Workaholic Fever: Catch It!

My fifth-grade son, Benjamin, is om course to get all A's for the entire year.  He only has one week of school left.  I asked Alison what was coming up this week at school that could change that.  Well, today is Field Day - a whole day of outside play activities and competitions.  Thursday is Honors day, so grades should be set in stone at that point, and Friday would be a class party that would last until the end of the school day, a day in which many of the kids are picked up early by their parents.

So, I asked her, that just leaves Tuesday and Wednesday as days that could effect his academic performance.  Alison scoffed at the notion - whatever they were doing those days wouldn't involve anything that effected grades.  So, in essence, school has already ended, and this was just an extended goodbye.

This sort of thing, with other days like it throughout the year, plus frequent school breaks such as Christmas and Spring break, the long Summer break, and other assorted days off, ill prepares our students for what's really out there.  Americans take the least amount of vacation out of any developed nation in the world.  We have fewer vacation days.  Our  mothers do not get paid maternity leave (except for a small handful of truly exceptional companies). Many families are two income, if not three or four. There is little time for child care, proper meals, or general participation in society.

Our productivity in this country is going through the roof.  But these gains are not showing up in increased wages.  Relative to inflation and cost of living, wages for 90% plus of us have remained stagnant, and for many that actual buying power has declined.  But for anyone in this society dare to suggest that they need more time for themselves and their families is considered a sin.  For anyone to try to organize themselves and their co-workers for better wages and working conditions is considered criminal.

I worked for a Japanese plastics manufacture in the early to mid 90s.  The Japanese were considered the greatest workaholics on the planet.  And they did often work six days a week, with a pretty strong work ethic and intensity.  BUT they also took more vacation than their American counterparts.  We had fewer holidays and vacation days than they did.  The Japanese even had a week long holiday that roughly translated into Stop and Smell the Roses Week,  They got it off.  We did not.

I've had workaholic streaks in my life.  It got me nowhere except exhausted, tired, and feeling used.  I have an inner lazy streak, and I always wanted to not let people see it, so often I over-compensated the other way.  I would strive to be one of the first ones in and one of the last ones to leave.  I have gradually fought off those feelings, but it has taken years to get to that point.

Maybe we don't need to have as much downtime as our schoolchildren do.  But I'm not sure if we all took time out to smell the roses just a little bit more, it wouldn't just make life a tiny bit better.