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Why Do We Work So Hard? (1843magazine.com)
An anonymous reader points us to a fascinating piece at The Economist that tries to explain the elements that drive people to work so hard: Working effectively at a good job builds up our identity and esteem in the eyes of others. We cheer each other on, we share in (and quietly regret) the successes of our friends, we lose touch with people beyond our network. Spending our leisure time with other professional strivers buttresses the notion that hard work is part of the good life and that the sacrifices it entails are those that a decent person makes. This is what a class with a strong sense of identity does: it effortlessly recasts the group's distinguishing vices as virtues. This reminds me of an article by Om Malik, veteran reporter and founder of the GigaOm news outlet, who wrote this when announcing his retirement. From his piece: "I relate to Jeter's desire to find life outside of work. Living a 24-hour news life has come at a personal cost. I still wake in middle of the night to check the stream to see if something is breaking, worrying whether I missed some news. It is a unique type of addiction that only a few can understand, and it is time for me to opt out of this non-stop news life."
Because money improves your quality of life more than extra time does. When most people have extra time, they spend it watching TV or other similar things. When they have extra money, they can buy a bigger TV.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If there is another job offer that pays better than your current job but doesn't require you to work as hard, all other factors being equal, would you take it?
The article might have a point if most people would say "no" to this question. The real answer is probably too boring to make news -- most people work so hard because they want/need the money.
The hyperbole about the "virtue" of working so hard are just kool-aid from management and HR so they won't appear the villain.
Oliver.
The wealthy class spends billions on propaganda to convince YOU to work harder so that THEY can make profits. The productivity of USA workers is among the highest in the world and keeps going up in general, yet our wages have been flat.
That means we work our asses off and THEY get the benefits; and they want to keep it that way, for obvious reasons.
Table-ized A.I.
I have taken a year off. Plans include travel, photography, self-development, and anything I find interesting on a day to day basis. I'm now a month and a half away from the office, and loving every moment of it.
As to why I can afford it... Because I didn't buy the biggest house I could. Because I don't own a car, TV or smartphone. Because I didn't spend every cent I earn on gadgets I don't need.
It's not just work, I know the same thing applies to sports and just about everything people do. Especially as you become good at something it draws you in and you want to go further and get better. Success at something is in a real sense addictive. Eventually you get to the point Robert Heinlein described as: "There is no way to stop. Writers go on writing long after it becomes financially unnecessary... because it hurts less to write than it does not to write."
A mentor of mine, consummate if ever there was one, had worked 45 years at The Aerospace Corporation. Over his career, he had saved numerous satellite programs well over a billion dollars in total. He worked long, hard hours, dedicating every ounce of energy to The Aerospace Corporation.
He was the tops. He'd call me near the end of a fiscal year, and ask if I could spend-out $250k on supplies or equipment, for my own projects, within two or three weeks. "Spend!" one of his emails stated. That level of power, combined with the above-described level of dedication and supreme engineering insight and service.
Then he had a stroke. Within less than two months, he had been forced into retirement (no 6-month Disability leave for you!). Seriously, two months! That is the thanks that he got for saving innumerable satellite programs $100M's, amounting to over $1B in his career. A little vascular oopsie suddenly ended it all, and he was unceremoniously kicked out the door. There was a tiny, awkward "retirement" party, where he was presented with a wooden box of artifacts from his greatest satellite program achievements –worthless to him in a nursing home.
I noticed that while he was examining this 'treasure-box' to the sound of fake-happy applause from everyone at The Aerospace Corporation, no one, not even his attendant nurse, bothered to take a moment to wipe away the huge, gross erupted boil on his left temple. Its core was about 3/4-inch long, and was just lolling there on his face, while everyone took pictures and pretended that it was a celebration.
That is what you get for dedication to a corporate entity such as The Aerospace Corporation. No bonuses. No overtime. And when your body has a little glitch, you are yesterday's garbage.
All companies are like this.
PS — I cannot tell you the name of the company I worked for, but perhaps you can figure it out from the hints.
Just over five years ago, my wife and I were overjoyed to bring a baby girl into this world.
By the time she was two, she was diagnosed as autistic. Not the mild kind where the kid turns out to be really into one hobby; the more severe sort where she was markedly disabled.
So we put her into therapy, into a program that uses scientifically identified treatments; which measures every goal, every progress, and charts and records every bit of minutiae to inform further therapy. We get some government funding, but my wife and I put an extra $40k/year into her therapy of our own money. And neither of us come from wealthy backgrounds, so this isn't pocket change for us by any stretch. We get by by doing without so many of the things our own peers take for granted, including basic things like home ownership. We don't get to go out much, and don't go on fancy holidays. We don't buy things that aren't essential. We have no retirement savings.
And you know what? Our little girl has made progress. She can't speak. I clean piss and shit out of our rugs several times a day. But she is very affectionate, and loves nothing more than to hug and kiss us. She likes to lead the people she loves and trusts by the finger to her favourite toys and activities so we can play together. She loves to laugh. She has an amazing capacity for processing symbols, including letters and numbers, well above her typically developing age group. She can read and spell. She is quite surprising at her ability to use electronics, and carries an iPad with software on it to help her communicate with others. She is exceptionally happy all of the time (we count our blessings that she doesn't have any of the behavioural issues often connected to children with autism).
Beyond the therapy, we set money aside in trust for her for when she is an adult. It's unknowable at this time whether she'll be able to function independently when she's older. My wife and I are very well aware that we won't live forever, and barring any sort of tragedy she'll easily outlive us. So on top of the therapy expense, we put away what we can into investments in her name for the long term -- we're talking 15 - 80 years (based on current life expectancy). We have to plan way ahead, as we can't stomach the idea of her being placed into an institution with nothing when we're gone to dust.
(She has no siblings to help take care of her when we're gone. When your first child is disabled with a disability that most probably has a genetic component, you start having to have conversations and make decisions you would never ever have to worry about otherwise. Will the next child also be disabled? Will they be even more seriously disabled? How could we ever afford to care for two disabled children, when we just scrape by with the one we have? Can we afford to take that risk, knowing that both children may suffer because of it? The idea of having a baby shouldn't be fear inducing, and yet that's what the concept holds for my wife and I. There is currently no genetic testing the can be done for autism. We as parents can't be tested. A gestating fetus can't be tested. It's a crap-shoot, and we don't even know the odds).
So why do I work hard? I do it for her. It's her one and only chance at ever having any sort of life. I'll probably never be able to retire -- I fully expect to die at my desk. This wasn't at all what I had planned for my life, but it's the life I have before me. What's more, she's worth it. My reward is when she knows it's time to go to bed, and she leads me by the finger to her bed for a story, a song, a cuddle, and a kiss goodnight.
(Posted anonymously for obvious reasons)
Amen. I wouldn't say I love my job, but it's a branch of the kind of work I like to do (3d modeling and programming). I work the hardest when I work a full 8 hour day, then go home and instead of watching TV, work on my own projects. It is in these days I feel the most fulfilled. The days where I just work 8 hours and then veg out watching cartoons are the days I feel the least fulfilled.
Sometimes I'm needed to work on a crunch time schedule. I hate those, but I'm almost never alone in this and we're always happy at the end. It's like defeating a dragon. It didn't eat us alive, we're proud of ourselves, and now our boss's are really happy with us too.
Hard work in life is normal. What isn't is when you're too far removed from the fruits of your labor and are unable to take pride in it (like fast food or low-end retail). When you have pride in your work, and you can take credit for your part in it, it feels good.
I think it's all down to the protestant work ethic that's been drilled into the minds of all westerners for generations. "Work hard in this life, and you shall receive your just rewards in the next life" and so on. This was dreamed up by royalty, nobility and particularly the church, in order to keep the masses complacent and too tired to effect a proper revolt.
And then there's the just-word fallacy, that those who work hard also earn the rewards, which is demonstrably false and always has been.
Eat the rich.
Because money improves your quality of life more than extra time does.
Wrong. Beyond 'minimum' needs like food, shelter, health, security, and perhaps some good sex thrown in, income basically is disposable. What humans need beyond that is to feel loved, competent and a sense of enthusiasm for what they strive for. Which all has nothing to do with 'physical' wealth. Money in those latter areas is nothing but a shallow substitute, and mostly a bad one at that. That's why most people are quite unhappy with their lives, even though they're doing well by any outward metric. Depression is the first world disease that comes with that.
By any historic measure we live in times of infinite abundance. 80%+ of work done in first world societies are bullshit jobs and superfluos work. Most of which can be done by robots, better planing or, most of the time, simply left out all together.
I work part time for more spare-time, and while I sometimes moan that because of my compareatively lower income I have the feeling I am - to most women of my social herachy - not suitable for long-term relationship because of that (especially with the values our society to wrongly pursues), I repeatedly run into situations that can only be described as plain an utter envy over my freedom compared to my peers. By men and women alike. I'm only suitably as a dance partner and a lover to most. ... A situation I will probably have to learn to live with. ... And, yes, I'm going to cry you a river now. :-)
Conclusion:
You Sir need to get yourself a copy of the 4 Hour Workweek. Or, better yet, the original: Senecas Letters from a Stoic., read it and get a life (Hint: It is *not* about dependant income-work.) Stoicism: The optimised wester variant of zen-buddhism as you might call it. Get with the programm and start enjoying you life like never before. Welcome to the club.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
We used to pay people to do things we do now: pump our gas, do our laundry, etc. Not only do we work our job, we do jobs other people used to.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
Actually, Hitler did exactly what he said he would. Within 5 years, the German worker and the German intellectual were equals. It wasn't like today where writers and artists shit all over waiters and plumbers.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
My experience in life and the workplace is that the majority of people do as little as possible.
Some of them can spend hours a day telling you how busy they are.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
After making from second lieutenant to lieutenant to captain and then may be major, the reward for job done well is more work. Meanwhile the same starting class are the slackers who don't work very hard, but also not very smart, they get stuck at lower level. But a few smart slackers manage to sneak through, getting help from hard workers, finding the hard workers and joining their team and wangling some reflected glory etc etc. These are the ones, who don't work very hard, but they have the eye for figuring out who are hard working but not so astute people. They are the ones, we want in management. We find them and promote them higher than major to lt-col, brigs level. They smartly direct lots of work to hard workers who are capable of working hard.
Of course the hard workers realize they have been had, but it would be too late. The retired majors sit in the officers club, drowning their sorrows over scotch on the rocks, will tell everyone within listening distance, "Brigadier Ramaseshan. class of 84, Rajasthan Rifles, heard of him? Let me tell you what a chump he is. Couple of years junior to me, we were..." They will be surrounded by others similar to them, "Come one, Ramaseshan is nothing. Rear Admiral Dahage, Class of 82, GOC-in-C Western Naval Command, he was once arrested by Delhi police for riding a bicycle in the Cannaught Circus into the fountain. In his pajamas! At 3 AM" "Really? I knew he was arrested, but I thought he stole a policeman's helmet or something".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
So, we've had an industrial revolution, a technical revolution and lately the IT revolution, these should of resulted in less work, so why are people working long hours?
You could point out that people used to work 60-70 hours per week, but I'd point out in return that those people likely lived a few minutes away from where they worked and so the situation is nearly as bad now as it was a hundred years ago if you take commuting in to account. Salaried workers are working 49 hours per week and often commuting 10+ hours per week.
If the French can live comfortably with a 35 hour working week then why can't the rest of us?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
The amazing fact about sparta is they were outnumbered 1 vs 10 by their slaves.
Slaves that oppositely to Athena they would overwork, underprotect and overtrain to be their cannon folder. Basically overpowering and overnumbering the citizens.
And only twice over centuries did they have revolts. Once from the Thebans that valued critical thinking.
Else, every culture seems to be more likely to more easy to exploit the more they were exploited.
The "ilotes" paradox. Exploitation of slaves seems to make them more obedient to their exploitation.
As monopolies and collective oligarchies continue to form and gain power most of the worlds population is no longer necessary for production so the illusion (just as in the matrix) of struggle has to be there to keep the masses believing their efforts and lives matter. War or the brink of war is usually the most effective way to keep the masses engaged in productivity tasks.
The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world.
Goods must be produced, but they need not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.
War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world. All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for " Science ". The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance - meaning, in effect, war and police espionage - the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. - George Orwell, 1984
The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, jou
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
If Hitler had of aimed his obsessions at peaceful endeavours (like the advancement of science, space exploration, etc), who knows what the world would have been like today...
That's because he tapped into the resentment of post World War One, as well as opening up and encouraging latent racism.
Hatred can get a lot of stuff done in a short time, but is always self destructive in the end. When your main tool is eliminating enemies of the state, eventually everyone looks alike an enemy. His thousand year Reich only lasted a few years for a good reason.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
All I ever wanted to do was work enough so that I can enrich and enjoy life with my family. It's that simple, yet hitting that target seems to be more and more difficult as time goes on.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.