The 24/7 Work
Invasion
The Creeping Act is Over: The Work Place Has Launched an
All-Out Attack on Our Personal Lives
Summary
Telecommuting, flex time, virtual office-each of these
phrases is currently being tossed around in the
workplace, in articles and on the Internet. No longer
trapped behind their desks, workers are connecting to the
office from home, libraries and even parks.
Technological advances have changed the
demands of work. The result? Long hours and blurred
boundaries between work and home. Now, although the
workweek has exploded from 40 to 50, 60 or more hours, we
can choose where we perform some of that work. Is the
choice worth the sacrifice of leisure time? Read on for
several different perspectives.
Consider this: In 1987, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans worked an average
of 163 more hours per year than in 1969. Our nation's
workforce essentially squeezed in a month's worth of
extra labor into what was, less than two decades earlier,
personal time. And that was before virtual communication
invaded every aspect of our lives.
Want to venture a guess as to how many more
work hours we've shoved into the 168 hours we live per
week in the year 2001? In the company kitchenette we hear
estimates all the time: "I work (50, 60, 70, 80) hours a
week." At some Internet start-ups, 20-somethings brag
about work hours as high as 120. The numbers get so
outlandish and varied that no one statistic sticks, but
certainly we can come to a truism about the work week
today: As we've increased the number of hours we spend at
work, and enhanced the ways in which we bring work home,
we need to closely consider the role 24-hours-a-day,
7-days-a-week work has in our lives.
Enablers of the 24/7
Electronic communication has constructed a
permeable membrane between work and life. The
proliferation of e-mail, laptops, cell phones, the
Internet and hand-held electronic personal organizers
with satellite capabilities have swooped down onto the
scene like a virtual Superman. It is now possible to go
to the park, lay down a quilt in the shade, lean up
against the nearest tree trunk with a laptop and cell
phone and do your business for the day.
The electronic inventions of the last decade
have made work possible wherever and whenever. So, is the
ability to do work wherever you are, at anytime day or
night, a good thing? Yes and no, according to Jenny
Wohlfarth, executive editor for I.D. Magazine, a
bimonthly publication for the design field. Wohlfarth
researches the way the physical attributes of a work
space change to suit the technology and work-culture
demands of the time. She recalls a virtual office
experiment by Los Angeles advertising agency
TBWA/Chiat-Day. "Everyone had PowerBook laptop computers
and cell phones," she says. "Employees could set up
wherever and whenever they wanted." But the experiment
drew mixed reviews. "It was a kind of forced nomadism.
People wanted to plant their feet," Wohlfarth
explains.
When you're in a park or café, you don't
have privacy, and people need private space to do
concentrated work. Likewise, when you work for a company,
you like to come in and actually interact with your
colleagues occasionally. TBWA/Chiat-Day has since
switched to an innovative hybrid of private and public
space. "The whole idea of the modern workplace is things
aren't hard and fast," Wohlfarth says. "Office spaces now
have to flex. People come in and work at different hours,
so the workspace of the future is defined by being
flexible. But it's a step back from the virtual
office."
While employees seem to reject the virtual office
potential of the 24/7 working world wholesale, there is
evidence that they are interested in using technology to
connect them to the office and make their efforts more
productive while they're away. Consider the growing
demand for Internet technologies for cars. According to
research by GM and Ford, the number one and number two
carmakers in the world, we are entering into a new era of
auto technology appropriately dubbed the "e-car." And
it's suited perfectly to the 24-hours-a-day,
7-days-a-week working world.
E-GM, the Internet technology division of GM, is
leading the way in offering wireless Internet services in
2001 through its OnStar Virtual Advisor system. OnStar
Virtual Advisor functions via voice recognition software
and includes features such as e-mail, "Personal Calling"
(allowing the driver to make voice-activated calls
without an additional cellular contract), stock quotes,
news headlines, GPS and more. GM also has a service
called "Communiport," an infrared port on the dashboard
that enables the user to exchange data with a hand-held
wireless computer like the Palm PDA. Such enhancements
ensure that today's workforce can tackle some of their
duties in their cars before they even get in the office
building parking lot.
If all this working behind the wheel makes you
leery of the morning commute, consider another aspect of
the 24/7 working world: flextime. Another phenomenon that
has punched holes in the barrier between work and home,
flextime opens up the possibility of working during non-
traditional hours. Many companies offer employees the
option of working their eight hours a day or forty hours
a week any time they can fit them in, including the
middle of the night and on Sundays. Telecommuting, the
old-fashioned predecessor to the virtual office, is also
a factor in the 24/7 world of work. In order to keep top
employees, employers are offering telecommuting as a perk
to people who need more time at home.
With electronic enhancements expanding the world
of work beyond office walls, and office hours breaking
the 9-5 barrier through telecommuting and flextime, it
was only a question of when the 40-hour work week would
fracture and ultimately crumble in a heap on the ground.
This has happened most infamously with dot-com start-ups,
whose flexible working hours initially enabled employees
to stay at work for long hours. Combine this with
fighting the clock to beat competitors to the IPO, and
many young Internet entreprenuers found themselves
pulling all-nighters. The culture of dot-com start-ups,
known for their futon power-nap rooms and midnight
foosball games, is now not only popular, it's the norm in
Internet start-ups today.
Work is Everywhere
It's hard to escape work. Go to the café,
and someone's in the corner peering into a laptop screen
and talking on a cell phone. At the bookstore, at the
park and in cars, people are busy incorporating work into
their lives. After-work happy hours have turned into a
setting where young execs discuss the next software
development, cutting into the time families used to have
together to eat dinner and talk about their days.
The lack of a barrier between work and home can be a real
benefit. Freelance writer Jenny Brock says some of her
best work comes to her while she's doing other things.
"Butt in chair doesn't equal productivity for me," says
Brock. "[My work] truly ceases to feel like work, because
I can be standing in line for a latte and thinking about
that perfect word or line."
Even though Brock bills by the hour, "with a
stopwatch in hand," she likes to take things in bite-size
pieces, and enjoys playing in the middle of the day. "I
keep a notepad by my bed, and I get up at 5 a.m. to
write. But that's the beauty of it-I can work when
something hits me, and if my friend calls and asks if I
want to see a matinee, I say, 'Sure!'"
Richard Hunt, director of sales and marketing for
Cincinnati-based F&W Publications, takes advantage of
the flextime and telecommuting opportunities at his
company so he can spend more time with his three
children. Hunt moved to the Midwest after spending 10
years in publishing in New York City.
"One of the things I do now that I was never able
to do before is drive my kids to school in the morning,"
Hunt says. "You wouldn't believe the value in that 10
minutes of utter chaos that comes from driving them to
school. When I worked in New York, I took the train and
was out the door before they were even awake. I'd barely
see them for 15 minutes a day." Taking the kids to school
means he doesn't get in the office until after 9 a.m.,
but that's perfectly fine with the boss. Hunt comes home
in time for dinner, then goes back into the office "once
the kids go to bed, until about 2 a.m."
The average 60- to 65-hour work week is made worse
by travel, however. Like many Americans, Hunt is often
gone overnight. When he gets home, work has piled up and
any hopes of making up the personal time is lost. "You
can't do desk work when you're traveling, so you make it
up some other time and end up working more of those night
shifts," he says.
Business travel is both necessary and evil in
today's 24/7 working world, according to Hunt. "It's more
necessary than ever, because I can communicate by phone
and fax and e-mail to prepare, but I still need to sit
down face-to-face. I try to catch the first flight out in
the morning and only stay over one night, max. It's evil
because travelling is stressful. You can't throw yourself
into the sky all the time and not think about it. Plus,
it's uncomfortable."
Hunt says if he didn't travel, work would still
permeate his personal life. When asked if he thinks a
person can maintain the hours he does and lead a balanced
life, he says, "Yeah, I do. I'd just fill [my time] with
something else. I love what I do. The field I'm in
[publishing] makes it worth it."
There's a Riot Going on
While executives like Hunt and freelancers like
Brock are content with the lack of a line between work
and personal life, there's a backlash against the 24/7
work invasion in many sectors of the workforce.
Especially in dot-com start-ups, where the idea of no
separation between work and play got a load of hype,
businesses are encouraging their employees to go
home.
The change is due to burnout and to a new group of
employees entering the dot-com universe: adults in their
30s and 40s to whom the idea of listening to loud rap
music and sitting at their computer terminal at 2 a.m. is
anything but desirable.
In a recent article by Fast Company magazine's
contributing editor Pamela Kruger, dot-com CEO Charlie
Kim says that turnover at start-ups is so high because
people are looking at quality of life issues. "People
were working until 1 a.m., drinking coffee and eating
junk," he told Kruger, "and they were miserable."
Once the romance of a start-up is over, many
employees are discovering that the sacrifices associated
with working long hours aren't worth it. Many start-ups
are getting the message, and changing the dynamics of
their office place to suit a more traditional 40-hour
work week. Lisa Scheuerle, an art director at marchFIRST,
a Web-based interactive marketing and advertising firm,
says she moved from her previous job at another
non-Internet firm because she found better work terms at
marchFIRST. "They're concerned about their employees
being happy, enjoying a lifestyle outside of the work
week. So many companies don't support working long
hours," Scheuerle says.
What Scheuerle and her colleagues appreciate most
is that the company is determined to staff properly. As
opposed to taking a project approach, the company looks
for long-term account contracts, and therefore can create
effective deadlines. Occasionally, the staff will have to
pull long work weeks, but Scheuerle sees that as the
nature of the beast. "People will work toward a deadline
no matter what it takes," she says. "But they support
overtime, so we feel OK about working 60-hour weeks when
we have to."
In the new terrain of the 24/7 workplace, a
lesson has been learned. We can use the technology to
work better, faster and more freely than we ever have
before. But we should use these advantages to work smart,
not long.
Like Scheuerle, many people are starting to view
time as a commodity when looking for a job. How many
hours a week you work and how you are compensated for the
time you put in above 40 hours is just as important as
salary and signing bonuses to veterans of the dot-com
24/7 chaos.
Reigning in the Hours
People don't seem to mind the permeable fabric of
work and home that's been woven into their lives through
modern technology. To the contrary, the benefits of
telecommuting from home, making the park a virtual office
for an afternoon or taking advantage of flextime after
the kids go to bed, is all welcome in America's
workplace. What isn't welcome is taking advantage of
these options in a way that overwhelms an individual's
right to a personal life.
January
2001Homepage
I Will
Survive
