work at night, it was because they had to out of necessity of their profession. People would either admire or scorn those who burned the midnight oil, either praising them for their diligence or criticising them for what they judged as demeaning work. The people who worked after dark were either seen in a good or bad light (pun intended).
With the availability of almost unlimited electricity at the onset of the 20th century, our cities and country-sides had become very much brightly lit. We can work and travel anytime, day or night, with the confidence we’d have more than enough illumination.
But for those of us who work day jobs, we frown on the prospect of working at night. We’d rather not work swing or graveyard shifts. We avoid bringing work home to toil after sunset. We limit our overtime so we can be home right after sunset.
So-called time management gurus tell us we should not work beyond our eight-hour day. We should pursue a work-life balance in which we limit our professional work from sunrise to sunset and spend time with families and ourselves in evenings and weekends. Burning the midnight oil is a no-no.
Day jobs, however, do not dominate the realities of present-day industries.
Many of us burn the midnight oil just as much, if not more so today, than ever. Work does not depend on sunlight but on demand, which has grown exponentially, given the modern-day complexities of products & services, not to mention the almost countless market niches established. There are jobs and activities that must go on whether it be day or night.
Farmers still wake up before sunrise to prepare their equipment and livestock before going out to the fields.
Shop owners still clean their wares and store spaces after they close and before they open. Many close long after sunset and some like market stalls open hours before sunrise. There are e-commerce workers sell and deliver 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Innkeepers & hotel staff work the shifts to welcome guests who arrive around the clock.
Accountants key in their data into their computers to beat deadlines for their clients.
There are also the truck drivers, fishermen (and -women), oceangoing vessel crews, power plant personnel, night shift factory workers, business process outsourcing employees (e.g., call centre staff), and many others, who work day and night, weekdays to weekends, holidays included.
Work-life balance may be a nice pursuit for those whose careers allow them to work in the daytime and rest in the evenings, plus weekends. It is, however, a myth for those whose jobs require their presence independent of what time or what day it is.
Burning the midnight oil may have been an exception once thanks to limits of light sources; it is more of a rule for many of us who work in the 21st century with almost unlimited illumination.
Many who preach work-life balance don’t understand what real work-life is.
Ellery's Essays 