Text 1. A workaholic economy

Read the text below and discuss the following questions in your group.

1. Do you think people nowadays spend too much time at work?

2. Is your attitude to work different from your parents’ one? What about your grandparents?

For the first century or so of the industrial revolution, increased productivity led to decreases in working hours. Employees who had been putting in 12-hour days, six days a week, found their time on the job shrinking to 10 hours daily, then, finally, to eight hours, five days a week. Only a generation ago social planners worried about what people would do with all this new-found free time. In the US, at least, it seems they need not have bothered.

Although the output per hour of work has more than doubled since 1945, leisure seems reserved largely for the unemployed and underemployed. Those who work full-time spend as much time on the job as they did at the end of World War II. In fact, working hours have increased noticeably since 1970.

Workaholism becomes a real problem in all developed countries and in United States, especially. Bookstores now abound with manuals describing how to manage time and cope with stress.

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.

A working environment full of workaholics creates stress and burnout. Workaholics are the danger to themselves, to their colleagues and to the company they work for. Being constantly busy, they become addicted to the rush of adrenaline that comes with work. Adrenaline is good only in small portions but constant adrenaline causes an adrenal gland to be exhausted. Too much of adrenaline eventually destroys body cells. And that is only one of the problems that workaholics have. Constant stresses, psychological exhaustion can cause a stroke or heart attack. Furthermore, workaholics often suffer sleep deprivation which results in impaired brain and cognitive function.

There is something about work that makes it unique among all addictive behaviors: Rather than frowning on it, society condones and even admires it. It’s easy to rationalize an addiction to work when it’s phrased as “giving my kids every opportunity.” It’s not that hard to live with the destructive consequences of a money addiction when society tells us that it makes us better parents, spouses, or friends. Our desire for more money, once justified, is integrated seamlessly into our money story, where it is reinforced by our peers, our colleagues, our employers, and our culture. That justification blurs the lines between ethics and excess. It absolves us of guilt for trading family time for a more expensive car or a larger home.

The only way off the workaholic path is the realization that genuine worth can never be found in external rewards or symbols, but only in the internal experience of that worth. Neither money, the things it buys, nor the work that generates it, can be expected to fill emotional needs, resolve long-running conflicts, or bestow fulfillment.