The Null Device

Pinkness and horror: In today's globalised, just-in-time marketplace, many IT workers are coerced into working 50-to-60-hour weeks. This is done by scheduling meetings early and late in the day (often required to teleconference with the head office), and when employees are "downsized", the work is spread around other employees. This is helped along by a high unemployment rate, and fear that if one doesn't put in 60 hours for the team, the next guy on the dole queue would be more than happy to oblige.
"A classic comment is 'you're not a team player' which means that team players work long hours and then go to the pub or the workplace social, extending the work hours even more. The twentysomething, university-educated, sports-car-driving, inner-city, one-bedroom-apartment-dwelling manager has very little understanding of why a family person spends an hour getting home, has to pick up the kids or the shopping before 6pm, and not work 60 hours a week. There's a chasm between the ones who understand and the ones who don't - the ones with a life outside work and ones without."

One consequence of this, and such employees' lack of time for a life outside of work is the rise in the popularity of online dating, now no longer confined to geeks and the socially awkward:

"Almost 20 per cent of those professionals using RSVP are IT workers," Mulcahy says. "They're used to the Internet for time-saving services and convenience, so it's natural they turn to online dating for spicing up their love life."

There are 1 comments on "":

Posted by: sand
http://
Wed Jun 9 06:42:01 2004

Too true. Furthermore, the rise in work hours and employees' lack of time for a life outside of work is zapping culture and well-roundedness from the general population - people no longer have time to take up non-work-related hobbies, or indulge in the arts, so they are picking up more and more of what is spoon-fed to them by corporations and media magnates. And those of us who do wish to use our non-working hours doing SOMETHING ELSE get criticized for not applying ourselves fully to our jobs, and are often labelled as lazy.

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