The Decline of the 'Average Joe'

Today I woke up at about 5:00am for a special trip to work. I carpooled and was dropped off because the other needed to meet a client for a certain time. Which is why I woke up so early. Sometimes I wonder why I put in the extra hours for the company I work for. Why do all of us put in extra hours at the office? Do we all love our jobs that much?

I think that the average joe doesn't necessary "like" their jobs, it's just that there is so much work to be done at the office now. I wasn't born then but from what I can gather, it wasn't like this back in the 70's, was it? I can't help but wonder why more and more people aren't taking their vacation time, why more people stay late hours, why more people in North America are depressed than anywhere in the world. There could be thousands of reasons why, but I think the main ones is the world we live in today.

With new technology something somewhere becomes easier. With the ipod it's become easier to store music, videos, etc... with faster computers it has become easier to access information. With bigger hard drives it becomes easier to store information. With computers, period, it's become easier to save information while saving resources. If you save your information electronically you don't have to waste paper and valuable time printing the pages and managing them. With cell phones you can talk to anyone from virtually anywhere, meaning you can be making deals while driving to work. Judging from the amount of people who drive while on cell phones, it seems like a common practice. When things become easier, it becomes more time efficient, with more time, it means you can do more work. With more work for the less amount of time invested, means there is more money to be made per-second than traditionally. Is it possible then, that people are just biting off more than they can chew?

People, perhaps, aren't taking their vacation time, are putting in extra hours not because they necessarily want to, but because they have to. People fear that if they take a few days off, they now have to work over-time when they come back to make up for the days they lost because all the work has piled up. How do you combat something like that?

We work because we want time off. In other words, we work so that we can afford to spend our time off in leisure.

Under the Labour Laws in Canada it is illegal, unless it's within a written contract, that any given person cannot work more than eight hours a day, and forty-eight hours a week. In order to work up to sixty (60) hours a week, the employer must have a document filed with the government, as well as a contract with the employee. This contract will expire after three years. If an agreement is to exceed the sixty hour-a-week limit, a contract and document must be filed and it will only be valid for one year.

Query: How many people actually do that? How many people actually agree to work more than 60 hours a week? Their are only 168 hours in a week. Even 60 hours by itself. You need at least 8 hours of sleep a night, so in total the amount of "leisure" hours you have (assuming you work 60 hours) is only 52 hours. Oh wait, we forgot rush-hour traffic. An hour each way, we have to dock you another 14 hours. So we're at a grand total of 38 hours a week spent with family and friends.

I would hate to see the repercussions on your social life if you do do that. How would you be able to maintain a wife? A family? A healthy social network? It's well known that it is isolation that weakens us, while conflict strengthens us, but how could someone live like this? People do this illegally every single day because their job demands it. Some people do this in order for their families to survive. So if you only had 38 hours a week for time off, there is no doubt in my mind why there is such a high depression rate in North America. What's the point of working so hard if you can't even reap the fruits of thy labour?

I am considered a "work-to-rule" kind of guy. Most people frown on that and call me lazy. To them I say that I want to balance my work and my leisure. I don't want to be consumed by work because I value my time. "Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness" - Sigmund Freud. If you love what you do and that's all there is, then you have something going for you. That brings me back to one of my first points, do people really love what they do, so much that they choose to work those 60 hours a week? Some people have no choice, but some do. It's really unfair to the people who do not have the choice, and those that do; why?


sources: Labour Laws of Canada