Author Topic: American Workers are Stressed Out!  (Read 9844 times)

oldtoyota

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American Workers are Stressed Out!
« on: March 31, 2014, 07:02:03 PM »
I have noticed the Americans inclination to put in "face time" ever since my first job years ago. I never understood it and, for the most part, focused on getting results to impress my bosses. That has worked well for me.

There's also this "one up" cultural norm that we have to say how busy we are. How many of you know someone at work often talking about how they have soooo many meetings and receive soooo many emails? I nod and express sympathy. Meanwhile, I think about how to make myself more efficient, how to delegate tasks/meetings to my staff, and consistently review my work load to ensure I am working on the most important items (and sloughing off what is not really vital).

How about you?

"One of the most astounding studies I came across was another OECD look at productivity. I heard so often, well, this overwork culture is just the price we have to pay for being such an enormously wealthy and productive economy. But then the OECD sliced GDP per hours worked to get an hourly productivity rate, and for several of the years studied, the U.S. falls several rungs below other countries with more rational work-life policies, such as France. So we’re putting in the most hours, but we’re not actually working intense, short, productive hours. We’re just putting in a lot of meaningless face time because that’s what our workplace cultures value—at the expense of our health, our families, and our souls."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/americas-workers-stressed-out-overwhelmed-totally-exhausted/284615/

bikebum

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2014, 07:28:02 PM »
Totally agree. I have not seen any correlation between how hard a person says they work and how much they get done. The typical office worker schedule seems very inefficient to me. I know a guy who's high up in a private defense company who told me he could get all his work done in 2 hours a day, but he is required to be there full time. I often feel like I don't have enough to do at my job. I used to ask for more work, but my supervisor had a hard time coming up with something and it seemed more disruptive than helpful, so now I just spread it out over my day. I have always gotten the highest scores on my evaluations for anything related to productivity or deadlines. I used to think it was because I worked for the government, but I've heard a lot of similar stories with private companies.

I can't remember where, but I read about some studies that concluded office workers average about 4 hours of real work per day. One study said as low as 2 hours per day. I think it's a mistake to schedule an office like a factory.

steveo

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2014, 08:05:59 PM »
This happens in Australia as well.

I tend to turn up less than others but my work doesn't suffer. I think it does impact your chances of getting promoted though. I work as a project manager now and I'm pretty successful in delivering projects (admittedly everyone else does all the work). A previous project manager was promoted to an executive role who never delivered a project. Her stuff though was exceptionally documented and she was there all the time.

I think your personality matters a lot in certain jobs. I don't need much information to make a decision whereas some people need heaps of information. I think this allows me to work less hours,

CarDude

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2014, 08:16:28 PM »
We’re just putting in a lot of meaningless face time because that’s what our workplace cultures value—at the expense of our health, our families, and our souls."

Indeed. I can't think of too many folks who wish they'd spent more time at the office when all's said and done.

Emilyngh

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2014, 08:26:43 PM »
I agree.

Some things that I love about my job include that I have great autonomy over what I work on and that the great majority of the time I can choose when to be in the office.   So, I can prioritize what to work on, get it done, and leave.

What amazes me is how many people I work with (who have at least as much flexibility as I do) who get less done and yet spend much more time there.   If they enjoy it, then so be it.   But, I really wonder how much of it is just this compulsion to feel busy, and important, and a fear that you'll miss something.   Honestly, sometimes it pulls at me, and I worry how I can possibly get enough done being there less.   But, then I just look at my tangible results, try to snap myself out of it, finish what's important, and go home.
 
I doubt I'll ever get to the 4 hour work week, but I've watched my work week decrease as I've gotten more efficient, and I think a realistic goal may be to get down to about a 4 hr workday (for the half of a year that I work).    I will only really shoot for cutting down to that as long as I can do it well, but I think with max efficiency, prioritizing, and cutting out waste, I just might be able to.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2014, 08:30:03 PM by Emilyngh »

Nudelkopf

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2014, 05:09:27 AM »
Some people just take some much more time to process things in their heads. Like, the other new teacher at work takes AGES to do anything.. I think she just needs the time to think through it all.

oldtoyota

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2014, 06:45:25 AM »
This happens in Australia as well.

I tend to turn up less than others but my work doesn't suffer. I think it does impact your chances of getting promoted though. I work as a project manager now and I'm pretty successful in delivering projects (admittedly everyone else does all the work). A previous project manager was promoted to an executive role who never delivered a project. Her stuff though was exceptionally documented and she was there all the time.

I think your personality matters a lot in certain jobs. I don't need much information to make a decision whereas some people need heaps of information. I think this allows me to work less hours,

Agreed. Personality does matter--both for accomplishing the work and having the personality that can get along with, and motivate, others.

Seth Godin talks in his book, Linchpin, about how indispensible workers do not wait to be told what to do. Instead, those workers are figuring out problems and solving them. He asks why we're often not willing to expend the emotional labor necessary at our jobs yet we will on, say, a first date. Interesting read and tangentially connected to this idea of overwork and the cultural desire to seem busy instead of productive.


DocCyane

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2014, 06:59:07 AM »
Speaking from my experience, I would say we are not encouraged in most organizations to find and solve problems.

I've dealt with a "committee" model where a group of the right people have to micromanage and approve a project and its execution before anything moves forward. Or I've been in a "top down" only environment where the boss dictates what and how something is done. Both lead to just a few hours of work each day.

I'm not sure the average worker is empowered to act on either issues they see nor on new ideas they have formulated. I hear this is the way at places like Google where innovation must occur and cannot be micromanaged, but the average business doesn't apply this method.

Too much ego?

randymarsh

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2014, 07:49:03 AM »
This is a big reason I'd like to try self-employment. In the 21st century, it seems crazy that we all still go to an office for 8 hours a day regardless of whether we have something to do or need that much time everyday.

Sadly, I don't think we'll see a big push towards the changes the author mentions. The "welfare Queen" meme is so ingrained and "job creators" so revered, that things like

Quote
Other countries also value refreshed workers and family and leisure time, and have paid leave policies when children are born, fostered, or adopted, in addition to sick time. They have paid vacation policies of as much as 30 days. In Denmark, every parent gets two “nurture days” per child until the child is eight, in order to make it to parent-teacher conferences, the school play, etc.—things that in this country, many white collar workers guiltily slink out under the radar to rush to, and working class people risk getting fired to do.

won't get much support.

oldtoyota

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2014, 07:57:35 AM »
Speaking from my experience, I would say we are not encouraged in most organizations to find and solve problems.

I've dealt with a "committee" model where a group of the right people have to micromanage and approve a project and its execution before anything moves forward. Or I've been in a "top down" only environment where the boss dictates what and how something is done. Both lead to just a few hours of work each day.

I'm not sure the average worker is empowered to act on either issues they see nor on new ideas they have formulated. I hear this is the way at places like Google where innovation must occur and cannot be micromanaged, but the average business doesn't apply this method.

Too much ego?

That is really sad. I think it has a lot to do with one's boss. I've worked for people threatened by my success and ideas, and I've worked by people who realize my success is their success. I prefer the latter as I like to get things done and do good and think and collaborate. At my company, the smart people at the top aligned everyone's goals. I have noticed a HUGE improvement in working together and idea acceptance. There is some of that committee work you mentioned. I am not sure how to avoid that 100%...but I find that if you get enough people to back a plan and if you get people to feel like the idea belongs to them too, then acceptance is easier to obtain. It's like a Ph.D. thesis defense...you don't go in without having talked to the people who will be questioning you. You want them on your side BEFORE the big meeting. =-)




oldtoyota

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #10 on: April 01, 2014, 07:59:39 AM »
This is a big reason I'd like to try self-employment. In the 21st century, it seems crazy that we all still go to an office for 8 hours a day regardless of whether we have something to do or need that much time everyday.

Sadly, I don't think we'll see a big push towards the changes the author mentions. The "welfare Queen" meme is so ingrained and "job creators" so revered, that things like

Quote
Other countries also value refreshed workers and family and leisure time, and have paid leave policies when children are born, fostered, or adopted, in addition to sick time. They have paid vacation policies of as much as 30 days. In Denmark, every parent gets two “nurture days” per child until the child is eight, in order to make it to parent-teacher conferences, the school play, etc.—things that in this country, many white collar workers guiltily slink out under the radar to rush to, and working class people risk getting fired to do.

won't get much support.

I hope that is not true.

Hm...thinking out loud...How did we get acceptance for gay marriage? I don't know all of the answers, but it seems like something similar could be done for families. The difference, though, is that families are not the same as a repressed group even if they are a group and they are repressed. In other words, no one is going to take to the streets for families...so you might be right (sadly).


randymarsh

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2014, 08:12:27 AM »
Hm...thinking out loud...How did we get acceptance for gay marriage? I don't know all of the answers, but it seems like something similar could be done for families. The difference, though, is that families are not the same as a repressed group even if they are a group and they are repressed. In other words, no one is going to take to the streets for families...so you might be right (sadly).

Gay marriage is a very concrete and specific thing. I think that makes the "sell" easier.

For workers, it's not just one specific policy that you need. It's everything together. The sick leave, universal healthcare, parental leave, vacation, etc.

The US is also so unequal, that I'm not sure workers/voters would come together. This article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2013/11/09/washington-a-world-apart/) on "Super Zips" mentions how there's an area of about ~700 square miles where the typical income is 127K. Rich people don't even live near working class people in many cases, so I don't think the two sides even realize that they share the common problem of being over worked and stressed out.

ShortInSeattle

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2014, 09:23:13 AM »
This is a big reason I'd like to try self-employment. In the 21st century, it seems crazy that we all still go to an office for 8 hours a day regardless of whether we have something to do or need that much time everyday.

Quote


Crazily enough, when I began being self-employed I spent many years working crazy face-time hours because I thought it was what people needed to do to get ahead. I just translated that habit into my home-office.

These days I work fewer, but more productive hours.  It's definitely lumpy, I have 12 hour days and 4 hour days, but I'd say that 5-6 hours of solid "work" is the norm.

Once you go self-employed, it's hard to go back. :)


mboulder

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #13 on: April 01, 2014, 09:39:50 AM »
I learned many years ago that in the corporate world, to get ahead - good bonuses, raises, awards, recognition - the work you do isn't as important as the work everyone - specifically your management - thinks you do. If you have two employees who accomplish roughly equal amount of work, but one is quiet about it, and the other advertises how busy they are, how hard they are working, how many meetings they go to, makes it known that they stay late, generally the second employee will get more recognition. At least that has been my experience. I have done experiments where I just work for a few months and get my job done without talking about it much, followed by a few months where I am always sending status emails, talking about meetings, mentioning that I am working late, talked about how difficult the job was and how hard I worked, and I definitely saw more kudos when I talked about it.

I think a big part of it too is that many people seek recognition and affirmation, so they do it by working late and working harder. But working late and working harder is not necessarily more efficient, but it does lead to positive feedback and affirmation. So I tend to look at people who go on and on about how hard they work to be seeking recognition, inefficient workers or just simply whiners looking for affirmation that yes, their life is hard.

These days I just couldn't care less though. Sure, a raise or extra bonus would be nice, but my current salary is sufficient for my budget and savings goals. So I get my work done efficiently, on time, without a bunch of stressful extras like working late or attending worthless meetings, because the ROI just doesn't make sense to me. I do send out periodic status emails and drop by my boss's office to let him know my status regularly, maybe 5 minutes every day or three max, so I'm not forgotten completely.

RMD

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #14 on: April 01, 2014, 09:57:56 AM »
Another bit of spin on face time in the office.  I noticed that when we went through a round of layoffs recently, those who worked from home (either entirely home based or in the office 1 day per week) were the majority of those who were let go. Is it easier to fire someone you only talk to on the phone once a week vs the person you see in the break room and in the hallways every day?  I don't know for sure.  Could be that home based people don't have the networking and training and support to be outstanding...or they don't have the opportunity to show it as often?

I can work from home but I've opted not to for the above reason...that and it's not an issue for me to be here.

MrsPete

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #15 on: April 01, 2014, 10:10:37 AM »
Some people just take some much more time to process things in their heads. Like, the other new teacher at work takes AGES to do anything.. I think she just needs the time to think through it all.
This is true of my students, even the best ones.  I give them a project, and sometimes it hurts me to see just how long it takes them to organize their thoughts, come up with a plan, and put it into motion -- even if they're genuinely working at it.  I often wonder at what point in our lives we become efficient. 

Dr. Doom

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #16 on: April 01, 2014, 10:13:33 AM »
I learned many years ago that in the corporate world, to get ahead - good bonuses, raises, awards, recognition - the work you do isn't as important as the work everyone - specifically your management - thinks you do.

Yep, agree ten thousand percent with the entirety of your post.  I think it's important to recognize this so that you can do a little less work and spend some time advertising your work.  You're not advertising for yourself -- you're advertising more for your manager.  Most managers pay surprisingly little attention to what exactly you're doing -- they have a lot of people under them and can only remember one or two big ticket items per employee.  So when their own manager (director) asks them what the team is up to, sometimes it's hard for them to quickly pull a list together -- which makes them feel vulnerable.  They hate that.
Advertising your stuff (i.e. being visible) helps your manager to cover himself, and you.  Most managers are fairly insecure (they're ambitious, after all -- they have a constant need to prove themselves, and that's why and how they became a manager) and your visibility helps them feel more secure.

It feels like a waste of time -- and from a strictly functional perspective, it is -- but it's easier to easier to understand the rules and find ways to work within them that aren't too intensely hypocritical so that you can optimize your life without selling your soul and hating yourself.   

And yeah, never work late or extra on visibility, unless you're at the very starting stages of your career when it might be critical to become established.

Can you tell I was a manager for a year?  Sucked.  I dropped back to contributor for all of the reasons you might suspect.   It's so much nicer doing real work.

One more comment:  The 9-5 office day is inherited from industrial times, i.e. factory life. 
When the shift to white collar jobs occurred, they just inherited the same schedule.   There's no practical reason why people should be doing brain work for 8 hours a day, but the system was never updated to reflect the functional differences in office requirements.  Most people do their real work in 3-5 hours a day and are forced to fill the remaining time with meetings, inane socializing and boring, demoralizing paperwork because they are simply not allowed to leave early.  Your employer doesn't just want your work.   They want your time, your life, and your allegiance.  That's the deal, unfortunately, and no one at the top will change the system because there's no incentive.  Besides, they get used to playing the visibility games.  In their minds, it's Just The Way It Is (life and work). 

Unchangeable, unquestionable, constant.






WageSlave

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #17 on: April 01, 2014, 12:54:49 PM »
The owner of my company is a workaholic, top-down control-freak type.  He's been working 12-hour (or more) days his entire ~20 year career.  I don't know anything about his first marriage, except that it failed; the presumptuous part of me assumes the "work first" mentality had something to do with it.  Being the owner, he can make the rules, yet he only took off a couple days when his kids were born.  In fact, at a company social event, he publicly thanked an employee for staying past 7:00pm only days after that employee's first child was born.  I don't know what he's worth, but 10s of millions at the minimum.  I.e., he could easily retire into an extremely posh life.  The only guy he really trusts in the company earned that position by doing 16-hour days for him for a number of years; he missed a wrecked marriage by the skin of his teeth.

The upside is, he is a "job creator", and a creator of good, high-paying jobs at that.  I believe in working hard and doing a good job, but that's tempered against work-life balance, which has only become more important to me since having kids.  The owner of my company lives to work; but sadly, he expects everyone else in his company to have the same attitude.  I ranted about it here.  I never felt lazy or unambitious until I came to this company.

I just finished reading Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational.  According to him, on Internet dating sites, men generally care about a woman's weight, and women generally care about a man's height and salary.  So everyone lies just a little bit, either shaving off a few pounds, adding an inch or two, and/or inflating salary... but all the site participants know that this behavior is standard, so when they read the listings, they mentally adjust weight up, or height/salary down.  The person who is completely honest, therefore, gets the short stick, because everyone assumes he/she is providing false-but-more-flattering numbers.

I wonder if the same phenomenon applies to salaried office workers.  Everyone knows that they could typically do the same job even with fewer hours at the office.  But nobody wants to be the "honest" person who leaves when his work is done---everyone else will think he's slacking off, even while those same people are they themselves just padding their at-work face-time hours.

Somewhere along the way, I read about ROWE, the results oriented work environment.  The idea is, you get paid for results, not for time spent.  I'm sure pockets of this exist, but in my experience, it certainly isn't the norm.  But it seems more logical, as both parties' interests are better aligned.  My ideal post-FI job is one that I can scale the hours proportionally with my pay, e.g. take a 50% pay cut for 50% fewer hours worked.  Take a simple example: say you reach FI by saving 50% of your pay.  Once you hit FI, can you keep working, but only 50% as much.  Then you're still saving 50%, as you're letting your portfolio returns re-invest.  Personally, that would be wonderful for me; I don't necessarily hate my job, I just hate the time commitment.  If I could work 3.5 days a week or 5--6 hour days or something like that, I might never want to leave.  That would never fly with my employer though (see above).  I've seen a few people on this forum mention arrangements like that, but it seems they are few and far between.

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #18 on: April 01, 2014, 01:41:59 PM »
What are YOU going to do about it? 

For those that find themselves in this situation, you have four basic choices:

  • Embrace and thrive in this work environment (my current approach)
  • Do not embrace and do not thrive in this work environment
  • Leave the work environment
  • Change this work environment

If you work for a inflexible (e.g. large) company, where you feel there are significant structural inefficiencies to be exploited, it often makes sense to leave the company and exploit the ineffiency as a third-party contractor.  If your work is primarily deliverable driven, you should be able to set up your contacts to be lump sum, rather than reimbursable.

Dr. Doom

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #19 on: April 01, 2014, 01:56:49 PM »
The owner of my company is a workaholic, top-down control-freak type.  He's been working 12-hour (or more) days his entire ~20 year career. 

I've seen this personality type twice, in CEOs of software startups on the East Coast.   We'd have calls at 7AM, 11PM, standing calls on Saturday morning and Sunday early afternoon, local calls, international calls with Team India, inter and intra team calls -- you get the idea.  The machine ran all week long. 

Incidentally one of those two startups pedaled a financial product, some b2b Paypal-type solution.  The workaholic tendency isn't constrained to finance but it does seem to have a lot of overlap.   If I had to pick the more awful of the two CEOs, it was the one tied to finance. 

And yeah, he could have retired too -- same or similar situation as your rant.  He had already sold a previous startup for a ton of money.  When I met him he was on his 3rd.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell was driving him to live his life this way.  I think your guess that he preferred work to family is on target.

Not that I have any right to speculate, but being human, I'll do it anyway:  I think he was incredibly insecure and couldn't envision a life where he wasn't running/ruining the lives of other adults as the head of a hierarchy.  He also just didn't know what else to do with himself.  Working hard and without cessation appeared from my perspective to be an end in an of itself for this guy.  Your current owner would get a long great with him, I'm sure.

sadly, he expects everyone else in his company to have the same attitude. 

Same deal.  Eight months in to that particular job, I had to visit my aging mother for three days out of state for various reasons.   Up to then I hadn't taken a single vacation day, averaging 75 hours a week, 10 or 11 sprawled over every single day.  It was a tense point in a release cycle (but then, they all were, these tense points, week after week) and when I told him I needed the time off for family he actually said, verbatim:

I expect all of my employees to be as committed to this enterprise as I am.  Think carefully about whether or not you really need to do this.

After some consideration, I gave my notice the next day.  He was absolutely floored, accused me of plotting to ruin his company.  I reminded him that he threatened my employment the previous day because I needed a few days off but at that point he wasn't listening.  Another direct quote: 

By walking out that door, I feel like you're killing my baby.

Really.  I believe he felt this way.  He went on to suggest I continue to work for him at a higher salary.  At that point I ended the conversation, leaving him in complete disbelief.

I now find myself enjoying articles that link CEOs to psychopaths

Thanks for posting the link to your original rant.  I can read stories about this sort of thing all day, it's incredibly interesting to dissect people who behave like this.  And I'm glad you're on the FI path so you'll be getting out of it soon enough.

steveo

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #20 on: April 01, 2014, 02:43:26 PM »
Speaking from my experience, I would say we are not encouraged in most organizations to find and solve problems.

I've dealt with a "committee" model where a group of the right people have to micromanage and approve a project and its execution before anything moves forward. Or I've been in a "top down" only environment where the boss dictates what and how something is done. Both lead to just a few hours of work each day.

I'm not sure the average worker is empowered to act on either issues they see nor on new ideas they have formulated. I hear this is the way at places like Google where innovation must occur and cannot be micromanaged, but the average business doesn't apply this method.

Too much ego?

This is exactly like my job however there are a couple of us who have quietly been solving problems. The thing is you have to pretend that you are following process and procedure. We have a new boss at the moment who wants us to push things. Prior to this you would cop it for trying to improve how we worked or save money or run things more efficiently.

What are YOU going to do about it? 

For those that find themselves in this situation, you have four basic choices:

  • Embrace and thrive in this work environment (my current approach)
  • Do not embrace and do not thrive in this work environment
  • Leave the work environment
  • Change this work environment

If you work for a inflexible (e.g. large) company, where you feel there are significant structural inefficiencies to be exploited, it often makes sense to leave the company and exploit the ineffiency as a third-party contractor.  If your work is primarily deliverable driven, you should be able to set up your contacts to be lump sum, rather than reimbursable.

I'm not sure what you mean by embrace and thrive in the work environment. Personally I do a couple of things:-

1. I am flexible in the hours that I work. I work from home one day per week regularly and occasionally another day as well. I just pretend that this is allowed and its cool.
2. I leave early when possible.
=> I get away with this because my job is based in two different locations and no one really knows where I am. For the last month I think I've worked about 20 hours per week.
3. I try and do the right thing (do my job as efficiently as possible) but without directly pissing off people. As an example there can be simple decisions that need to go to a design forum and have governance approval and we have to employ someone into a design review and documentation role. The quality of staff in these roles is on the whole pretty poor. I basically just get all the facts together and make the decisions as obvious as possible and then engage this team to approve it. We have a separate design team that are really good and I leave their work to them as there is no need to get involved.
4. I remember that my goal is to become FI and my current job is a fantastic way for me to get there. The hours are great. The pay is pretty good. I live close to work.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2014, 02:53:42 PM by steveo »

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #21 on: April 01, 2014, 02:52:31 PM »
The owner of my company is a workaholic, top-down control-freak type.  He's been working 12-hour (or more) days his entire ~20 year career. 

I've seen this personality type twice, in CEOs of software startups on the East Coast.   We'd have calls at 7AM, 11PM, standing calls on Saturday morning and Sunday early afternoon, local calls, international calls with Team India, inter and intra team calls -- you get the idea.  The machine ran all week long. 

Incidentally one of those two startups pedaled a financial product, some b2b Paypal-type solution.  The workaholic tendency isn't constrained to finance but it does seem to have a lot of overlap.   If I had to pick the more awful of the two CEOs, it was the one tied to finance. 

And yeah, he could have retired too -- same or similar situation as your rant.  He had already sold a previous startup for a ton of money.  When I met him he was on his 3rd.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell was driving him to live his life this way.  I think your guess that he preferred work to family is on target.

Not that I have any right to speculate, but being human, I'll do it anyway:  I think he was incredibly insecure and couldn't envision a life where he wasn't running/ruining the lives of other adults as the head of a hierarchy.  He also just didn't know what else to do with himself.  Working hard and without cessation appeared from my perspective to be an end in an of itself for this guy.  Your current owner would get a long great with him, I'm sure.

sadly, he expects everyone else in his company to have the same attitude. 

Same deal.  Eight months in to that particular job, I had to visit my aging mother for three days out of state for various reasons.   Up to then I hadn't taken a single vacation day, averaging 75 hours a week, 10 or 11 sprawled over every single day.  It was a tense point in a release cycle (but then, they all were, these tense points, week after week) and when I told him I needed the time off for family he actually said, verbatim:

I expect all of my employees to be as committed to this enterprise as I am.  Think carefully about whether or not you really need to do this.

After some consideration, I gave my notice the next day.  He was absolutely floored, accused me of plotting to ruin his company.  I reminded him that he threatened my employment the previous day because I needed a few days off but at that point he wasn't listening.  Another direct quote: 

By walking out that door, I feel like you're killing my baby.

Really.  I believe he felt this way.  He went on to suggest I continue to work for him at a higher salary.  At that point I ended the conversation, leaving him in complete disbelief.

I now find myself enjoying articles that link CEOs to psychopaths

Thanks for posting the link to your original rant.  I can read stories about this sort of thing all day, it's incredibly interesting to dissect people who behave like this.  And I'm glad you're on the FI path so you'll be getting out of it soon enough.

That there's a horror story of a boss.

oldtoyota

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #22 on: April 01, 2014, 03:29:32 PM »
Another bit of spin on face time in the office.  I noticed that when we went through a round of layoffs recently, those who worked from home (either entirely home based or in the office 1 day per week) were the majority of those who were let go. Is it easier to fire someone you only talk to on the phone once a week vs the person you see in the break room and in the hallways every day?  I don't know for sure.  Could be that home based people don't have the networking and training and support to be outstanding...or they don't have the opportunity to show it as often?

I can work from home but I've opted not to for the above reason...that and it's not an issue for me to be here.

Good point. That has not been the case where I am. However, a LOT of people WFH, from other cities, etc so it's really part of the culture where I am. If you are at a place where WFH is "weird," then I could see that being the case.

I could WFH FT, but I have chosen to keep time in the office as well and I aim to choose days when my colleagues are *not* WFH so I can see them in person sometimes.

A lot of success is due to your boss. My boss allowed me access to all of his same-level colleagues to show what I could do. He did not say it, but I have a feeling that access helped me because I think all of them have some say in the promotion decisions even if not directly for their staff.

Another part is job dependent. If you have a job that does not direct affect people widely -- or that can't be measured -- it's hard to show how awesome you are. Over time, I chose a field that is highly measurable so I can show measurable gains. A graphic designer, for instance, would have a hard time showing measurable gains because the field is subjective. Joe might like the work; Sally may think the work is terrible. Early on, I decided to get away from those sorts of jobs and it's helped me a lot. Where I work, I notice that the people who work on measurable programs have been recognized and whether they WFH has not mattered too much.




libertarian4321

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #23 on: April 01, 2014, 04:59:33 PM »
I can't remember where, but I read about some studies that concluded office workers average about 4 hours of real work per day. One study said as low as 2 hours per day. I think it's a mistake to schedule an office like a factory.

Yup.  I figure that back when I was working in an office, if you subtracted the time I spend wandering the halls, daydreaming, sending or answering pointless emails, BSing with co workers, surfing the 'net, eating lunch, sitting through utterly pointless meetings, attending cake parties, and all the other non-productive stuff that almost all of us do in an office, I was probably averaging 2-4 hours per day of actual work, at best.

So, 9 hours at the office (with lunch), plus an hour of drive time, plus an hour getting ready for work.  11 hours of time wasted to produce maybe 3 hours of productive work.  If that isn't tragic enough, consider the amount of fossil fuels burned every year while driving to work/ sitting in traffic.

That is why I refuse to ever work in an office again.  I'm not 100% effective working from home (still have lots of silly emails, and still "Telecommute" to pointless meetings, etc), but I'm probably putting in a good 5-6 hours of actual productive work, and it only takes 8 hours to do so (the prep and driving time are eliminated, and since my "office" is 30 feet from the kitchen, I eliminate the hour of wasted "lunch" time.

I'm far more productive, and far less stressed. 

libertarian4321

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #24 on: April 01, 2014, 05:13:57 PM »
Has anyone else ever worked for a company where you are compared to the workaholic in cubicle 367?

We probably all know the person who LIVES in the office (let's call him "Skippy").  He's there at 6 AM, he leaves at 9 PM.  He's there on nights, weekends, and holidays.  His wife and kids never see him.  You wonder when he ever even had time to perform the functions required to produce kids.

The "boss" considers him the ideal, and evaluates everyone else based on how close they come to emulating Skippy.

Doesn't matter that Skippy is a something of a dolt and takes forever to produce third rate work.  He's a "team" player, and that's what's really important.

So most folks feel they need to put in at least 10-hours a day, minimum, just to try and kinda sorta keep up with workaholic Skippy.  They aren't being productive, they are just putting in face time at the office.  Which causes them to miss time with their friends and family.

No wonder workers are stressed out.


Daisy

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #25 on: April 01, 2014, 07:29:58 PM »
Has anyone else ever worked for a company where you are compared to the workaholic in cubicle 367?

We probably all know the person who LIVES in the office (let's call him "Skippy").  He's there at 6 AM, he leaves at 9 PM.  He's there on nights, weekends, and holidays.  His wife and kids never see him.  You wonder when he ever even had time to perform the functions required to produce kids.

The "boss" considers him the ideal, and evaluates everyone else based on how close they come to emulating Skippy.

Doesn't matter that Skippy is a something of a dolt and takes forever to produce third rate work.  He's a "team" player, and that's what's really important.

So most folks feel they need to put in at least 10-hours a day, minimum, just to try and kinda sorta keep up with workaholic Skippy.  They aren't being productive, they are just putting in face time at the office.  Which causes them to miss time with their friends and family.

No wonder workers are stressed out.

Yes, I have worked with Skippy. One time Skippy was on vacation. Our weekly meeting ended 15 minutes early instead of going over for 30 minutes. At the end, everyone looked around like something went wrong that we might have missed something. Then we all realized the meeting didn't run over because Skippy wasn't there to interrupt everyone and make themselves look better than everyone else.

Daisy

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #26 on: April 01, 2014, 07:55:34 PM »
I forgot to mention the time I left work on a Friday at 7pm or so. Skippy's spouse was downstairs waiting for Skippy to finish working so that they could go celebrate their anniversary. Sad...

Ftao93

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #27 on: April 02, 2014, 09:25:15 AM »
My boss and I have had this discussion.

He is an excellent person, but is at that stage where he wants to get the official Manager title.  So he tows the line and so on.  Overall still a very good supervisor to have. 

He and his wife both have newish,  but fairly efficient vehicles.   They drive longer distances, and spend huge quantities of after hours time working.   They've done well, but I wonder at what expense?

Since we have several offices, I often have to travel to support them.  There are times when I won't unless it is a dire emergency, such as weather or holidays.  I get reimbursed based on mileage, and since I ride a motorcycle or scooter, I come out ahead.  However the TIME required is more important to me.  My wife and I both live within a few miles of work, where we can walk, bus, or scoot easily.  This is by design.   I HATE commuting long distances.  Even on the 2 wheelers, which I love to ride, it can be stressful since every major road in CO is under construction at the moment.

We came into conflict when he said "you should go to these other offices, and sit there, as a PR move..."    My retort is that these folks are highly educated, and capable of using a phone and email just fine.  If not, why do they work here?

Dr. Doom

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #28 on: April 02, 2014, 10:00:41 AM »
The owner of my company is a workaholic, top-down control-freak type.  He's been working 12-hour (or more) days his entire ~20 year career. 

I now find myself enjoying articles that link CEOs to psychopaths

Thanks for posting the link to your original rant.  I can read stories about this sort of thing all day, it's incredibly interesting to dissect people who behave like this.  And I'm glad you're on the FI path so you'll be getting out of it soon enough.

That there's a horror story of a boss.

Yeah.  It all ended well though.  This job really solidified for me that I don't want to be in startup culture any more -- ever.
I got a contributor position in academia right after that, 35 hours a week, no visibility BS to deal with.  I do my function, people are happy, I work fewer than half the hours a week than my old job, get plenty of vacation to help ease the journey to complete FI, and my wife didn't leave me. 

In academia there are a lot fewer Skippy types btw.  My observation is that people sort of understand that work shouldn't be the center of your life and behave accordingly. 

Emilyngh

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #29 on: April 02, 2014, 10:46:40 AM »


In academia there are a lot fewer Skippy types btw.  My observation is that people sort of understand that work shouldn't be the center of your life and behave accordingly.

I'm in academia, and while I agree we don't have as many pure Skippy-types.   There do seem to be quite a few "delusionally think I'm a Skippy" and "Let's pretend we're Skippy."  IME, people really keep pretty chill hours but like to talk about how much they work, and/or to tsk tsk someone they see leaving at 4pm (although they themselves only rolled in at 10:30 am).   To me, it seems like a big game that I guess we're supposed to play (either that or everyone else is super inefficient and/or super delusional, or a bit of both).

Albert

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #30 on: April 02, 2014, 11:14:24 AM »
Don't know what kind of academia you are familiar with (teaching only?), but my postdoc advisor (in US) used to work 8-19 on weekdays and also come in saturday afternoons and sunday mornings (at 6 am!!!). He was already old (early 60-ties), most younger professors work more than that.

windawake

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #31 on: April 02, 2014, 11:55:40 AM »
This thread has been an interesting read. I started at my current job 4 months ago after finishing graduate school. Things here are pretty relaxed. My supervisor only supervises two people, and both of us come in for a maximum of 8 hours total per day. I still take a lunch and other breaks as I feel I need them. I have definitely found that there isn't enough work to fill my time, as I've posted on the forums before.

In light of this conversation, when do you think is an okay time to bring up the possibility of working from home 1 day/week to my boss? She works from home with some regularity but not adherent to any schedule. She has been very flexible with me working from home as needed in the past. I know I'm very new and I'm happy to keep plugging away at the office, but eventually working from home would totally rock (and my dog would be very happy too).

oldtoyota

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #32 on: April 02, 2014, 12:04:28 PM »
This thread has been an interesting read. I started at my current job 4 months ago after finishing graduate school. Things here are pretty relaxed. My supervisor only supervises two people, and both of us come in for a maximum of 8 hours total per day. I still take a lunch and other breaks as I feel I need them. I have definitely found that there isn't enough work to fill my time, as I've posted on the forums before.

In light of this conversation, when do you think is an okay time to bring up the possibility of working from home 1 day/week to my boss? She works from home with some regularity but not adherent to any schedule. She has been very flexible with me working from home as needed in the past. I know I'm very new and I'm happy to keep plugging away at the office, but eventually working from home would totally rock (and my dog would be very happy too).

You might be surprised to find she says yes quickly, especially given that she does it.

Tom Ferriss, 4HWW author, has some advice about this, too. Here is the summary of it:

http://lifehacker.com/378496/convince-the-boss-to-let-you-telework

FunkyStickman

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #33 on: April 02, 2014, 02:30:36 PM »
Yes.

Dear God, yes, this thread highlights what I hate most about corporate life. Since I decided to work towards FI 3-ish years ago, I have grown to despise the mindset that says people should live to work, not work to live.

I could write a novel on how idiotic and stupid the corporate environment is, how acidic, unneeded and poisonous middle management is, how little work gets done because of stupidity like keeping up appearances... I could go on and on.

They can spend $30,000 to clean up the grounds to impress a CEO who's coming to visit for one day, but they can't spend a few hundred bucks to get me an actual desk. My "desk" is a 36" stretch of countertop, sandwiched between two engineers who get paid a good bit more than me. I don't even have storage space... my filing cabinet has to share space with engineering paperwork and fixture hardware. Like, seriously.

God, it's enough to make me want to quit tomorrow, but I am leveraging the 401K matching, required overtime, and anything else I can use to GTFO ASAP.

I'm an hourly employee, working from home is not an option. I don't want a salary, for the explicit reason that it will then require me to work all hours, through lunch breaks (like many of my coworkers do) or whatever else. All of the engineers I work with in my immediate cubicle work stupid hours, have failed/failing/no relationships, and make fun of me for being frugal.

I actually had one woman/girl tell a new engineer that it was expected to work through lunch breaks. I promptly interjected "You're a contractor, you work hourly, like me, you're not required to work through breaks. Don't listen to her." Boy, did I get the evil eye for that one.

Dr. Doom

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #34 on: April 02, 2014, 03:46:15 PM »
In academia there are a lot fewer Skippy types btw.  My observation is that people sort of understand that work shouldn't be the center of your life and behave accordingly.

I'm in academia, and while I agree we don't have as many pure Skippy-types.   There do seem to be quite a few "delusionally think I'm a Skippy" and "Let's pretend we're Skippy."  IME, people really keep pretty chill hours but like to talk about how much they work, and/or to tsk tsk someone they see leaving at 4pm (although they themselves only rolled in at 10:30 am).   To me, it seems like a big game that I guess we're supposed to play (either that or everyone else is super inefficient and/or super delusional, or a bit of both).

Yes, it is definitely a game.  When someone at work asks "How's it going?" the correct answer is always "Good, but busy."  You don't have to go on and on about it like some of the fake skippys you mention but the expected response in the sequence of dialogue remains the same:  I'm busy.

I find it's best to avoid elaborating.  That way, I'm not lying.  Because I am busy, after all -- listening to music or interwebbing. 

"let's pretend we're skippy."  Pretty funny.  We do have one of those.  Everyone recognizes what a lying PITA they are...

@Albert -- I'm in the IT department of a good school.  I don't doubt that things are different for professors who are heavily involved in research, teaching, and seeking tenure.


Emilyngh

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #35 on: April 02, 2014, 05:44:22 PM »
Don't know what kind of academia you are familiar with (teaching only?), but my postdoc advisor (in US) used to work 8-19 on weekdays and also come in saturday afternoons and sunday mornings (at 6 am!!!). He was already old (early 60-ties), most younger professors work more than that.

I am a younger professor on the tenure-track at a school that prioritizes teaching, but I am relatively active in research.   And while there are certainly profs who work a lot, even at the research heavy prestigious school where I got my PhD in an engineering field, generally they had pretty relaxed schedules compared to the general public.   My ex advisor ranks as top 10 in citations in his field in the US, and he was super-duper efficient, worked 9:30-5, taking an hour and a half lunch to run each day, and only worked M-F.   Other profs there would bitch-brag about how much they worked but (a) they didn't get as much done as he did (at least not as far as tangible results), and (b) walking through the halls before 9am, on a weekend, or after 5pm, the place was pretty dead (and it's a very good school), so I question how many were pretend Skippies.

I published well while a grad student while keeping a very relaxed schedule.   I then worked for years at a National Lab where I was very successful research-wise, but if you added up my actual time spent really working, I'd say I averaged 4-5 hrs a day (but I had to be there 40 hours a week, so I perfected time-wasting and decided never to have a job like that again).   IME, teaching actually takes more time than research.   Especially once one has student research assistants.  Then, it's mostly grant-writing, which I've been doing a fair share of and which is manageable if one doesn't procrastinate and works smartly, IME.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be working more than I do now if I went to a more research focused school (which is a part of me not doing such), but even then, pretty confident working Skippy hours  would not only not be required for success (after established, say after the first year or so), but in the long-term would actually be worse than keeping a nice 30-40 hour or so week.   I swear I've read studies confirming this very thing (that productivity in the long-term actually drops after prolonged weeks working more than 40 hrs), but I'm too lazy to search them out.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2014, 05:52:40 PM by Emilyngh »

Rural

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #36 on: April 02, 2014, 08:38:24 PM »
Don't know what kind of academia you are familiar with (teaching only?), but my postdoc advisor (in US) used to work 8-19 on weekdays and also come in saturday afternoons and sunday mornings (at 6 am!!!). He was already old (early 60-ties), most younger professors work more than that.

I am a younger professor on the tenure-track at a school that prioritizes teaching, but I am relatively active in research.   And while there are certainly profs who work a lot, even at the research heavy prestigious school where I got my PhD in an engineering field, generally they had pretty relaxed schedules compared to the general public.   My ex advisor ranks as top 10 in citations in his field in the US, and he was super-duper efficient, worked 9:30-5, taking an hour and a half lunch to run each day, and only worked M-F.   Other profs there would bitch-brag about how much they worked but (a) they didn't get as much done as he did (at least not as far as tangible results), and (b) walking through the halls before 9am, on a weekend, or after 5pm, the place was pretty dead (and it's a very good school), so I question how many were pretend Skippies.

I published well while a grad student while keeping a very relaxed schedule.   I then worked for years at a National Lab where I was very successful research-wise, but if you added up my actual time spent really working, I'd say I averaged 4-5 hrs a day (but I had to be there 40 hours a week, so I perfected time-wasting and decided never to have a job like that again).   IME, teaching actually takes more time than research.   Especially once one has student research assistants.  Then, it's mostly grant-writing, which I've been doing a fair share of and which is manageable if one doesn't procrastinate and works smartly, IME.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be working more than I do now if I went to a more research focused school (which is a part of me not doing such), but even then, pretty confident working Skippy hours  would not only not be required for success (after established, say after the first year or so), but in the long-term would actually be worse than keeping a nice 30-40 hour or so week.   I swear I've read studies confirming this very thing (that productivity in the long-term actually drops after prolonged weeks working more than 40 hrs), but I'm too lazy to search them out.


I'm a not-young professor on the tenure-track at a teaching college. :-) I agree the schedule is more relaxed, in the sense that it is much more flexible than the usual nine to five. But my experience has been that almost all weeks are 60 hour weeks; I just get a lot more control over which hours those are. It does make a huge difference, but it doesn't keep exhaustion at bay very effectively, especially when one is no longer young. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm several years less young than I was at the beginning of this semester!

Primm

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #37 on: April 02, 2014, 09:09:02 PM »
What are YOU going to do about it? 

For those that find themselves in this situation, you have four basic choices:

  • Embrace and thrive in this work environment (my current approach)
  • Do not embrace and do not thrive in this work environment
  • Leave the work environment
  • Change this work environment

If you work for a inflexible (e.g. large) company, where you feel there are significant structural inefficiencies to be exploited, it often makes sense to leave the company and exploit the ineffiency as a third-party contractor.  If your work is primarily deliverable driven, you should be able to set up your contacts to be lump sum, rather than reimbursable.

My husband has taken the 1st option. He works for a company where he makes home visits to clients (health-care related). His region is a particularly lovely part of the world, and he's away for a week at a time. Initially he scheduled his home visits so he was away for 3 days at a time, but was told by the powers-that-be that he needed to slow it down a bit because his productivity was 40% above the other people in his role elsewhere in the country. So now he schedules the visits over a week, spreads them out over 5 days instead of 3, finishes work at 2pm each day and spends the rest of his time on the beach, or starts at lunchtime and only works the afternoon. At company expense. Same money, same costs (to him), way way way less stress.

Schaefer Light

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Re: American Workers are Stressed Out!
« Reply #38 on: April 03, 2014, 10:41:30 AM »
I agree with what many posters above have said already.  The idea of an 8-5 workday for an office worker doesn't make the least bit of sense to me.  If I can get my work done in 4 hours, then why can't I leave and go play golf in the afternoon?  What makes matters worse for me is that I'm in a management position and I've got to give approval to staff members for trivial things like going to their house to meet a repairman or leaving 30 minutes early to get to a doctor's appointment.  As long as these folks are getting their work done, I couldn't care less when they go home or arrive at work each day.

And don't get me started on meetings.  Talk about a waste of time.