Working in America Essay

Submitted By Nicole-Violet
Words: 1229
Pages: 5

Working in America

Americans believe that life is about working constantly when all we are really doing is destroying what life is really about, and that's family. Families in America shouldn’t be led to believe that all we should do in life is work. Of course, we all need money to make it in this world and make a living out of it. Yet, we shouldn’t be led into over working and leaving behind our families. We all need to making a living and work at jobs that we may or may not like. Working long hours is leading to devastation of families and it shouldn’t be that way. Americans shouldn’t be led to believe that working longer hours will help their future out and help their families. According to Brinson, “Americans added 199 hours a year, on average, to the work day and week, Schor writes... For the middle class, the increase takes away breath and sleep” (Brinson 429). Increasing work hours means that families are taking time away from their families and spending more time behind the desk. If there are children in the family then that even means that the parents may be spending money on a babysitter just so they can spend time behind their desk at work. Some families may have young children that could keep them up all night and then they have to go to work the next day, so parents could potentially be more fatigued. Also according to Brinson, “Being present but exhausted won’t get the work done: productivity decreases as stress and fatigue increases” (Brinson 430). Just because a worker comes into work, doesn’t mean that they are capable of doing the work due to the long hours that they work. Yes, every person has a choice at what they want to do as a job and where they want to work, but they also can’t be picky enough to not work anywhere. I don’t believe in making people work longer hours to try to do as much work as they possibly could because in the end it won’t be the greatest. All Americans need a job to make a living, no matter where you live or how you live. Depending on the type of job you have, you may have to work 90 plus hours a week just to get the job done and to get a living out of it. Some people may think that they can do a job on no hours of sleep, like Stoppler explains, “Flexibility is a good thing no matter how many hours you work. But it’s not how long you work that matters, it’s how you are working” (Stoppler 436). It explains exactly how Americans should work, meaning that you shouldn’t increase the hours, just decrease the work load needed to be done in that day. Longer working hours means that Americans won’t be getting the necessary things needed like sleep, food, and good health, to work decently. Just because a worker does the work that is needed, it never means the work is done properly so therefore, they may have wasted the time and have to do it over. The job scene is getting worse because we don’t know our own neighbors in our home town, but we know our neighbors that are next to us in the office. According to Goodman, “Yet it seems that more and more of us are identified by work these days, rather then by street” (Goodman 437). It’s sad that we don’t even know the people living in our town or even on our street. Yet, we know everyone that works in our office or even who works on what floor. Americans are so sucked into life of work instead of home life, and that’s not how it should be. Americans should know their neighbors on their street, and who they are living around. Instead most Americans just “live” in their offices and know who is around them there. The difference between work addicts and job addicts is very different. Job addicts could just love their job, but also could bring their work with them everywhere they go. On the other hand, work addicts love the feeling of constantly doing something. They may have a hard time staying in one place or not doing many things at a time. Families could be destroyed due to this problem like Fassel explains, “Vacations are