07.31.07
Why I Have a Hard Time Relaxing
Or: Work Exists to Sap Your Will
Better and more interesting people than I have written about the ridiculous farce of a life that frequently accompanies the “full time” American work week. A typical day goes something like this:
- Get up and shower. (if you wake up on time)
- Drive to work.
- Work all day (or waste time online while trying to look busy)
- Leave work at 5 (if you’re lucky)
- Get home.
- Make dinner.
- Congratulations! It’s now 8 or 9 PM, generally considered to late to do much outdoors.
- Go to bed, or you’ll be too tired to repeat it all tomorrow.
Note, of course, the lack of leisure time associated with the lifestyle. There are a few ways to alleviate some of the pain. Some of them are commonly taken, some aren’t. You could sleep less (very popular). You could buy your dinner so you don’t have to cook it. You could come in earlier and leave earlier. You could just stop trying to have a life outside of work.
There are also some key methods that would go a long way towards improving the situation, ones that frequently aren’t available to people. They require a lot of change to implement, but the more I think about them, the more attractive they seem.
Live Near Work. This eliminates or greatly reduces your commute. Depending on how you make your living, this may or may not be practical. For engineers and tech workers especially, this is hard to do. Most large technical companies locate in out-of-the-way places that they can push to give them large tax breaks. I don’t know about everyone, but I live in a city because I like the surroundings so much more than the pseudo-suburban wasteland that surrounds my workplace. Consequently, I spend about 1.25 hours in the car every day. I don’t think it would be worth it if this were anything more than a 3 month job. I’d love to see some cities start attracting high-tech jobs back into the city proper in more than IT and universities.
Telecommute. A variation on 1, but worth its own section. This is an option that’s more available to technical people, whereas a shopowner has some obvious problems. Even if you work in a lab, I’m willing to bet that large portions of your work involve documenting and planning. Lump this work together into one day every week or two and do it at home. Missing the stress of the commute will be worth it. This does require a strong work ethic to keep you on task and a flexible workplace culture. So many workplaces allow this now, though, that you’d be foolish not to take advantage of it.
Work less, Do more. The forty-hour work requirement is a usable, if largly useless metric for employee productivity. If you’re salaried, you’re being paid to get things done, not sit at your desk. At least, I hope that’s the case. If not. It’s impossible for most people to stay focused for eight hours straight. French worker productivity (with a legally mandated 35 hour work week) is higher than it is in the US. If you have an open, smart work environment, talk to your boss about giving this a try. You may be surprised by extra motivation and productivity.
The difference between these three methods and the ones higher up is that these might actually make you happier and even a better employee. I’ve been thinking a lot about my problems with my job this summer, and I think that if I was telecommuting occasionally and felt comfortable leaving when I’d accomplished what I needed to, I would’ve felt much more sanguine about the whole experience.