Hi y'all - I take one quote from this long article and I state that I don't agree with it. " Healthy living requires healthy working" IMHO Healthy living requires no "work" at all!
On Dec 17, 7:11 am, Morpheal <[email protected]> wrote: > WHAT MAKES THE AMERICAN WORK WEEK GO ON FOREVER ? > > Recently Europe has moved towards reduction of the work week. Britain > has begun to debate whether to opt out or in. In North America, under > American influence, work weeks have statistically gotten longer and > longer, even during recessionary periods. In some instances work weeks > are longer during recessionary periods, providing fewer jobs than > would otherwise have been the case, worsening recession. There is a > clear trend in that regard. > > There is really no real need, when adequate planning is involved, for > anyone to work excessive hours. What are the factors that lead to > longer work weeks ? What really makes the American work week go on > forever, and ever ? And why do some American and American influenced > companies frown on workers wanting time off, not working long overtime > hours, to the extent of claiming that the worker’s “vocation is your > vacation” ? Vacation time, holiday time, and reduced working hours > have largely become heretical issues in the American religion of work > for work’s sake. To even mention such matters is to risk being > psychologically tortured and thrown in the fire. A significant portion > of workers never see real paid vacations, statutory paid holidays, and > quite a significant number have no hope of a retirement pension. There > are always those heroic examples of 80 plus year old “long term > employees” still “faithfully”on the job. > > What then are the dysfunctional causes of longer and longer work > weeks, and in some regards longer and longer working lives ? Not that > we can change all of them in the immediate, but over a longer period > of time there are options, as the world moves away from the “infinite > production for infinite markets” paradigm of economic activity, and > also away from the paradigm of “need is created” mode of unlimited > market opportunity salesmanship. The world of work will have to change > as the society changes, and as the economy changes. Work will have to > be more shared, restructured, redefined, and given a more balanced > value within the socio-psychological context of human lives. Healthy > living requires healthy working and that is not as common today as we > might have expected. > > 1). Poor planning. Failure to plan far enough ahead. Lack of foresight > as to problems. Excessively rushed schedules. Stockpiling excessive > inventories of product. Shortages from poor inventory planning and > inadequate forecasting of demand. > > 2). Poorly trained, inefficient workers who take far longer to do > tasks than it should take for a properly trained person. This > includes an epidemic of bad, undisciplined, work habits. Self > discipline, and proper attention, is not well taught in education > today, so no wonder there are serious shortcomings. > > 3). Production for the sake of production. as an absolute value, is a > problem. There are always instances of producing more, and working > longer, simply to produce more, without real need. Doing unnecessary > work is epidemic in some organizations. No one really needs it. No one > really wants it. However, it is part of the culture and there is > always opportunity to do more of the unnecessary. > > 4). Corporate cultures that encourage killing time are commonplace. > Many managers lead by bad example. They have nothing to do, but they > have to keep doing it, long into the night. It is taken as making a > good impression, in far too many organizations. In part this tendency > comes from the belief that extending hours proves "work ethic" and > therefore assures being valued more highly. In many instances duration > is falsely valued far more than real productivity, > > 5). A surprising number of workers work unnecessarily long hours to > escape from personal and family issues that desperately need other > methods of resolution. In some regards the breakdown of the family and > of other forms of social relation is not only worsened but excused by > the fact of excessively long hours. Too often the job is blamed for > the divorce, and for all manner of other family issues, including > juvenile delinquency. It is convenient to stay at work, and avoid > family and personal issues, when it provides such a commonly socially > acceptable excuse. It has gotten to the point where a parent can blame > every issue that their child has, inclusive of any serious problems, > without any real embarrassment, on the job and what it “takes out” of > the worker. > > 6). Long working hours can also be an excuse for inadequate personal > development and lack of other interests in life. This is a > surprisingly common factor. The worker simply claims to have “no > life”, and remains at work, whether productive or not, passing time, > in avoidance of the real problem. The same workers very often gripe > about how they are overworked. In fact careful examination of what > they actually do reveals they spend a small fraction of their time in > actual productive activities. > > 7). The lack of an adequate nationalized public health system that > provides a comprehensive package for medical and dental care. > Employers are encouraged to reduce employee numbers and to work > employees for long hours due to the rising cost of benefits. As the > cost of benefits goes up, the hours that are sought from employees > tends to rise. This impacts both the average work week, and the > provision of vacation time. > > 8). The lack of an adequate nationalized, government run, pension > program for all workers. Employers similarly are encouraged to reduce > work force, and particularly permanent work force, working employees > for longer hours, due to the cost of pensions. When pensions are > government managed this objection to shorter working hours, and to the > provision of vacation time, disappears. > > 9). Habit. Sometimes it is simply habit. Reduce a worker’s work load > and the available work still expands to fill the same amount of time. > > 10). Laziness. Many occupations and many jobs today provide a > relatively leisurely environment and pace. Laziness concealed under > the guise of work ethic is more common than it might seem to be. > Laziness also in terms of the more demanding activities of household > chores and a more active life. Work is less demanding than a family > outing, cleaning the yard, washing the kitchen floor, or any number of > common activities. Work can be avoidance of those activities, even > when there are routine physical demands involved in the job. Peculiar > as that seems, you have to study people and how routine versus non > routine (less frequently performed actions) tend to affect choice. > Doing the same thing and avoiding less frequent tasks which offer > different challenges, can be a form of laziness, as much as it can be > a matter of habit. Avoidance of those other tasks, and their different > demands is a factor. > > 11). Familiarity. People tend to put in more time with what they are > familiar with and tend to avoid things they are unfamiliar with. Long > term employees fall into this category. They often like to spend > endless hours of the work they know best, even if it is unnecessary. > They are less likely to invest that time in anything else, and > particularly in anything unfamiliar to them. This varies somewhat from > habit, because habit is about how the work is handled, not so much > about the preference for types of activities. > > 12). In some instances the social options outside of work have largely > been eliminated. The only social expression, other than sitting in an > audience passively watching something happen, or shopping in > depersonalized shopping environments, is more and more often work. > Corporate culture is often the only culture, even if it does not > really meet most social needs outside of the need for income. When > there are no real options, workers tend to remain within the one > situation that offers some, even if vague and inadequate, sense of > social connection. > > 13). Use of drugs, either illicit or prescription. Time sense is > altered by many drugs and so is the element of obsessive fascination. > While productivity falls, time spent on the task can increase very > substantially, with significant loss of connection with surroundings. > The worker too absorbed in his or her job might easily be on drugs. > > 14). Bad management. In some instances management can be abusive, even > sadistic, assigning useless tasks, deliberately frustrated tasks, or > tasks deliberately made excessively complicated, including issues they > already have answers for, such as acquiring complex arrays of > difficult to obtain data and its analysis when all of that already > exists hidden in management’s desk drawer. That and other similarly > nefarious practices. Bad management also leads by bad example. Another > common factor in today’s corporate dysfunction. > > 15). The false belief in specialization and irreplacability requiring > someone to do a task for excessive hours when someone else could > easily and relatively quickly be trained to fill in for the same > function. That false viewpoint of many jobs is one that many workers > tend to promote as a form of job security. After all if no one else > can do it, the job must be secure. Often careful examination of the > job and its real activities reveals that the assertions about it are > far from the actual truth. Failures as to better division of labor, > and cross training, can also be bad management. All too common a fact. > The “no one else can do this” or “no one else knows this” argument is > often a problem. Worker and bad management hiding of the knowledge > becomes more of the job than the job itself, wasting even more time > and extending the work week even further. > > 16). The belief in some organizations that workers must be at their > duty posts, on stand by, even if there is no work to actually do. > Probably a carry over from the military model of troops standing in > defense, on sentry, or in action, but usually very inappropriate and > quite avoidable in the world of most types of other work. (This very > same factor can sometimes be used by bad management to actually > frustrate and bore employees out. Boredom can be a very destructive > element, damaging motivation, and ruining potential. Insecure bad > management is among the worst, but so are some insecure co workers, > particularly in dysfunctional organizations, who seeing competence > seek to destroy it using tactics such as imposed boredom. This adds to > wasted working time in many companies.) > > Not all of the factors are at work in every instance, but they are all > at work somewhere. In many instances a mixture of those factors > conspires to extend the work week and working hours into the limits of > human physical and mental endurance, or perhaps even beyond. Taken as > a form of heroism, that social, and psychological, dysfunctional again > gains value, while other lifestyles are deprecated and demeaned in > favor of the increasingly one dimensional, Marcusean, work place. > > Robert Morpheal > > This article may be copied, reproduced, and distributed, in any form, > by any means, anywhere, by anyone and in fact anyone is encouraged to > do so. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. 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