Mother Jones - Comments for "The Road to Nowhere"

maybe she only works 99% of the time

Apparently Lucinda had time to write this message at 10 a.m. on a workday!

only "work" 2/3 of time while at work?

Who still has 1/3 of their time at work to surf the Internet and do non-productive or personal things? God, I wish. I work for a fortune 100 corp; work every day between 10 and 12 hours, and I am so busy most days there is barely time to run to the microwave and toss in a frozen lunch..and sometimes it's an hour and a half before I can run back and get it OUT of the microwave and eat it. Five minutes to take care of personal stuff such as setting a dr. appointment? Rare. I generally have 5 or 6 hours' worth of meetings per day, often double or triple booked for them, with little time to either prepare for them or follow through on commitments made (or made for me) during the meetings; and in between all that, try to manage 8 direct reports, deal with all their personnel and personal stuff, manage workflow for my team, get yelled at if any urgent work item sits in queue for more than a half hour because I was in some damned meeting and wasn't physically able to handle it. In general - expected to be two, three, four places at once, handle 150 to 200 emails per day, and juggle way more information and deliverables than my brain can absorb or process. I take my computer home and work evenings, early morning hours, and weekends. Last week I got up at 2 in the morning to finish a presentation for a meeting at 7:30, then worked until 10 that night for another presentation the next morning. Why do I do it? In short, afraid of losing my job and being destitute. There's no "normal job" out there that I can see - where I would work 8 hours per day and complete a reasonable amount of work in an orderly fashion for a living wage. All I see in my present and future is a desperate attempt to keep up, and falling off the treadmill brings financial death penalty. All so shareholders and the .01% can be supported in the manner to which they've become accustomed. Nice country we've built for our children. Please, tell me where you have the job that allows you to be productive 2/3 of the time...are they hiring?

I don't think people skip

I don't think people skip their vacations because they are such committed workoholics. In fact, many keep working as little as they can get away with. They keep on 'being present' because they are afraid to lose their jobs.

temp work

I used to work as a temp.
My rule was that before I opened the front door I could flip a coin: heads they would like my work, tails they would not.
It did not matter a bit how hard I worked, whether I tried to get along or not--nothing mattered.
They either like you or not without reference to you. Once I figured that out, it became pretty easy: I just did whatever I pleased, damn the consequences.

yep

Ms. Clara Jeffery,

I love this article!

As a matter of fact I have had the same experiences as "Why I Don't Vacation".
- on both counts.

And to "What about Work" -

My latest experience was - being hard at work and seeing the boss catch one of his employees sleeping.
Two days later - because of reduced orders - I was "laid off"!
The "sleeper", friends have told me, is still getting paid to sleep!

It really doesn't matter how good a job or how late you stay or how many 70+ hour weeks you work.

So take ALL the time off because it really doesn't matter to the company, they can always get another ( younger and willing to work for less ) you.
It's the way they play their game.
If you can work for yourself. ( or MoJo! )

Ms. Jeffery, I fall into the 17% category but being single like "Why I Don't Vacation", I still wouldn't want to go alone!

What about work?

I'd like to know how much time people actually "work", when at "work". Even before the internet I probably only actually worked about 2/3 or the time. The rest was reading the newspaper, taking walks, playing minesweeper etc. With the internet it's probably still about that, so occasionally I'll literally do nothing but surf the internet all day. This is at many types of jobs.

I know I'm not the only person who does this!!!

Why I don't vacation

Twice in my professional life I have returned from a vacation only to get called into the bosses office and terminated. I fear that when you are out of sight and decisions are being made about who to keep and who to let go, it's easy to fire the one's not around. So I make sure I'm always around.

Additionally, I am single and live alone. The idea of vacationing by myself really doesn't appeal to me. I might as well keep working.

Yes indeed - compared to the

Yes indeed - compared to the rest of the world, we are indentured servants. Without guaranteed health care, of course.

My recommendation is a focus on professional slacking. Screw off as much as possible. Do as little as you can get away with, while being a "hard worker" on high-profile projects. Do everything the boss personally needs, immediately. Ignore everything else, until it becomes moot.

Until The Revolution, it's about all we can do.

Agree with anonymous

Especially right now, people are paranoid about losing their livelihoods, and are working overtime and performing other feats of workplace derring-do to hang on to what they've got. And, with good reason. Last news release proclaimed that the US unemployment rate has now risen to 9.7 percent, nationally. The Big National Slowdown....would you be more concerned with Tahiti, or with the state of your bank account? Hula girls and fire eaters and cheap dope can wait...

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