#023: Work Hard, Work Harder, Work Harderer, then Die
Burning the midnight oil. Working like a dog. Video game developers call it “crunch time”. Bosses call it “being a team player”. Most people just call it overtime. Getting sick from it means you’re just weak and not an achiever, unlike your colleagues. And should you die from it, the Japanese have a word for you: karōshi — literally “overwork death”.
We, as a society, have chosen to assess someones work ethic based on how many hours they work. We use it as a proxy for their contribution in a company, and how much they should be paid. Work longer hours, get more done. Simple, right?
This equation works well if you’re paying assembly-line worker at the turn of the 20th century. They’re doing rote work, and as long as they are awake and able to, doing it for longer means they produce more widgets you can sell, and paying them based on how long they worked works well to determine how much profit they generated for you. Our simple equation holds.
But very few people work such jobs in the modern western world. Not only have those kinds of jobs been mostly taken over by robots, it’s cheaper to have them done in low-wage countries anyway. And even those jobs that involve working on todays assembly lines resemble more a managing role overseeing robots than doing actual assembly line work.
Nowadays our jobs don’t consist of producing as many widgets as possible ourselves. We come up with ideas, manage other people, plan strategies, oversee their execution, or get paid simply because we know which one thing to do instead of the million other possibilities.
Yet we still treat our jobs the same as assembly-line workers paid by the hour. Working overtime holds a curious appeal for us. We like the hero worship we get from pulling all-nighters. We like to prove that we can push against sleep and exhaustion, and still get the job done.
Conversely, someone who can accomplish their work in fewer hours than the rest and then goes home is stigmatized, thought of as lazy, or not a team-player instead of being held up as an example for the rest.
So it comes as no surprise that some people just pretend to work long hours. This is possible because as long as you’re sitting in front of your desk in your office, you’re obviously working — regardless of what you’re actually doing. You could spend your entire day playing Solitaire while chatting on Facebook, as long as you’re planting your butt in your office chair, you give the appearance of work. (And no, blocking non-work-related apps and websites doesn’t work. Life, uh… Facebook will find a way)
This also affects other areas of our lives. Working a lot probably means you’re also getting less sleep, which is a major component of health problems. You’re also likely to drink more alcohol, and probably various other legal or illegal drugs, when you work long hours.
For companies, it also backfires: Working people so hard until they burn out and quit or die costs them more money in the long run. Enforcing a 40-hour work week is beneficial for your profits, productivity, and employees. Taking care of your workers, making sure they’re healthy, and work sane hours is better not just in the ethical sense, but also in a financial sense. And if you are a worker, then you are likely working too hard. Fixing overwork isn’t easy, but it’s the best investment you can make.
So: If you’re thinking about staying longer in the office tonight, instead go home early, pack your gym clothes, work out a bit, and then spend the rest of the day with friends and family. You’ll thank yourself later.