Well, supermarket and even local shop are opened 7 days a week, sometimes 24 hours a day where I live.

The stuff that I never understood is the administration. Opened from 9:30 to 11:30 then from 15:30 to 16:30 on appointment only. ( Embassy for those wondering, although, recently, they have started to process most of the shit via email and scan )

In my home country when you have difficulties paying your electricity bill they install you a token meter. You need to buy those special token in 1 location of the city (200K inhabitants) in a 2 hours period in the middle of the afternoon 3 times a week ( not the week-end of course ).You need good planning skills to be poor.

> Who are they selling to on workdays anyway? Jobless people?

There are a whole lot of people in the world who's jobs are not "9-5" office jobs. Also on any given day there are a bunch of people who took the day off. And then there are the elderly, medical leave, etc.

The question is, how many of them are there compared to the typical "9-5" type which seems to compose the majority of western societies? And grocery stores are somewhat understandable, but who the hell goes to banks during workday, so that it makes sense for them to be open only Mon-Fri, 9-5?

The most important clients for a bank are businesses, not people, and businesses generally want to do their banking from 9-5.

Retirees, students, the unemployed and the travelling businessmen/self employed that have the ability to fit a couple of hours into the middle of a workday. People that work in retail/service jobs that don't necessarily work a generic Monday-Friday. Night workers. People at companies with flexi-hours.

That said, I'd love to balance my work with the ability to not stand in queues for shops because I can only go at the same time as the majority of other people. I do much of my food shopping as close to midnight as possible and buy most other things online to avoid the crowds.

Passed a certain (lowish) threshold of income, I'd almost universally rather less hours than more money.

I've tried grocery shopping at off hours, especially late night as you mentioned.

I was surprised to find the grocery effectively just as crowded, not by people but by re-stocking efforts. Lots of pallets left in the aisles with stock waiting to be put on a shelf.

The checkout lines are certainly shorter, though.

Right? I could rent a room and buy the things I wanted and had money to spare. I wasn't even making that much money. Why would I work many long days to no personal benefit?

Except maybe to save for my pension and/or buy luxury items and toys I don't need. Only if I had a significant other and offspring would it make sense to make more money.

I think this is actually a big reason for the ascendance of big-box stores, esp. Lowes and Home Depot, and auto parts chains like O'Reilly. It's not particularly that they offer lower prices or more selection, it's that they're open after 6 pm and on Sundays when the DIYers are DIYing. Mom and pop might not have had the resources to make the experiment to stay open late for long enough for people to internalize that they were open.

As a nine-to-fiver, it makes it hella easy to be frugal since I have to plan a half hour block of time a week in advance if I ever want to buy something in person. I do a lot more research and make sure I get the best price, and buy less stuff overall. Not so good for the shops though.

I feel that advantage goes away once you discover Amazon.

No worries there, I live in Canada. None of the good shit will ship here.

I intern three days a week right now. I love it because I spend the rest of the days self-learning and working on my projects as well as helping out my family. Unfortunately I think this current job will be the last time I am able to do this.

Um selling to people who don't work regular hours? There are plenty of people who work hours that are not Monday-Friday 9am-6pm, you know that, right?