Families today are tied to the financial commitments and choices they have made. Purchasing a house, fancy cars, and other luxuries have forced people to carry the burden of working harder than wanted just to pay the bills of their chosen lifestyle. People have the feeling of burden and frustration when it comes to workloads. In Andrew Curry’s essay “Why We Work” he relays in paragraph 4 that more women work today to afford the luxuries for their family. Americans are choosing to forfeit leisure for luxury; more so than back in the day before WWII. Families suffer because of the self-inflicted heavy workloads. Restructuring and layoffs are to blame for competition.
People don’t have to drive $80,000 cars and purchase a $500,000 home; nor do they have to keep with the Joneses. People today tend to live beyond their means and both parents have to work as a result. Curry continues to convey that technology has crossed over between home and work and that we handle work issues at home and home issues at work, all with the touch of a button. Maybe technology has distorted our lines between work and home but it is required to handle the workload we subject ourselves to; all at the expense of our families.
The economy is shaky enough; nobody wants to be seen as less devoted to their job at the risk of being let go or laid off. How then would the opulent materials be afforded? No job means a lower level of comfort for the people that choose this path so a heavier workload is accepted just to be seen as more productive and invincible; all at the touch of a button. Curry also writes that “A lot of people believe if they do work less they’ll be seen as less committed, and in a shaky economy no one wants that.” I personall...
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...es to work together to get the things they need to survive.
If people can rethink the reason to work, maybe they wouldn’t be caught up in the stress over work overload. Work should be something you enjoy and get paid for. Today, it’s just accepted that both parents, spouses, or significant others work to afford the luxuries the world has to offer. If people work more hours now than they ever did, what will it be like in double the time? People will probably be bribing for jobs or worse killing or hurting over them. In the reality of restructure and layoffs, competition is created but perhaps the competition is created because more people want higher paying jobs just to afford their luxuries and become a victim of work overload.
Works Cited
Curry, A. (2010). Why We Work. In Goshgarian, What Matters in America (pp. 388 - 394). San Francisco : Pearson.
Danzer, Gerald, J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Larry Krieger, Louis Wilson, and Nancy Woloch. The Americans. 1. 1. McDougal Little, 2005. 1121. Print.
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