Do we work too much?

IamtheWalrus

I've been thinking about the futility of life as in the majority of people in the world spend the majority of their lives in work. Ridiculous when you consider you work the good years of your life then retire when you're good for nothing. It's not uncommon for people to go get up, go to work, come home, have dinner, do chores and go to bed, ad infinitum. Seems a waste.

I've been wondering, will our descendants in a few hundred years look back on these days and laugh at the amount of hours we work and can't believe we wasted our lives. Will the 9-5 paradigm only get worse? Will we 9-9 become regular because of corporate greed or will technology advance so that we can be just as productive in 9-1?

I would love to research this and write a book on the futility of working so many hours for basically nothing. I'd like it to shake society to the core like On the Origin of Species, constantly being quoted in hundreds of years.

Do we all need a reality check? Is so much work wasting our lives?

chin_grin

Some do, some don't. I blame technology. Damn exponentially improving technology. It changes yet we stay the same!

Dyr

I'm pretty sure the latest research from the socioboffins has shown that we work longer nowadays than the previous few generations and we earn less.

Huzzah

mawk

in almost all non labouring jobs, you could be done in 9-1 but you know you're there til 5 so it just gets dragged out to five.
people will do exactly their work load in any timeframe you give them

SunnyDub1

Technology is moving and developing ridiculously fast.

Soon the world will be run by technology.

you can do almost anything from a computer in your house.. ie.shopping and socializing(facebook,twitter), exercise (Wii fit)
If I wanted to never leave my house again but still live it's possible.


By the year 2050 the only people that will have work is technology developers.

chin_grin

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

By the year 2050 the only people that will have work is technology developers.

What do you call those companies that get goods and services from one place to another? Or manage finances...or stocks...or education...or health...etc...:pac:

forfuxsake

What gets me is that in the past a man was paid enough to support a family. A bank manager earned enough to have a house full of servants! Then women entered the workforce and people had much more disposable income. Now the real value of wages has fallen so that women working has become a necessity rather than a right or a choice.

I think everybody working full-time should earn enough to support a family. I also support the right of women to work but also believe that young mammals need their mammys.

Additionally as technology replaces staff we need to reduce the working week to eradicate unemployment.

Higher salaries will mean less profit for companies. boo hoo hoo.

Duggy747

The advance of technology means in only a few years nobody will have to work.















Because the robots will rise and kill us all.

SunnyDub1

chin_grin wrote: »

What do you call those companies that get goods and services from one place to another? Or manage finances...or stocks...or education...or health...etc...:pac:

It will all be run by technology :P

For example I've a Friend who works in finance any work that needs done can all be all done on software program she has on her computer - basically the software does her job for her. All she does is input numbers.

I'm taking the piss by the way ...

However Friend in finance and the software program - True story

holystungun9

The 69 paradigm is where I'm at these days.

ntlbell

you'd just be dragging yourself around the bedroom fapping more.

work fap work fap.

****

foxyboxer

mawk wrote: »

in almost all non labouring jobs, you could be done in 9-1 but you know you're there til 5 so it just gets dragged out to five.
people will do exactly their work load in any timeframe you give them

Ah yes, the time when you decide you've been productive enough for the day.

IamtheWalrus

holystungun9 wrote: »

The 69 paradigm is where I'm at these days.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meyer769/psy_1001/giggle.jpg

Steven81

I think some of us do work too much, others would love to work and others just wouldnt know how to work

eth0

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

Technology is moving and developing ridiculously fast.

Soon the world will be run by technology.

you can do almost anything from a computer in your house.. ie.shopping and socializing(facebook,twitter), exercise (Wii fit)
If I wanted to never leave my house again but still live it's possible.


By the year 2050 the only people that will have work is technology developers.

Everyone else will have to do a shift walking in a large cylinder to generate power for all this technology cause there will be no oil and good reliable renewable energy will still be 'just around the corner' or ready for mass production in 20 years time.

steve9859

People were saying the same rubbish in 1980.....that by 2020 we wouldn't have to work, the world would be run by robots and we'd be out of oil.

Pj!

We're awake about 16 hours a day and spend 8 working.

It's absolute madness if you don't like what you do.

Ellis Dee

"Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone.
Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb."

Byron
The Lotus-Eaters:eek:

CinammonGirl

Yes I definitely work too hard!! I work for myself so in theory I should have a choice but it doesn't work out that way. For the last couple of weeks I have been working 10 or 11 hours a day, I'm banjaxed. I like what I do but not that much. Nobody is going to be lying on their death bed saying: I wish I'd done a bit more work. So I try to make the most of the time when I'm NOT working. OK mini-break over....................

seamus

Bambi wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the latest research from the socioboffins has shown that we work longer nowadays than the previous few generations and we earn less.

Huzzah

And I'm pretty sure that the socioboffins have shown that we in fact work less, have more free time and more free cash than we ever did before. Though we spend a helluva lot more time commuting.

I wonder which is right.

Dyr

seamus wrote: »

And I'm pretty sure that the socioboffins have shown that we in fact work less, have more free time and more free cash than we ever did before. Though we spend a helluva lot more time commuting.

I wonder which is right.

My socioboffins are way better than yours, I read their findings on a blog.... a blog.

hardCopy

Define 'we', human kind or AHers?

mikemac1

Ruairí Quinn promised us two more public holidays

St Bridget's Day was going to be one and they hadn't decided on the other

Story Ruairí?
I've not forgotton, have you?

Email on its way to your office, I await your reply


As for the OP, I will never ever take a blackberry home with me
I've seen the people on the level above me get one and it takes over their lives.

LeeHoffmann

Yes

BackScrub

What better way to spend your time than being productive?
Serious question.

I for one appreciate the structure and order of having something to do. I'm self-taught at what I do and I'm glad I've been able to develop myself well enough to be able to do it.

Where would I be if I didn't have that? God knows, but I dread to think.

Rabidlamb

How did we arrive at the current model of 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
How come it's not 10 hours a day 3 days a week or something else.
Was it competition with other markets that established the accepted time-frame.

On another matter, say your the first nation on earth to have robots to do all the menial service & manufacturing jobs, companies would need to divert cash from employees wages to government, societies will eventually evolve to not need money.
Can you imagine the amount of immigrants from less affluent nations pressurising your borders.

mackg

mikemac1 wrote: »

Ruairí Quinn promised us two more public holidays

St Bridget's Day was going to be one and they hadn't decided on the other

Story Ruairí?
I've not forgotton, have you?

Email on its way to your office, I await your reply


As for the OP, I will never ever take a blackberry home with me
I've seen the people on the level above me get one and it takes over their lives.

Mate of mine moved to S. Korea recently and he says they have nowhere near the amount of public holidays over there, so we are already ahead of the curve in that regard or so I'm told.

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_South_Korea

Seems like they have plenty public holidays from that but he works as a school teacher so might be referring to the different number of school holidays compared to here, I know that the kids over there have a much longer school day, at least some of them.

Fart

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov would say otherwise.

The Radiator

Goo goo g'joob

Downlinz

steve9859 wrote: »

People were saying the same rubbish in 1980.....that by 2020 we wouldn't have to work, the world would be run by robots and we'd be out of oil.

A lot can happen in 8 years, wouldn't say "I told you so" just yet.

mickrock

The Case for a 21-Hour Work Week:

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) says there is nothing natural or inevitable about what’s considered a "normal" 40-hour work week today. In its wake, many people are caught in a vicious cycle of work and consumption. They live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume things. Missing from that equation is an important fact that researchers have discovered about most material consumption in wealthy societies: so much of the pleasure and satisfaction we gain from buying is temporary, ephemeral, and mostly just relative to those around us (who strive to consume still more, in a self-perpetuating spiral).

The NEF argues we need to achieve truly happy lives, we need to challenge social norms and reset the industrial clock ticking in our heads. It sees the 21-hour week as integral to this for two reasons: it will redistribute paid work, offering the hope of a more equal society (right now too many are overworked, or underemployed). At the same time, it would give us all time for the things we value but rarely have time to do well such as care for our family, travel, read or continue learning (as opposed to feeding consumerism).

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-case-for-a-21-hour-work-week.html

sock puppet

forfuxsake wrote: »

What gets me is that in the past a man was paid enough to support a family. A bank manager earned enough to have a house full of servants!

Yeah too bad we don't live in 1950's Ireland. We could have all been earning huge salaries in the massive financial services sector we had back then.

Anyone

Get back to work you lot! The minute I turn my back, and there you lot go, posting on the internets.

DublinWriter

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

If I wanted to never leave my house again but still live it's possible.

That's not living.

SunnyDub1 wrote: »

By the year 2050 the only people that will have work is technology developers.

That's basically the same line of thinking that had people in the 1950's thinking that we'd all we driving jet cars and holidaying on the moon.

The complete opposite of what you say will be the truth. By 2050 the fossil fuels will have run out and as a consequence big urban society as we know it today will break down.

Realistically, by 2050, the only people still living will be those with practical handiwork skills in small Amish type communities.

seamus

Rabidlamb wrote: »

How did we arrive at the current model of 8 hours a day 5 days a week.
How come it's not 10 hours a day 3 days a week or something else.
Was it competition with other markets that established the accepted time-frame.

The concept of the weekend I suppose is why we typically work five days and not 3 or 7. In the western world, the Saturday/Sunday weekend is generally a big mashup of various religious influences compelling people to not work during the lord's day and fast and penance and all that.

In other countries, the weekend isn't necessarily Saturday/Sunday. In some Islamic countries for example, it's Thursday/Friday, as Friday is considered the holy day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekend
Always interesting to see what's done elsewhere in the world, it break one's little bubble to realise that what you may consider to be a "set" regime of a 7-day week starting with Monday and ending with Sunday, is really just an arbitrary set of labels which not everyone else in the world recognises.

From what I can tell, the western 5-day work week appears to have started in the early 1900s with the big factories in the US shutting down at the weekend to accomodate both Jewish and Christian workers. 6-day work weeks would have been fairly standard here up to the 1960's afaik.

The 8-hour work day appears to have come from the US, again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938

I imagine the 8 hour figure was derived at by considering 8 hours sleep + 8 hours work + 8 hours rest to be a fair split.

On another matter, say your the first nation on earth to have robots to do all the menial service & manufacturing jobs, companies would need to divert cash from employees wages to government, societies will eventually evolve to not need money.

That really depends you see. If we don't need money, then why are companies producing anything? At the end of the day, you can't automate everything so we will always require people to do jobs.
The most interesting thing is that as technology changes and makes human labour defunct, it also generates new jobs that never existed before. So there'll always be a balance, but I imagine as automation allows a single person to complete previously manual tasks in a quarter of the time, the average working week will reduce gradually to reflect that. The issue then is public order. If people are at home/on the streets for an extra ten hours per week, how will that affect crime rates in general.

mikemac1

I was watching Downton Abbey and the old lady, don't know her name but it's Maggie Smith declared she never heard of a weekend

The house ran all day every day and while you'd get a half day off there was no concept of a weekend

IM0

yes because look how easy our ancestors had it. the whole point of life is to survive really in blunt terms. work helps to prolong survival [food, sheltar, entertainment] you also spend 1/3 of your life in bed OP, such a waste eh? :mad:

There's a fine line between working the right amount and working too much.. I'm alot happier when ai'm doin a good weeks work but if I do a few too many hours, I fall apart after a couple of months and have to cut it down again. Right now, I've consciously decided to put in the hours and then chill out after the summer when it will really turn into a grind.

franciebellew

You won't catch me working. Fcuk that

Atomicjuicer

4 day work week.

That is all

bbam

For 13 years I worked 12 hour shifts in a MN. Nights, weekends, bank holidays, Christmas , the whole lot.
Never again. While the money was better it wasn't worth it and I have lasting damage to my health due to it.

I'm now working a regular 9-5 and loving it even though I'm earning less money.
I could easily do my job in 4 days but they won't go for it.

Work is fine but don't let it take over your life.

cookiexx

Get a job you like where the work fulfills you, problem solved.

Seomra Mushie

mawk wrote: »

in almost all non labouring jobs, you could be done in 9-1 but you know you're there til 5 so it just gets dragged out to five.
people will do exactly their work load in any timeframe you give them

Not really, I work in a lab and believe me, I need the full day.

Napper Hawkins

cookiexx wrote: »

Get a job you like where the work fulfills you, problem solved.

Exactly, though the last time I checked, "rockstar" is somewhat limited in its number of vacancies.

Robdude

People tend to have a very romanticized view of the past.

As a whole, people work less and have more than at any point in our history. We live longer too.

Generations spent their lives working from sun-up to sun-down and considered it good luck if more than half of their children made it to puberty.

beks101

Napper Hawkins wrote: »

Exactly, though the last time I checked, "rockstar" is somewhat limited in its number of vacancies.

Who says it has to be something completely unrealistic and unlikely?

I really think better emphasis and funding on career guidance would go a long way in Ireland, in terms of helping people to figure out how they can follow a career path they'll enjoy and find rewarding.

I got feck all useful advice at school, just decided I loved writing so decided to study journalism and by fluke ended up working in TV production, which has been massively exciting and fulfilling.

I'm not a rock star, I don't make big bucks, I work crazy hours and an insane amount of overtime but I love what I do and wouldn't go part-time even if I could afford to. I don't think that level of job satisfaction is unachievable.

IrishGeordie

I don't know about you, but I think I work too little!

kowloon

steve9859 wrote: »

People were saying the same rubbish in 1980.....that by 2020 we wouldn't have to work, the world would be run by robots and we'd be out of oil.

Was reading a piece written in the 1920s that said pretty much the same. Steam powered looms were considered a major threat the century before that.

Electric lighting and the rise of the factory haven't helped.

There's no reason people should have to work the hours they do and for as many years as they do.

OneArt

I love freelancing. I do the amount necessary to make money for food, rent and bills, a little bit to save and the rest for frivolities like (line dancing classes, pineapple painting etc.).

Sure it can be stressful constantly looking for clients but I can tailor work around my life.

Now back to my pineapples.

grindle

kowloon wrote: »

There's no reason people should have to work the hours they do and for as many years as they do.

Not strictly true, rich people don't get rich by themselves, you know.

Gloomtastic!

In the car the other day with my 6 year-old son. We were stuck in a bit of traffic jam about 4pm.
Him: 'Where are all the cars going Daddy?'
Me: 'They're going home from work.'
Him: 'What, this early!'