At the risk of being fired as a college professor, I rejected the issued Blackberry, explaining I’m on line every hour that I’m at the office and every hour that I’m home. When I drive, I don’t text or chat on the phone. Ditto shopping or out to dinner or in meetings. However, I’m an anachronism. Try to have an uninterrupted conversation or dinner with 3 other people.
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At the risk of being fired as a college professor, I rejected the issued Blackberry, explaining I’m on line every hour that I’m at the office and every hour that I’m home. When I drive, I don’t text or chat on the phone. Ditto shopping or out to dinner or in meetings. However, I’m an anachronism. Try to have an uninterrupted conversation or dinner with 3 other people.
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If there is a toll being taken on the upper 50% of the workforce do to technological advances, it is being repaid with a vengeance by the lower 50% and their cell phones.I am an employer and the boundaries between work and drama while at work have been shattered.

Part of the problem, I believe, is that work has taken the place of religion in many of our lives. We define ourselves through our work. We prove that we are good, serious, smart, and worthwhile people through our work. Work orients us and locates us in the social world to a degree that it seems it never did historically.

Work has become a our living rather than something that we do to make a living.

Some workers have always worked long hours, and the 9 to 5 secretaries will still work normal business hours. My family owns property, and has been “on call” 24-7 for decades. I’m an attorney, and I’ve never seen a litigator work normal business hours when we’re busy or in trial.

I think the idea that we work at home misses the issue. We’re not just taking more work home, we are all working more. Thank heavens we can do some of the work at home!

The issue of the diminishing division between work and free time has been a topic in modern culture for a long time. Technology has been a factor of course, but there is also this insidious mindset among various sectors of our upwardly mobile populace that says the busier one is the more important one is. People are always striving for a higher social status, thinking this brings into their lives greater personal relevance and meaning. This is of course an erroneous presumption that many find out too late in life.

My kids see me on the laptop and think it’s the norm, so while I’m toiling away they think I’m playing and want equal time playing on the computer as well. It’s hard to explain to them the difference between work and play as the lines are blurred between my on duty time and off duty time and the tools I use to work and recreate are often the same.

I think this cuts two ways – it’s true, we are more accessible to our clients/employers than ever, but we are also more available to people in our personal lives during the day, via email or work-at-home arrangements.

I knew I was in trouble when my toddler said to me (when I asked her to come to the table for dinner), “One more email mom, then I will eat dinner.” My work had made its way into her play. Yikes.

I quit my last job because it was never ending. West coast clients (I am on the east coast) called my house during bedtime, etc. Now I am working for a company that has good boundaries. Very, very 9-5, about 85% of teh time. Phew.

I work as a programmer at a lumber company, and I have always kept my work relations and personal relations separate. I don’t socialize with my coworkers outside of the office. I basically keep two separate lives. My family is more important than anything that my job could give me. I do feel that this has hurt my career, but it is nicer to eat dinner at night with my wife and kid at the dinner table and play with them and not have any interruptions.

The fact that the planet is round is one of my biggest problems.

I begin getting email messages and texts from colleagues in Europe as I’m going to bed. When I wake up in the morning, I have a string of messages and to-dos to deal with. I read through those while making breakfast for the kids. I live in the western US, and begin to get invitations for conference calls I should attend at 7am. And during the workday it’s non-stop.

I colleague of mine has become nocturnal – starting work at 2am to get a jump on his European clients.

The global economy seems to compound this problem.

As a believer in the inevitability of the “Virtual Future”, it seems to me that we need virtual assistants now, to help us sort out what is necessary, at the moment, and what can be put of til later. We are currently overwhelmed with input. We need a competent filter.

The work-life balance debate is often (and appropriately) framed in terms of family. But, arguably, single people are under even more pressure to be always connected, available, networked. Single professionals have particular difficulty expressing a persona independent of their career.

A solution framed to simply provide more time with the kids doesn’t address a deeper cultural expectation that we are our jobs. It will simply shift expectations away from married professionals and parents to the singles in the office. This can only further frusterate the ability of those who do take apropriate down time to be treated fairly. (It might also tempt a few of us singles to adopt kids simply so we can get a weekend off once in a while.)

Attributing a large part of today’s work stress to the fact that wives are in the work force and that there are then additional expenses (child care) is putting the cart before the horse. Many women would prefer to not work and would rather manage the home front. The question to today’s guest is: Why have women felt the economic need to work? That is, why have we been compelled to become 2 income families? Why has that become necessary? Simple answer: Globalization

I am married to a Family Doctor, and when we decided to have children, I made the decision to not work full time outside the home. My eldest is now 9. We live in a small village, my wife walks to her office, we live in a small house. My kids have access to us, but not television (we don’t own one.) We eat supper together (occasionally interrupted by my wife’s pager: her patients can always call her.) You make your choices: we don’t take expensive vacations (usually backcountry camping), we don’t drive expensive cars. We don’t have debt. What is it you want, for you and your children?

Live in Greenfield, MA employer is in Osaka Japan, Nova Scotia and the UK, factories in Hanoi & Shanghai and customers across the world with demands that are unique and timely to them! Glad my child is now 22 and not 22 months, glad my wife is understanding and enjoys the travel. Volatile employment picture and as an aging specialist I must work this way to prove worth to myself and my employers.
Great Show, mind candy for those of us who work from home.
Thanks

the 24/7 work cycle is a relationship wrecker. For those who are fortunate enough to still have a partner and a family, the pressure to make enough money to keep these relationship functioning is enormous.

I recently read that 52% of American women over the age of 45 are now unmarried and living alone. This statistic resonates with me because I am in that lonely, heavily pressed group. As well, this group has been “targeted” by marketers as their major revenue source. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

We still have all the same basic human needs that our mothers had and no other way to meet them but to pay for own “services” and “care”. It’s the same stuff our ancestors freely GAVE to one another. Today, for us, one must pay a stranger to “care” or go without.

This phenomenon appears to have been generated, artificially, by the elevation of money and material “stuff” over community and relationships. I did not desire to become another grim statistic, personally, but here we are: divided apart and stuck on our own in a giant, vacuum-like, feudalistic system that utterly devalues life and love.

If we are serious about creating a sustainable green economy, we need to see the connection between a never ending work day and the inability to live a sustainable life. Sustainability requires community:
– the ability to cook and eat together – this takes time- the whole Slow Food movement!
- the ability to support CSAs and other local organizations – this takes time!
- walking (slower) instead of taking the car (quicker)
Many other examples……..

With the high unemployment rate why don’t we hire more people so everyone has a reasonable work life? In my own job search, I have often come up with the expectation that a normal work week is 60 hrs (or more). This type of expectation will just lead to social instability and high energy use in an attempt to “keep it all together.” I consider the most progressive employers to be those that give their workers a reasonable work load and expect their employees to rest and renew.

I am a stay at home mother. And I would offer that the need for being attached to my iphone and looking at facebook is a function of feeling isolated. I want to hear how my friend is doing instead of listening to my kids complaining about not having the latest wii game.

Emi Nakazato from Harlem, NYC

I don’t think I am more overworked than my parents. My father owned a store, my mother was a teacher. Raised 3 kids. She did all the cooking, cleaning, sewed all our clothes. They both worked in the store off hours and gardened followed by canning. Were active in the church and civic organizations. Later my father was a teacher, too. I think he relaxed more than she did, but they were both very busy in ways I will never know. We expect more down time I believe than they did, but they did make sure there was some for us as children, particularly Sundays were very special.

The knowledge economy: chips and software are tangible. If they aren’t working properly airplanes will start falling out of the sky. Not all knowledge workers (i.e. engineers) make “weightless” products. Our products are real and robust and work and do amazing things. The guest comes across as an egg head.

I am suprised that the topic of our children and the need for quality care has not been addressed as of yet. It is sooooo integrated into this topic!!! Regardless of whether you are compelled to “rise to the top” and be on your blackberry all day or simply desire to make a fair living that offers quality family time –men and women alike–we need to address our MAJOR lack of quality, affordable childcare…when moms needed to return to the workplace where was the simultaneous creation of on site childcare facilities at the workplace?…I also want to be careful of the blame the mommy syndrome…moms needing to work did not create our cultural dilemmas…the lack of policy that is TRULY family oriented is the real problem in my opinion…

As an entrepreneur who has very much cultivated a portfolio life, I embrace the flexibility that technology and new attitudes have created. My typical day weaves together work, workout, errands, family, etc….I benefit greatly on a personal and professional level from the breaking down of the traditional work day/work week. And working from home allows me the wonderful luxury of blending “consultant” and “mom/wife”…while I am incredibly (and blessedly) busy with my work, I can take time for school events, snow days, whatever.

From Norwich, VT

I’ve been struck by two things: Dalton keeps referring to “Getting ahead,” but hasn’t defined what that means. I think we need to look at whether “getting ahead”, once it’s defined, is a myth or not.

He also said that each economy produces the children it needs. Ouch. I do feel that I am at a constant battle with outside forces to get my children to appreciate the simple, tactile stuff–by staying in touch with so much of the outside world, we’re losing contact with the gold standard of nature–something that we should be valuing more as the false economy implodes.

The other day, as I saw my daughter playing a video game on the upper right-hand corner of her laptop while she was watching a WestWing DVD, on her same laptop, as her phone was humming on the endtable, I had a panic. Later, we went out sledding. I’m sure that the snow and the rush of cold air is what she will remember in the future.

there was a hilarious scene in the movie Clueless that was an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Alicia Silverstone and set in modern day Beverly Hills. The whole family is at the table eating a formal dinner, and each has a cell phone by their plate. A phone rings and they all dive and pick them up and start talking. And that was back in the 90’s!

100 years ago my grand-parents’ work hours were defined by the physical structure of the factories themselves. When there was work to do, they were in the mill late and on Saturdays. There were relatively few people doing really creative work, but of those who were Thomas Edison ranks at the top. I recently saw a picture of Tom asleep on his work bench, which apparently was not unusual for him.

Today far more people are able to do creative work which is not linked to the physical plant of a factory. Like Thomas Edison 100 years ago, people still have to make the decision of when to stop, and when to sleep.

I just wanted to comment from a spouse perspective. My husband is often bringing work home and working late. I am a professional myself as well, but also take care of the running of our household. I often feel guilty about my own down time when my husband is home working b/c there is always something to be done around the house. If he is working, I feel that I should be working in order to be an equal contributor to our lifestyle.

Great show – lots of food for thought.

My wife and I gave up our mobile phones years ago. We were early adopters of these gadgets – her in the UK and me here. I even had a phone that worked seamlessly on both continents. Getting rid of them was the best thing for us (other than to get married). We have a landline at work and one at home. And if we’re not in either place – then we don’t need to be reached. They never brought any good news anyway!

We don’t take work home either. In fact, if the surf’s up you can bet I’ll be late for work or leaving early. Ask me to tell you how much money was in our checking account two weeks ago and I couldn’t name a number. Ask me about the fantastic waves I caught one morning two weeks ago on a Monday when I should have been at work and I could go on for an hour – one of many days I’ll remember.

Obviously neither of us are destined for the status job or corner office – but we don’t care about that as much as living life to the fullest. We don’t need a posh car or address to be happy. It didn’t take my mother getting ill to make us realize this – it just reinforced our desire to not let life slip by us or get bogged down by things that don’t matter.

I guess sometimes it pays to be a bit of a hippie?

I agree with Donna about employers expecting a 60+ hour work week regularly when in fact employers should be hiring more employees. Employers have been taking advantage of the salaried employees fixed yearly salary to keep on piling on the work. If those salaries were broken down to an hourly rate the rate would be quite low and no one would agree to work those hours.

Employees need to strictly enforce their 40 hour work week and set their boundaries firmly from the beginning, make themselves unavailable past certain times, not answering the phone or email on the weekends.

On another note perhaps all those increasing health care costs employers are always complaining about are a direct correlation to these 60+ hour work weeks, 24/7 on call availability, or working/managing folks on different time zone and continents. I fear it is a case of penny wise and pound foolish, companies save money by not hiring extra employees or outsourcing jobs in order to save pennies but are paying pounds in increased health care costs.

In Brazil the saying goes…Americans live to work instead of working to live..

Loved the show, and I agree with most everything everyone had to say. The one thing I didn’t really hear on the show was how much our “need” for things drives us to work so much? Large homes, expensive cars, cars for the kids, big TVs, vacations . . . if you want these, your going to need to make alot of money. If you don’t want to work as much, don’t buy so much. One fact on the show that blew me away was that Americans buy 55 garments per year. Why? Can we really need that much?

I think that much of the endless work is a product of a obsession with consumption. Scale back on material needs (buy a smaller home, drive a smaller car, don’t fill your house with so much stuff) and you can scale back on work.

I’m an elementary school teacher, and though the school day for my students ends at 3:00, I’m still working in my classroom every day until 5/6 pm. Then I head home for dinner with my college-age daughters, followed by correcting papers and a bit of lesson planning (though I did most of that last Sunday afternoon!!). Some evenings I spend on the web researching a topic for a future lesson, or on Word creating activity sheets for upcoming lessons. By about 8 pm after a 12 hour day, I’m ready to relax on the couch with a cup of tea and listen to the On Point podcast–though I suppose I really should be getting on the treadmill . . . and that laundry pile is getting higher . . .
Linda