Priorities? Anyone?
Interesting thing about America. At dinner last night, we talked about how Europeans generally have 5-6 weeks of vacation a year and most only work 30-hour weeks or so. So, they're not the dominant super-power on earth, who cares? They still live well.
The US feels the need to be better than everyone else - it's become part of our identity and culture, so every company feels the need to be better than everyone else, too. Our priorities are totally off-base, in my opinion. Employers value their bottom lines more than they value their PEOPLE. They push people to work long hours and limit vacation and other benefits. They ask - no, REQUIRE - employees to accomplish amazing feats with inadequate resources. Even companies that want to be people-focused have to demand a lot of their people just to stay in the game.
And our children are watching and learning.
The US feels the need to be better than everyone else - it's become part of our identity and culture, so every company feels the need to be better than everyone else, too. Our priorities are totally off-base, in my opinion. Employers value their bottom lines more than they value their PEOPLE. They push people to work long hours and limit vacation and other benefits. They ask - no, REQUIRE - employees to accomplish amazing feats with inadequate resources. Even companies that want to be people-focused have to demand a lot of their people just to stay in the game.
And our children are watching and learning.
posted by DenverSop @ 12:23 PM
4 Comments:
At 1/31/2008 1:37 PM,
Anonymous said…
Money doesn't buy happiness. And in the end, isn't that what is important in life, being happy?
The problem is they push their hard working employees to make up for the dolts they have hired that don't do their jobs but can't really be fired. "Hard work is its own reward. Expect to get rewarded twice as much next year." (Thanks PHB.)
I think this issue hits particularly close to home for you. It sucks to be an exploited worker or someone who lives with one.
~BPP
At 1/31/2008 4:31 PM,
Anonymous said…
Exploited workers? Seriously?
We're not slaves in the US. we're private contractors who can choose to be useful somewhere else.
At 1/31/2008 4:45 PM,
DenverSop said…
Right... my whole point is that it is rarely any better "somewhere else" because this issue is so widespread.
At 1/31/2008 6:37 PM,
Anonymous said…
I agree completely. You know, I once read a study that said that productivity starts to fall off after about 35 hours per week, so people who work copious overtime really have diminishing returns for the amount of time spent.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff over the past year or so, and I've come to the conclusion that while work is important for money and (hopefully) intellectual stimulation, you can't let it dominate your life. And that means saying no sometimes, even if your boss doesn't like it. We'll see how that goes...
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