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Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy
An anonymous reader writes Work/life balance is a constant problem in the tech industry. Even though experienced and mature engineers have been vocal in fighting it, every new generation buys into the American cultural identity of excessive work being a virtue. Each generation suffers for it, and the economy does, too. This article backs up that wisdom with hard numbers: "The 40-hour workweek is mostly a thing of the past. Ninety-four percent of professional workers put in 50 or more hours, and nearly half work 65 or above. All workers have managed to cut down on our time on the job by 112 hours over the last 40 years, but we're far behind other countries: The French cut down by 491 hours, the Dutch by 425, and Canadians by 215 in the same time period. ... This overwork shows up in our sleep. Out of five developed peers, four other countries sleep more than us. That has again worsened over the years. In 1942, more than 80 percent of Americans slept seven hours a night or more. Today, 40 percent sleep six hours or less. A lack of sleep makes us poorer workers: People who sleep less than seven hours a night have a much harder time concentrating and getting work done."
If you do not enjoy work then that is the problem to be fixed. Find a job you love.
This country is losing it. Don't know if you realize it my fellow citizens, but you are getting your ass kicked in the world. Socialism is not working.
an ill wind that blows no good
Muricans that don't get enough sleep aren't not sleeping because they work too much. They're not sleeping because they're playing any one of a couple hundred MMOs and watching exabytes of Netflix videos in 20 hour Soprano's marathons and billions of hours of porn from tens of thousands of adult sites.
Work too much my ass. The parking lot where I work is mostly empty at 9:00 AM, mostly empty at lunch and mostly empty at 4:30 PM (earlier on Friday) and not a soul comes here on the weekend. They might do 7-ish hours a day, and probably 40% of that screwing around on the interwebs. The construction workers building the house next door don't start much before 10:00AM and they're long gone 8 hours later, never put in any weekend time, and half of them aren't even citizens.
The whole image of the 60 hour a week death-marching 'murican worker is a fiction. And their self-inflicted sleep problems have got jack shit to do with work.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I got 2 weeks up front for signing the paper on my first day of an entry level job + federal holidays, dunno what your problem is other than being a doormat.
I know some bleeding heart is going to pop in and say economy and joblessness rates and blah blah blah, well I started in early 2012, and was unemployed since early 2011 and still worked nearly every single day thanks to one up jobs from the computer store around the corner when they got overwhelmed and seasonal temp jobs for more than minimum wage.
the days I didnt work I was at multiple temp agencies and admittedly I sat on my ass for a couple weeks floating on savings after the initial fact. So don't boo hoo cause you grabbed the first trinket on the shelf and are now stuck with it