Society is built upon the balance of work and leisure. The constant struggle to be productive while sustaining a personal life can be demanding and straining. Americans work 300 more hours per year than people in France and even more compared to other parts of the world (Weinreb, 2012). In spite of the nation’s passé labor laws and inadequate minimum wages, it prevails as the world’s most productive country. However at the same time, America has become the most overworked labor force in all of the developed world. Doing so the American people have lost contentment in their lives, and have fallen prey to anxiety along with many other problems as they struggle to make ends meet in this recovering economy (Weinreb, 2012). In this paper, I will discuss how the exertive work schedule in America differs from other nations, what caused this to happen and how it has begun to take a toll on the mental and physical well being of Americans.
American’s are working more than ever just to make ends meet. There is a price to pay when a country with 4.5% of the world’s population is producing more than a fifth of the world’s wealth (Schaller, 2013). We all need money; therefore most of us need to work. It is necessary to maintain our lives. We are spending money just by sitting at home watching TV or surfing the net. We need money to provide shelter and education and just about everything else. It enables us to feel secure and gives a sense of certainty. So then why is earning money ruining our mental health and family lives? Our attitude towards work has changed. We see more hours spent at the office as a badge of honor and something to brag about, and don’t take into consideration the toll it takes on our family and health. Work is essential ...
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Curry agrees that work is a job that takes over a person’s life and claims, “The job penetrates every aspect of life. Americans don’t exercise they work out” (15). In his perspective, a job has created this sense of “working out”, in which not the actual going to the gym to workout is being used, but jobs are the place of working out. In his mind working out at the gym has been replaced with typical long houred jobs. This is the case for many people, including the life of Ehrenreich in which the juggling of two jobs, consists of her whole day. She proclaims:
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Previous generations have a strong belief of keeping work and home life separate; that work is for work and home is for play (Rampell, 2011, para 21). Today’s professionals do not seem to abide by similar beliefs, constantly crossing the borders of one into the other. While many recognize this as an issue that could result in employees being less productive, it has actually resulted in them accepting that their work may run late into the evening or even into the weekend. I agree with this completely in that I grew up being taught that business is business and personal is personal; you leave your home life at the door. But now times have changed, and my weekends are no longer dedicated to my home life, but for work, because I attend classes during the week. Also, in my line of work in the Allied Health industry, it is a requirement to work off hours. Long gone are the days of working nine to five, Monday through Friday; technology and the demand of wanting affairs done and done as soon as possible, has made it so the “work week” is now 24-7. “Jon Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard Institute of Politics, said, ‘Some experts also believe that today’s young people are better at quickly switching from one task to another, given their exposure to so many stimuli during their childhood and adolescence’” (Rampbell,
People will argue that having a low-paying job and freedom is better than a high-paying job and a 60-hour workweek. However many including myself, don’t share the views of Hal Niedzviecki’s essay’s “Stupid Jobs Are Good to Relax With”. Having a higher paying and longer hours provides much more income and allows for a lot more financial freedom. This freedom can help bring much more happiness into your life compared to the lower paying workweek. Hal Niedzviecki mentions many benefits to the easy jobs with low-paying workweeks in the following statement
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