Everyone in the world works, working hard is a good thing. But is working too much a good thing? This problem seems happen in America in a worth considering way when America is noticed as the most overworked developed Nation in the world. Americans work too many hours in comparison to their peers around the world. Why they have to work that much? Do they think they work too much? Or just because they can 't find anything more interesting than working? Do Americans work too much because they want to or because they have to? With much speculation, this topic has become a very intriguing argument.
In the article “Americans Are Overworked, but Still Surprisingly Happy on the Job,” author Suzanne Lucas presents the idea that many Americans are overworked, but majority of them feel more satisfied. It’s better than sitting at your job and doing nothing, because you will feel lazy and lose interest in working. She also indicates that overworking have nothing to do with being happy, but it will lead to burnout. Being overwhelmed with too much information and constantly
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Sometimes people dedicate too much time to their job that they forget about their leisure time. A person must find his or her happy medium in between. Work is a major part of our life. Work provides us with an inner creative joy. It saves us from the dullness and boredom of life. It puts our energies to a proper use. Time hangs heavy on our shoulders when there is no work. So I agreed with Lucas’ statement from the Staples Advantage’s survey that many Americans are overworked, but they are still happy. We will feel an achievement by working and we will be constantly striving for a promotion. Most employees believes that they can get a promotion if they work harder and longer. In my opinion, it’s not necessarily true. When you overworked yourself, you will get an opposite outcome. Working more doesn’t necessarily lead to higher job
Miller, G. (2010, October 12). Twenty Something Finance . Retrieved April 12, 2011, from The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World – When do we Draw the Line?: http://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/
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,
“In the last twenty years the amount of time Americans have spent at their jobs has risen steadily. Each year the change is small, amounting to about nine hours, or slightly more than one additional day of work (Schor, 1). Juliet B. Schor’s The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure explores the decline of leisure time in American professionals and laborers as a result of an increase in working time. In comparison to our European counterparts, American workers are now working close to 320 more hours yearly. Schor highlights the fact that American workers are choosing to work multiple jobs contributing to less leisure time due to longer working hours. In conclusion the book depicts the idea that the materialistic nature of Americans results in them choosing to work more so that they can spend more.
In Alexandra Robbins’ book The Overachievers, she makes the astute claim that high school students today are incredibly overworked, leading to severe detriments to their quality of life. As a student in highschool, I am inclined to agree with this claim, especially since Robbins uses clear evidence and ideas to support her assertion. Three of Robbins’ most important ideas regarding this subject matter are as follows. First, she claims that testing has become a business that doesn’t genuinely help the modern student. Next, she claims that chronic sleep deprivation is a huge health concern that affects even the best students. Finally, she claims that the high pressure schooling system has created damaging binaries amongst students. These reasons
Currently, human beings are thinking more on the line of they need work in order to make a living. For that reason, work has become meaningless, disagreeable, and unnatural. Many view work as a way to obtain money and not a meaningful human activity that one does for themselves. The author states that there are two reactions of the alienated and profoundly unsatisfactory character of the modern industrial work. One being the ideal of complete laziness and the other, hostility towards work. Fromm believes the reason why people have animosity regarding work is due to their unconscious mind. Subconsciously, a person has “a deep-seated, hostility towards work and all that is connected to it” says Fromm. I believe what Fromm is saying to be true, after all I witness it everyday. Millions of people each day goes to a work which they are dissatisfied with and that can negatively impact their attitude
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
Given that rotating shift work can lead to exhaustion and decreased mental efficiency, individuals working under
...Sobal, and Bisogni (2003), participants characterized their jobs as including long hours, inflexible schedules, overtime work, and shift work that left them feeling that they did not have the necessary personal resources in the form of time or energy for routine household tasks such as preparing meals that met their own ideals.
When the U.S. is compared to the conditions of other workers in other countries the numbers come as quite a shock. According to the magazine Psychology Today, “The United States—one of the richest countries in the world--ranks 28th among advanced nations in the category of work-life balance, 9th from the bottom” (Cummins 1). This stressful imbalance of home life with excessive work hours has left us in desperate need of more time and is becoming a strong identifier of American culture in the world. As Cummins explains, “We log long hours at work with the fear of losing our jobs through downsizing hanging over our heads. Then we fight rush hour traffic to get home in time to be super-parents, putting dinner on the table, helping our kids with their homework, and checking in with friends and family members we feel we have neglected because we are so overwhelmed” (Cummins 1). This well pa...
...ead a life where everything is very demanding. Jobs shouldn’t be stressful for the employees. They want to earn money and they don’t want to have to go through obstacles to earn it. They need money to live and raise a family, so a job shouldn’t become an obstacle in their life.
Some people work very hard and they really enjoy their work, while others find work to be a chore, could at times feel that they are laboring though tasks. Another difference may be that others work very hard but they could become very competitive in their work. They may want to be better than their co-workers and that may lead them to become a slave to their work. Working extra time after your normal working hours could seem like labor even it is a job you enjoy. Sitting in the office late at night for the third night in a week you could end up feeling like you are laboring through a difficult project.
Many people believe that nurses are overworked and it is true. Nurses that are overwork is no just in the United States but in serval other countries as well. They problem has been going on for several years and many wonder if there is any solution to fix it. OIverworked is defined as exhausted with too much work. Throughout the paper is a few reason that nurses are overworked.
Why did I choose to write about workaholics? The main reason is that the general picture about these people is bad, but there are a lot of them around us and very often we admire them. They are doing exactly what they love – work – and they can never have enough of it. Although they spend most of their time working, surprisingly they are happy. They show so good results in what they do. But the consequences are great. Family life is disrupted, intellectual horizons narrow and the consequences to the workaholic's health are severe: fat, lack of exercise and stress. Why do people become workaholics? When a person becomes workaholic is there a way back? How should people around him act in order to keep both him and themselves happy? Lets start explaining what workaholics are, how they act and then we'll get answers to this questions.
Workaholics – people, who have a compulsive and unrelenting need to work (www.dictionary.com) – appear more and more among the working people of United States and other developed countries. At first glance, workaholics do not seem to be such a problem for industry and society as a whole. But in spite of all devotion to their work the workaholic will not be as valuable as a normal worker. Workaholics do not think about anything else except work that can cause severe health problems and can cause problems on their work. All that causes a reduction of economic profit for the company.
In “Americans Are Overworked, but Still Surprisingly Happy on the Job,” Suzanne Lucas claims that an appropriate amount of work can make workers feel satisfied, but