"An epidemic of overwork among ordinary Americans"?

Forums: Life At Work, Work
Email this Topic • Print this Page

And a hurrah for PricewaterhouseCoopers & common sense.

How come people let themselves be turned into wageslaves so easily - almost voluntarily, it seems?

Peer pressure? Implied blackmail by the employer? ("Well, you can take those days off, but then its clear you wont get any promotion / will be the first to be fired..")

One more reason Id never want to work in the States...

Quote:

More Americans swap beach for the office

Survey shows 40% will not take summer break
· Quarter of private-sector staff get no paid holiday

Monday August 21, 2006
The Guardian

It is already common knowledge, on the beaches and in the cafes of mainland Europe, that Americans work too hard - just as it is well known on the other side of the Atlantic that Europeans, above all the French and the Germans, are slackers who could do with a bit of America's vigorous work ethic.

But a new survey suggests that even those vacations American employees do take are rapidly vanishing, to the extent that 40% of workers questioned at the start of the summer said they had no plans to take any holiday at all for the next six months, more than at any time since the late 1970s.

It is probably mere coincidence that George Bush, one of the few Americans who has been known to enjoy a French-style month off during August, cut back his holiday in Texas this year to a fortnight. But the survey by the Conference Board research group, along with other recent statistics, suggests an epidemic of overwork among ordinary Americans.

A quarter of people employed in the private sector in the US get no paid vacation at all, according to government figures. Unlike almost all other industrialised nations, including Britain, American employers do not have to give paid holidays.

The average American gets a little less than four weeks of paid time off, including public holidays, compared with 6.6 weeks in the UK - where the law requires a minimum of four weeks off for full-time workers - and 7.9 weeks for Italy. One study showed that people employed by the US subsidiary of a London-based bank would have to work there for 10 years just to be entitled to the same vacation time as colleagues in Britain who had just started their jobs.

Even when they do take vacations, overworked Americans find it hard to switch off. One in three find not checking their email and voicemail more stressful than working, according to a study by the Travelocity website, while the traumas of travel take their own toll. "We commonly complain we need a vacation from our vacations," the author Po Bronson wrote recently. "We leave home tired; we come back exhausted."

Christian Schneider, a German-born scholar at the Wharton business school in Philadelphia, argues that there is "a tendency to really relax in Europe, to disengage from work. When an American finally does take those few days of vacation per year they are most likely to be in constant contact with the office."

Mindful that well-rested workers are more productive than burnt-out ones, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has started closing all its US offices completely twice a year, for 10 days over Christmas and about five around Independence Day. "We wanted to create an environment where people could walk away and not worry about missing a meeting, a conference call or 300 emails," Barbara Kraft, a partner at the company, told the New York Times.

Left to themselves, Americans fail to take an average of four days of their vacation entitlement - an annual national total of 574m unclaimed days.

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 5,485 • Replies: 92

No top replies

Competition? I dunno. One good perk about this job is that I get a lot of time off. Unfortunately, I can't really afford to do anything. Fortunately, my parents live on Cape Cod (a local vacation destination).

0 Replies

I saw that article, thought that PricewaterhouseCoopers had a great idea. Really hope that it catches on as a perk/ benefit and that more companies do it.

I think it has so many elements. When I was working, there just wasn't really anyone else who could take up the slack if I was gone, and I was dealing with life-and-death situations. I had to exhaustively prepare to take any time off, and then when I came back I was swamped -- it seemed like it wasn't even worth it. When I was felled by morning sickness I just conducted business via Blackberry (crouched in the bathroom half the time).

There might be something uniquely American in there but I'm not sure what -- some sort of cost-effectiveness and trying to get the most out of every employee and so not having sufficient back-up staff, perhaps. I think it was mostly just my situation though. (Not many jobs actually have life-and-death consequences.)

For my husband, it's do or die, publish or perish, all of that -- lots of competition, lots of people vying for very few spots and lots of people waiting to jump into the breach if anyone falters.

But it does seem to be a general thing, and it's stupid. The shut-down really seems to solve most of the problems (competition, being out of the loop, work pile-up when you return), and while it's got to be a financial pinch, I bet it is made up for in other ways. (Employee morale + productiveness, etc.)

I'm all for it.

0 Replies

Re: "An epidemic of overwork among ordinary Americans&a

nimh wrote:

...
Quote:
More Americans swap beach for the office

...Mindful that well-rested workers are more productive than burnt-out ones, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has started closing all its US offices completely twice a year, for 10 days over Christmas and about five around Independence Day. ...

But are they paid days off? If they aren't, then PricewaterhouseCoopers has positively spun what is essentially a 3.85% (2 weeks out of 52) pay cut for all of its employees. Ain't that nice?

0 Replies

When I worked in research and clinical reference labs, there was quite a bit of get the work out stress. I was often the only one who could do the judgement calls, short of getting the director out of his office; often worked over hours sans increased pay, being salaried. Also went to art classes or design classes too. Same thing in landscape architecture, lotta hours tossed back at the clock because of near hilarious deadlines. But in landarch, I've never had a paid vacation, always being either an independent contractor or with my own not so highly remunerative firm.

And geez, I love to travel. Can drop thinking about work with ease. It has always been difficult getting both money and time together.

The effect, after all these years, is that I am one lazy broad.

0 Replies

sozobe wrote:

For my husband, it's do or die, publish or perish

But is it really "do or die"? Or is it rather "do or be somewhat less successful"?

In general, but following from that, is what is at play here perhaps also the degree to which career success constitutes the basis for self-worth and social appreciation? America strikes me, as outsider, to buy more into the idea that your job and position say it all than Europe, and in turn, Holland does so more than Hungary - or Russia.

For example, in Russia (its true that its long since i was there, 10 years or so), what struck me - on the one hand you have this naked materialism, much more brash and ruthless than in Western Europe - but on the other hand there are obviously also other paths to social prestige. For example, you did actually still have these cliched bohemians - penniless intellectual poet-types (and I mean penniless, not just lounging around in the coffeehouse moaning about not having money to go to Dead Man), whom I saw treated with piqued interest by women who in Holland would just have thought, losers, dirty.

OK - for a more substantial example, here in Hungary eg writers are still very much a prestigious class of their own - not based on how many books they sell, but just - they're writers (awed emphasis). The gentle folk no longer come to coffeehouse New York just to catch a glimpse of the writers working in their niche (being served free drinks by a management that knew how to distill money from prestige) - but still, somewhat of a venerated class of its own, which is sorta looked upon as seeers or village elders, who are supposed to also have some kind of wise answer to any social or political question.

Not saying either of those examples dont exactly have their shadow side... just riffing on the word choice of "do or die" for what, if I'm right, is actually a step or two higher/lower on the ladder of success? Is that emblematic?

0 Replies

ossobuco wrote:

often worked over hours sans increased pay, being salaried. Also went to art classes or design classes too. Same thing in landscape architecture, lotta hours tossed back at the clock because of near hilarious deadlines. But in landarch, I've never had a paid vacation

Doesnt sound like "one lazy broad" to me Shocked

0 Replies

In terms of becoming a tenured professor, it's do or die, yeah. There are way more people wanting the tenured professor positions than there are tenured professor positions. WAY.

Once you get out of that -- not being a tenured professor, but being something else in the field -- it's no longer a matter of degree but kind. Not more or less successful but a completely different life. There are many things specific to being a tenured professor -- autonomy, ability to do original research, etc., etc. -- that simply don't exist in any other position.

0 Replies

I haven't taken any vacation this summer, save one day. There's no time. I'm not vying for promotion and I don't make much money, but I think the work I do is important. I guess you could say my identity is sort of wrapped up in my job. I know that my boss doesn't care if I take three weeks off starting tomorrow, but I can't just drop everything and go.

There are people in my office that seem to be able to disconnect and not take the job to heart. I don't admire them. But I wish I could do that sometimes.

0 Replies

Quote:

In terms of becoming a tenured professor, it's do or die, yeah.

OK, that is more specific. The initial wording - "it's do or die, publish or perish [..] lots of people waiting to jump into the breach if anyone falters" conjured up this image of falling into the cracks and losing metaphorical life and limb when missing a beat.

Hmm.. I understand the benefits of the equation, for sure.

Given the opportunities you sketch, I would also prefer to be tenured, of course! (Who wouldnt?)

But again - that is indeed what I was talking about then. "Do or die", "perish" ... is that emblematic? That this is the choice of words to describe what is, then, in fact, a question of having a perfect job or an OK job, the thing you always wanted or the thing you'd perfectly get by with as well, even if it doesnt give you the comfort and freedom you'd originally gunned for?

I'm talking, of course, from the relative comfort of someone who would have loved to ended as professor with autonomy, ability to do original research, etc - but who in no way in hell was going to work 60-, let alone 80-hour weeks to get there. I chose the easier way, wont be a professor -- and yet I still have interesting enough work, ie, I didnt "die".

Again, just riffing on something that immediately struck me (as outsider, as someone outside that particular rat race) in that word choice, and how it ties into the subject of the article. Americans finding it more stressful to holiday and miss the one opportunity (important email, strategic meeting at which a rival might gain advantage, etc) than to just go on working (and working, and working).

Mind you - I do realise I'm extremely lucky. I truly feel like I'm outside any kind of rat race. In my particular niche of work, even when it comes to the particular niche my department is in within the larger organisation. (Lucky landing indeed, because I did really fear that I'd end up in some degree of rat-race, office-politics kind of stuff when I came to this place, a large, near-corporate organisation after all - but I landed in an easy-going dept with a mind of its own, which tries to stay as far as feasible from the moshpit).

I also work 40 hours, rarely overtime, with pleasant colleagues and an understanding, encouraging boss. And yet here I am, earning well above local standards nevertheless, mostly determining my own work, and still working on interesting subjects. Nothing grand, but nothing boring either.

That is partly luck, as mentioned above. Partly being in the continent and (non-commercial) sector I'm in. And partly the result of choice - because there are rat races to get into, quite near. A choice perhaps phraseable as not buying into the metaphor of death, for foregoing the extra measure of professional success?

nimh <- kind of going on cats feet, afraid to offend but still wanting to explore the riff..

0 Replies

I was never very interested in money - I wanted to do interesting things.
Have done, from my own perspective. I wanted to marry, if I did marry, an interesting person. Did that, not sorry. Should have paid more attention to the money aspect - life whirred faster than I comprehended. Oh well. Still not sorry. I'm in a present lull re energy, but have a lot of interests to choose from once I get in gear.

Vacation is interesting as a concept, in that a lot of people, somewhat by the enforcement of their circumscribed lives, pack in a lot to do in it because they are not used to being in a quiet zone by themselves. For many years I never got more time off at a time than, say, five days including a weekend. So I admire the European ways of having more time. Seems like one could integrate the self-outside -of-work better than some of us in the US.

When I did finally take a month to go to Italy I was like a duck and its mother, completely gaga, and integrated that trip and other later ones into my sense of me.... total avidity, not in a noncritical way, but with complete absorption.

0 Replies

(Not offended)

Well, it started with the idea of why people work so hard. If my husband wants to be a tenured professor, he has to work hard. Period. If he didn't work so hard thus far, he wouldn't be even assistant professor; now that he is, he has to work his butt off to get tenure. Period.

It's really quite stark, and that's why I chose the stark language. "Publish or perish" is the well-known shorthand for this whole thing; 570,000 hits for the phrase on Google and it even has its own definition, as a phrase.

So it's not a reach to grab that phrase when talking about becoming a tenured professor, and "do or die" is really just a reiteration.

I don't know if that has any larger implications for the American workforce as a whole, though. A good friend of ours is working in Japan and it's all the same stuff. And Germany, and Australia, and everywhere we know people in academe.

Another aspect of this particular field/ area is that it almost shades into an artistic compulsion -- competition is hardly the only reason (or even the main reason) E.G. works so hard. He works so hard because he WANTS to. He has ideas that are exciting and he wants to bring them to fruition -- no, he needs to. Just internally. Few things are more exciting to him than chatting with a colleague and coming up with some amazing new idea, and then plunging into the paper that will explore and explain that idea. It's nirvana for him. No vacation could come close to it. Laughing

All of which is, again, pretty far afield from discussing the American workforce specifically, though. I think this is a pretty narrow slice of American working life.

Jes, I think I remember that they're paid, but I was thinking about whether it would bother me even if they're not. I'm not sure. It smacks of paternalism -- you'll do what's good for you whether you want to or not! -- but if it's made clear before they're hired, and employees make that choice...?

What really resonates for me is the line about 300 emails waiting when you get back -- from my own working experience, it would be so great to be able to just STOP, and pick up two weeks later like it was the next day instead of the crazy-making catch-up.

It would only work with industries where they CAN stop for two weeks, though.

0 Replies

Oh, this isn't the article I thought it was (skimmed and didn't read carefully enough) -- I was thinking of this one:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/us/20vacation.html

300 emails:

Quote:

"But we wanted to create an environment where people could walk away and not worry about missing a meeting, a conference call or 300 e-mails."

The company tracks vacation time so that when employees fall behind, they are reminded through an electronic nag that they should be getting out of the office more. And posters evoking lazy days away from work were put up in the New York offices. Hint. Hint.

0 Replies

I get 18 paid days off, plus several holidays. I work like a hampster in a wheel because of insecurity, not love of my job.

0 Replies

I think that's far more common, Edgar.

0 Replies

I am very much afraid that some on these posts have no conception of the possibility that one might enjoy his or her job more than leisure.

Fifteen years ago, I took a spot as an Lecturer at the University from which I had graduated. Unfortunately, the position only lasted four years.
My best, most productive, and happiest hours were spent in class, in my office and in the Library.

Lying on the beach for hours, even with a good book, is not my idea of happiness!!!

I prefer activity!!!

0 Replies

One cannot assume that time away from the job is spent vegetating. It depends on the person.

0 Replies

Ahh, now I feel better about not working right now...I'm just fighting back against the awful scourge of America working itself to death! Good for me!

In contrast to my lazy ass, my dad goes so long without taking any time off at all, that he always has about three months worth of paid vacation time built up. And then finally he gets forced by the county to take some time off, and even then he'll only take a week off. He's crazy, though.

0 Replies

Well, so much for the European way...

Quote:

Europeans willing to work longer ... for more pay

Monday 21 August 2006

In Short:

According to a new survey conducted by Financial Times and Harris Poll, EU workers are in favour of more flexible working and retirement arrangements, but also expect to be paid accordingly.

Brief News:

Around 70% of the workers interviewed in five countries (UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany) expressed a desire to work a longer working week if they were paid more. Not surprisingly, France, which has a mandatory 35-hours working week, has the highest number of interviewees expressing a wish to work more (75%).

When asked whether governments should be allowed to establish mandatory retirement ages, the results are mixed. In the UK, 22% say yes with 65% rejecting a government-set retirement age. French and German workers also do not want their governments to decide when they should retire but the margins are much smaller (France 42% yes and 51% no; Germany 34% yes and 54% no). However, in Italy (47% yes- 45% no) and especially in Spain (72% yes - 23% no) people want the government to set the retirement age.

Other results of the survey:

In all five countries, workers would like to work longer than the official pension age;

For most Europeans, Europe is the better place to work when compared to the USA;

In all countries except Italy, workers take their annual paid leave in full

The greatest threat to global stability according to the Brits, the French and the Spanish is the United States; Italians see Iran as the biggest threat and Germans are divided (24% say US; 24% Iran).
The FT/Harris poll was conducted with nearly 10,000 adults in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy between 2 and 14 August.

Links

Harris Interactive: The Financial Times/Harris Poll of Adults in Five European Countries Reports on What People Think about Working Hours, Pensions and Retirement, (21 Aug 2006)

0 Replies

sozobe wrote:

...

Jes, I think I remember that they're paid, but I was thinking about whether it would bother me even if they're not. I'm not sure. It smacks of paternalism -- you'll do what's good for you whether you want to or not! -- but if it's made clear before they're hired, and employees make that choice...?

What really resonates for me is the line about 300 emails waiting when you get back -- from my own working experience, it would be so great to be able to just STOP, and pick up two weeks later like it was the next day instead of the crazy-making catch-up.

It would only work with industries where they CAN stop for two weeks, though.

It's not paid at RP's office. They get Xmas week off, whether they want to or not and whether they're Christian or not. With no bucks for it.

As for the 2 weeks of piled up emails, people should have proper vacation coverage and should make their out of office messages meaningful, e. g. I'm out of the office for 2 weeks starting on August 22, please send all ___ requests to my assistant and I will get back to you on all ___ matters within 2 weeks of my return. Even if you don't have any sort of an assistant, there are ways of managing this. Even truly indispensible people are entitled to take time off, and are entitled to -- gasp! -- miss a deadline on occasion. So long as you're not curing cancer or engaging in rocket science (and most of us are a far cry from that), the world will wait. If it won't, you might want to consider another line of work. :wink:

0 Replies

"An epidemic of overwork among ordinary Americans"?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know