America's Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted

[Jesus Malverde]

Perhaps the most poignant detail from Anne-Marie Slaughter's Atlantic cover story, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," was also one of the smallest: an overworked mother of three who "organized her time so ruthlessly that she always keyed in 1:11 or 2:22 or 3:33 on the microwave rather than 1:00, 2:00, or 3:00, because hitting the same number three times took less time."

That may be extreme, but it illustrated a familiar feeling, one the writer Brigid Schulte calls "the overwhelm." In her new book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, Schulte scrutinizes this state of affairs: Why do we all feel so overworked? How is that feeling different for men than for women? Is a better, less harried life possible? I spoke with Schulte about her research, and a lightly edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Can you start by telling us about what "the overwhelm" is, how you see it now after years of research and writing on the topic, and how you think that your understanding differs from the conventional one?

This whole book started when a time-use researcher told me I had 30 hours of leisure a week. And when I told him he was out of his flipping mind, he challenged me to keep a time diary and he would show me where my leisure was.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/americas-workers-stressed-out-overwhelmed-totally-exhausted/284615/

[Lifelong Protester]

1. I am bookmarking this for later

as one who understands the 'overwhelmed' feeling.

[marmar]

2. k/r

[MindPilot]

3. I'm am so done with this work thing -- can't wait to retire.

I passed overwhelm so long ago I forgot what it looks like. The list of stuff I have to do grows way faster than any humanly possible attempt to mitigate it. Most nights I lay awake thinking about the stuff that I didn't get done even though I put in close to sixty hours last week, and which one of those undone things will trigger some upper manager to wave his finger in my face and tell me I'm not dedicated or committed enough.

I used to have hobbies and do things in the evening. Now I just have a job; I get home so exhausted I oftentimes don't make it off the couch. I've actually dozed off driving home from work.

Quit and find something better? I'm almost 60 and I work in IT.

[magical thyme]

5. there is nothing better

all work sucks; it's just that some pays better than other.

1 year, 7 months, 2 days....not that I'm counting or anything...

[brooklynite]

43. Sorry to disabuse you..but I love the work I do.

It's what I wanted to do since I was about 5.

[magical thyme]

44. well congratulations for being the exception that makes the rule

but somehow I doubt you are "sorry to disabuse" me. That you felt the need to write that makes me suspect you are gloating.

[brooklynite]

45. Not gloating...just responding to an over-the-top assertion like "all work sucks"

My assessment is that by and large, people enjoy the work they do, or they'd be doing something else.

[LiberalEsto]

7. You sound like my husband, also in IT

Things are abnormally crazy right now at the place where he works, but he has no time or energy to look for another job. He goes in early, comes home late, and then has to work more hours from home. And of course, more telecommuting on weekends.

If he got paid for all the extra hours he's worked over the past 30 years in IT, we'd be millionaires by now.

I'm sorry you're going through this too.

[pragmatic_dem]

11. see it everywhere, workers expected to be on job 24/7

working 60/70 hrs a week, paid for 40, then threaten to ship every job to India or give them to H1Bs (who are will work for low pay under threat of being sent back to India if they don't comply)).

Increase insurance rates, decrease vacation time, eliminate pension plans.

That's how America treats workers.

[LittleGirl]

16. yup

gotta love that 'exempt' from overtime crap. Been there, done that.

[pragmatic_dem]

10. If the Democratic/Republican Party conservatives get their way, 75 will be the new 65...

Wall Street smells a way to extract more value out of an already exhausted work force, take away retirement benefits and raise retirement age to 75. CEOs are love the idea of 70+ year old workers eating cat food while serving $15 cocktails to a gilded class of idle plutocrats.

Of course, we actually need to LOWER the retirement age so that young workers can get a chance to contribute. But given our youth unemployment gets worse every year, that isn't likely to happen.

Just the opposite needs to happen, retirement age needs to be lower so that younger workers get a chance to contribute and their spending would stimulate the economy.

But instead the only options on the table are the ones which demand more from the middle class.

[daleanime]

21. +1

[hfojvt]

15. but a good part of it is NOT work

"We all feel like we’re not doing enough for our children, so in our guilt, we do, do, do, and overdo: more lessons, more teams, more sports, bigger birthday parties, more educational outings." from the OP's article. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/americas-workers-stressed-out-overwhelmed-totally-exhausted/284615/

Why isn't early retirement possible?

I am actually hoping to switch back to part-time. I hate this full time crap, especially the more-than-full-time crap.

[Triana]

42. Same here. 35+ years at it.

I'm SO TIRED. Doing 3 people's jobs for less than one person's pay for decades of course gets exhausting. 10+ years before retirement. I want to retire NOW. As is, by the time I do, I'll be too tired, wrung out, and sick to enjoy it.

Bro is only about 3-5 years away. He has worked 60-70 hours/week all his life.

[The Wizard]

4. Exhausted to where the workers

are just trying to tread water to stay afloat, and can't fight back. This is what happens just before the fall. Third world status here we come.

[magical thyme]

6. yup....

I ran myself into the ground and managed to increase my net income by about $3,000 in 2013.

The town raised my property taxes and Gov. 38% removed a tax break, so my property taxes effectively doubled in 2013.

I broke through a level in the income based student loan repayment, so my payments just went up 7-fold.

I broke through a level in health insurance, so am $2 away from qualifying for subsidized, tripling the cost of health insurance for me.

That's after barely breaking even living paycheck to paycheck.

[LiberalEsto]

8. They're keeping workers too tired to start unions

All part of the strategy.

[KitSileya]

35. It is definitely a second world country.

The US may have better infrastructure than the old East bloc countries, but the working conditions are the same. No way the US is a first world country except when it comes to the military.

I live and work in Europe, but I stay in the US 6-7 weeks every summer, and when I see my friends work 12 hour days, and IT workers telecommute during friendly gatherings, and when 15-year middle management employees at one of the US' biggest companies can't take more than a week's continuous vacation (of the 3 they have!) because otherwise their bosses will start side-eyeing them - when I see that and much more, it tells me that the US is not a good country to live in. It simply isn't. There're plenty that have been propagandized to believe it is, but it isn't. It certainly isn't on par with Northern Europe....but it could be! It creates enough wealth to be, but the division of wealth distribution is so skewed, for the 99% America is a second world country fast sliding into third.

Too many Americans value "freedom" more than they value true freedom, the freedom to have a life outside of work. I just feel sorry for the 99%, whether they appreciate it or not.

[CrispyQ]

9. Leisure time is for the 1%.

There's a reason we are called the working class.

This is especially telling:

All you have to do is look at some fascinating work done by consulting companies, when they ask CEOs and top managers at companies around the world who they think the best employees are, more than three-fourths have said: the worker without any family or caregiving responsibilities.

So they set up work environments to cater to that employee, without a care that only a very small class of workers fit the above description.

[jwirr]

12. And it is not just women. Both my grandson and his wife are exhausted and feel hopeless when it

comes to paying the bills. One of the side effects is to the family. They are crabby all the time.

[blur256]

24. I understand the family thing all too well...

My family doesn't understand how I can't get a "real" job that lets me pay all of my bills on time. I send out resumes all of the time with no luck. No call backs. The only thing I can seem to interview for are either sales jobs or insurance jobs, all commission based. So I keep my jobs working at a liquor store and doing door to door sales for a pizza place (luckily that is hourly waged and not strictly commission) working 60+ hours a week, and still can't seem to pay my bills on time because I don't make enough money. And I have a master's degree and a great work history. Yep, that does make me crabby. I worked a very long time to "make it" and I have no hope that I will at this point. And I have a very poor relationship with my family because of it.

[jwirr]

27. I sympathize with you. This is going to reverberate for generations. And it does not help that the

repugs continue to attack families with their cuts.

[blur256]

28. Exactly...

My partner is a server and makes way less than I do right now, and she still can't get Medicaid because our state won't expand it. We went on the government healthcare site to sign her up and she would have to pay $100 more than I do for my medical, which is absurd. And I'm not knocking the ACA, I'm knocking the GOP that want to make it harder to get healthcare.

[jeffrey_pdx]

13. About 1 1/2 years ago I took a day trip with my old employer

He spent most of the car ride telling me about the trip he took his family on to Hawaii or the new expensive shoes he bought. He never considered that the shoes he bought cost more than he paid me in a month or that his trip with his family was something I could only dream of. He wasn't a bad guy, but had no idea.

I should add that we were driving in his nice, new Mercedes, while I had an old Honda. He just had no idea what his employees lived like.

[LongTomH]

14. Technology was supposed to free us from drudgery

Way, way back at the beginning of the computer / automation age, back when the computer was a massive monster filling up whole floors, cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener wrote The Human Use of Human Beings. In his book, Wiener argued that automation would free workers for more creative pursuits.

The problem of course, is our modern corporate model, which assumes that the only purpose of a corporation is to produce profit for its shareholders; any possible value to society, workers and consumers is discounted. As long as we have that model, executives will only be rewarded for extracting the maximum economic value from workers.

[hfojvt]

17. but many people are not working for corporations

I am working for the city government and I seem to get the same crap - that they always want me to do MORE. And my supervisor gets it just as bad - or worse. It's February and she's still trying to use up her use or lose vacation from last year.

[LongTomH]

19. The causes of your problem results from GOP doctrines that are similar to the.......

.....Milton Friedman concept that the corporation exists only to provide profit. Republicans, whenever they have seized power, have cut back on government jobs, because the rich and corporations don't want to pay their share of taxes. That leaves fewer people to do the work, resulting in longer and longer hours.

[LongTomH]

22. Some people are questioning the profits before all model.

There's an interesting article at the UCLA Law Review: False Profits: Reviving the Corporation's Public Purpose.

.............. Corporate America has been fixated on share price, blinding corporate leaders from the macroeconomic effects of their decisions. Many firms increased leverage and made risky investments. All the while, they did not adequately account for the possibility that their investments might fail. Not only did corporations fail to consider the damag­ing impact their hyperleveraged investments would have on the firm, but they also failed to appreciate the damage that could be done to the entire economy. As we now know, many of these investments did fail, and a serious recession resulted.

I contend that corporations should be required to consider the inhe­rent social and economic risks of their business decisions. In short, I argue that corporations have a public duty and responsibility to consider the macroeco­nomic and public impact of their decisions. This corporate public duty recog­nizes that a commercially motivated purpose is good for society. However, this commercial function should also be balanced by a public function whereby the corporation pursues profits without contravening the public interest. Histori­cally, this is how corporations have operated; this simple concept should be revisited.

It's a rather long piece; but, it has some good background on how the modern concept that a corporation's only purpose was the profits of shareholders evolved, and how some people, including a few business leaders are rethinking that model.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. I first saw hints of this when I worked temp in the early 1980s

I was sent to the quality control department in a metalworking plant to work twelve-hour shifts with 30 minutes for lunch and two 15-minute breaks.

My co-workers were exhausted, so much so that many of them slept instead of eating lunch. This included the guys were spent the day walking around on catwalks over vats of chemicals, making sure that the metal pieces didn't jam up as they went through their chemical bath.

It was late June, early July, and they had been on twelve-hour shifts since March.

As Fourth of July approached, the foreman told us that if we wanted the holiday off (it was a Saturday that year), we'd have to come in on Sunday to make up for it. That was when I called up the temp agency and told them that I didn't need the money that badly. I knew that I was FINALLY going to start a full-time teaching job in the fall.

One of my co-workers told me that they had been given the same deal for Memorial Day, and that she had gone to a family reunion in Wisconsin, sleeping in the car both ways and sneaking off to take a nap at her parents' house.

The owners of the plant were walking stereotypes of "pigs in pinstripes." Literally. They wore pinstripe suits and walked through the plant once or twice a day, and they had snarly, piggy faces.

I once asked one of the other workers why the owners didn't add a second shift, since they obviously had enough work to keep people busy 72 hours and were indeed paying time-and-a-half. Apparently the excuse the owners gave was that they'd have to pay extra SS taxes with another shift and they didn't want to.

Those three years from 1981 to 1984, one year of temping full-time and another two years of temping during vacations when I was an underpaid adjunct, were my economic education. I learned that everything I'd been taught about the economy was a lie.

[cantbeserious]

20. Thank You For Sharing

eom

[Vashta Nerada]

23. This is why a European lifestyle allures me.

I don't want to be in a hurry. I don't want to be overworked. I don't want to kiss the ass of 50 people to get anywhere.

I just want to do my job, enjoy life, and get enough time off a year to recharge my batteries.

[BlackM]

25. It's a struggle just to keep above the poverty line

[IMG][/IMG]

[Blue Owl]

26. Nickeled, dimed, overworked, & underpaid

[redqueen]

29. "Rise of the robots: what will the future of work look like?"

This is a very good article, but really, the writing has been on the wall for decades now.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/feb/19/rise-of-robots-future-of-work

It never fails to surprise me how hard so many work not to notice the most obvious things.

(And all of the above is of course predicated on the assumption that our way of life will continue on the same general path it has been, which based on current trends it will most likely not.)

[dotymed]

30. Does anyone else see the irony?

Unemployment is waay above the 7% reported.

Yet the "masters" will not hire full-time employees to help get the work done and stop destroying the full-time work force they have.

This keeps those few full-timers exhausted and always fearful of losing their job.
What better way to insure "assholes and elbows" productivity from "their" workforce.
Keep all ("lucky enough to be employed&quot exhausted and fearful.

What a sickening, life destroying model to base a business on.

[Blue_Tires]

31. You forgot 'underpaid'

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

32. Wait, What? Bill Gates was using different language...

Unskilled, Under Educated, Not Competitive

[alp227]

33. Because they are conditioned to accept it

From an early age they are taught the value of hard work and the Horatio Alger myth. And the power of the individual. And that the real world doesn't care about your self esteem. And to be obedient to authority.

If the right wing think tanks want to know a thing or two about family breakdown...ask some CEOs.

[closeupready]

34. lol, I do that 1:11, 2:22 thing also. Not sure if I'm overwhelmed,

or lazy. Nevertheless, the story is undoubtedly shedding light on a very real problem, and I K&R it.

[tk2kewl]

38. me 3

[Flying Squirrel]

41. That is so old school

Nowadays the microwaves just have a 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 button so you only have to press a single button.

[Orsino]

36. We allow corporations to exist with no charter beyond profit.

Expecting any other result would be stupid.

[Gormy Cuss]

37. And then there's the damn Cadillac ad

where the guy scoffs at Euros for taking off a whole month for vacation. I realize that it's tongue-in-cheek but I still wanted to throw a shoe at the TV the first time I saw it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/26/this-commercial-sums-up-e_n_4859040.html

[pragmatic_dem]

40. Could displace Escalade as the ultimate ride for MBA douchebaggers nt

[moondust]

39. World Happiness Report 2013

The world's 10 happiest countries.

Guess who's not one of them.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/20/travel/happiest-countries-to-visit/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+Top+Stories%29