Thumb on the Scales of Work-Life Balance
Several decades ago, when I was half my age and my Dad was still alive, he made a statement—actually a prediction—about the work and the time we spend at work. While not academically educated, he was a perceptive and optimistic man and he believed he was seeing a positive change in progress. We were discussing my job, its good and bad points, when we got around to the work hours; in my case that meant the standard forty-hour, Monday through Friday model. Dad was the son of Slavic immigrants, had come of age during the Great Depression, and was an infantryman during the Second World War, having seen combat in the Pacific Theater. Prior to the country 's—and his—entry into the war he married the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, her father an anthracite miner from Pennsylvania. Together they had seen the productivity and prosperity of factory workers, like themselves, grow steadily after World War II. He had also seen the growth in the amount of leisure time that hourly workers were enjoying during the post-war boom. His prediction was that the forty-hour workweek would become a thing of the past; he was right and he was wrong.
The hours worked by many has, in fact, shifted away from the 40-hour model that my Dad and I both had worked, but usually not in a good way. As the economy was shifting gears near the end of the …show more content…
The competition for our time is a zero-sum game. An hour extra at work is an hour that can 't be spent with our spouse, children, dog, church, scout troop, friend, or fishing rod, and the others in our lives — human or otherwise — are thus deprived of our presence. The time management gurus tell us that we can improve things by minimizing wasted time, but the opportunity cost of spending an extra hour, or more, in one pursuit is very
Several decades ago, when I was half my age and my Dad was still alive, he made a statement—actually a prediction—about the work and the time we spend at work. While not academically educated, he was a perceptive and optimistic man and he believed he was seeing a positive change in progress. We were discussing my job, its good and bad points, when we got around to the work hours; in my case that meant the standard forty-hour, Monday through Friday model. Dad was the son of Slavic immigrants, had come of age during the Great Depression, and was an infantryman during the Second World War, having seen combat in the Pacific Theater. Prior to the country 's—and his—entry into the war he married the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, her father an anthracite miner from Pennsylvania. Together they had seen the productivity and prosperity of factory workers, like themselves, grow steadily after World War II. He had also seen the growth in the amount of leisure time that hourly workers were enjoying during the post-war boom. His prediction was that the forty-hour workweek would become a thing of the past; he was right and he was wrong.
The hours worked by many has, in fact, shifted away from the 40-hour model that my Dad and I both had worked, but usually not in a good way. As the economy was shifting gears near the end of the …show more content…
The competition for our time is a zero-sum game. An hour extra at work is an hour that can 't be spent with our spouse, children, dog, church, scout troop, friend, or fishing rod, and the others in our lives — human or otherwise — are thus deprived of our presence. The time management gurus tell us that we can improve things by minimizing wasted time, but the opportunity cost of spending an extra hour, or more, in one pursuit is very