March 23, 2008 11:05 AM

Why has your workday gotten longer?
Posted by Jesse Nunesat 11:05 AM

In an Op/Ed piece in Sunday's Boston Globe, Monique Doyle Spencer laments the state of the current US workplace, and how she feels women share some of the blame by working harder and putting in extra hours without complaint, and without appropriate compensation.

But the real point of the piece to me, however, is gender-neutral, and points to the fact that with current state of the economy, many US businesses are trying to get as much productivity out of their workers as possible, giving them more responsibilities and, in turn, increasing their workload and length of their work days. With time at a premium, it becomes the little inefficiencies throughout the day that really cause the long hours at the office. Spencer writes:

If your job takes you more than 45 hours a week to complete, you are going to too many meetings that you shouldn't be at.

...

If a boss wants people there for him or her at all hours, we were supposed to hire two people, not make one work the hours of two. We were supposed to see if America would put its money where its mouth is: that family matters. If you're not related to me, I should not be spending every evening with you.

Obviously, work has cycles. Accountants have to work harder for tax season, yes, retailers work harder for the holidays, everybody works harder when times are tough.

I'm not saying we should all stop working hard, just that we should outlaw 90 percent of the meetings we go to, remove the guests chairs from our offices unless an actual client needs it, and run the office so productively that nobody needs to work nights all the time.

What about your job? Have you seen an increased workload lately that has forced you to work longer hours?

What do you blame? Do you attend too many meetings? Are there inefficiencies that could be corrected to allow you a normal work day?

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