Office Martyrs

A fly on the wall of any office kitchen will hear complaints that we’re all now doing the work of five people. However, if we’re honest, is this overtime necessary or are we failing at setting essential boundaries?

Last year data from the American Time Use Survey showed that workers tend to exaggerate the number of hours they work by 5-10%. It found that the typical person who claimed to have worked 40 hours actually worked closer to 37. On top of this, a survey by Microsoft UK found that one in six office staff would rather spend an hour playing solitaire than be seen as the first to go. So how much of our overtime is a facade to appear indispensable? Time management expert and author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss says that modern workers are victims of ‘Parkinson’s Law’ – the theory that work expands to fill the time available for its completion (put forward by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in 1955). Think about it: if you have exactly two hours to complete a task you will probably get it done because you have no other option. But the same task can take twice as long if you know you have the weekend as a buffer.

“Time is wasted because there is so much of it available,” says Ferriss, “If you are an employee then spending time on nonessential jobs is, to some extent, not your fault. There is often no incentive to use time well at work, unless you are paid on commission.”

Some workenders purposefully work in their time off, just so they can magically produce a new report on Monday. And they, according to employment specialist Corinne Mills from Personal Career Management, fall into two different categories. “Some people, usually the more inefficient ones, will loudly brag about how hard they work in an attempt to deflect criticism and appear invaluable. On the flip side others hide how much extra work they’re doing because they want their successes to appear effortless and think the reality will detract from their superwoman image.”

Different Times

We haven’t always had the luxury of choosing whether of not to work at the weekend. While throughout modern history most major religions have put aside a day for rest and worship, the two-day break has its roots in the Industrial Revolution. In 1832, calls for a 10-hour working day (as opposed to 15 or 16-hour) were first heard and finally made law in 1847. Following that, a Victorian labourer could expect to work 10-hour days, six days a week. The working week consisted of 47 hours in 1930, then finally dropped to 40 (five days of eight hours) by 1980.

Today the lines between work and leisure time are blurred thanks to technology (and the fact we can read our emails wherever we are) but how much is this modern multitasking taking over our lives? All we’re doing is replying to a few emails while watching Arrested Development.

It might not sound like much but experts warn that even minor tasks like firing off emails could have negative effects on our health, as our minds are never fully disengaged from our day job. Lancaster University Management School’s professor Cary Cooper, who has studied the effects of overwork on the human body, says that in an ideal world no one should work more than 48 hours a week. His research has found the stress of permanently being ‘on’ can impair your immune system leading to more frequent colds and flu, stomach problems such as irritable bowel syndrome and even depression and alcoholism.

Meanwhile, high levels of the hormone cortisol which is released when the body is under stress can affect your metabolism, cause fertility problems and have a bearing on memory function.

“We should monitor our overtime in the same way we monitor our alcohol or calorie intake, because overindulging can be just as damaging,” says Cooper. “Also factor in your commute as this can be just as stressful as being in the office.”

A study by the European Heart Journal found that employees who worked 10 or 11-hour days, instead of the standard eight, had a 60% higher risk of heart disease, asa result of having less time to exercise, relax and unwind.

“If we consistently work long unsocial hours it will also affect our relationships,” says Cooper, “If you don’t invest in the people in your home then things will go wrong there and that unhappiness feeds back into your work, making you feel less effective and secure at work. It’s a vicious cycle.”

The growth of the workend (and why you should resist it)