Workaholics Go Home!

Today was National Go Home On Time Day. The Australia Institute has promoted the day because of a recent study showing that Australians who are considered an average full-time worker are working an extra 70 minutes of unpaid overtime per day. In a year that’s an extra, unpaid, six and a half weeks! We’re giving our employers an extra six and half weeks of our precious time for free!?! That’s just un-Australian. Hang on, I don’t care where you’re from, that’s just stupid!

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), however, have labelled this day a “cheap stunt”. Typical. The representative of some 350 000 businesses Australia wide… hang on, let me rephrase 350 000 money hungry businesses Australia wide, says that “workers understand that business is doing it tough so are happy to pitch in to help”.

Well aren’t we all a nice bunch of people.

WTF!?! We’re happy to pitch in to help? Or perhaps we feel it necessary to pitch in to help because we need to keep our jobs so we can afford to pay the bills while most companies employing full-timers are reaping the benefit of free labour and the profits that come with it.

Who are these morons kidding? The study also asked full timers who took part in a survey what they would have spent this extra time doing? One of the responses was, strangely enough, exercise. Exercised! You mean if we weren’t overworked there might not be an obesity problem!? We might not have to spend millions of tax payer money on a health system to support the fatties that we are all becoming and the health problems that we bring to the table due to the extra hours we spend at work! Could it be in the best interest of our nation to go home from work so that our hospital system could focus on real health problems instead of the ones arising from a tired, lazy, fast food eating instead of healthy meal cooking, overworked population!?

The other response was obvious, spend time with family. Divorce rates have sky rocketed. Children spend more time in day care and away from their family. They’re left to their own devices for longer and longer, where are they getting their life skills from. I’m concerned looking at the generation coming through below us Gen Y’ers. You X’ers and Boomers think we’re bad. The iGeneration makes me sick already! And still to hit 30! Could it be that working less might promote better “values” within our families and society overall?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying be slack. Work hard, but work hard for 38-40 hours a week. If you can’t get your job done in that amount of time then I’m sorry ACCI, then the employer is failing, NOT the employee. Days like Go Home On Time Day are not a cheap stunt but an eye opener to the lot of us. When you take into account the hours worked, someone on 100k a year slogging it out over 50 hours a week might as well be earning 75k and working 38. On 60k and doing 50 hours? Hell, go work as a retail manager, work 38 hours and earn 45k and get some nice discounts on stuff you like if you work in a shop you’d frequent anyway. Pretty much the same deal. 50 hours a week is what 1 in 5 Aussies are working according to the study.

Why do we accept this? Why does government  allow it? Well, yeah they get a hell of a lot of money from commerce, especially profitable commerce. But what of a happy, healthy, work/life balanced nation? I’d like to know if the $72 billion we give away for free to our employers per year in the magical land of Oz outweighs the cost of the social and health issues for our nation that this extra work time causes. Well apparently, 3 years ago, obesity only cost Australia $3.7 billion (source). So I guess we aren’t even close to winning that argument.

But wait. If we’re stressed out because of work, maybe we drink more, pop a pill, smoke some tobacco or more to wind down. Maybe we do this so much we could be considered to be abusing these substances. This cost Australia $56 billion dollars a year! (source). Maybe the stress is getting us down, the cost of depression to Australian business is valued at $4.3 billion (source). And divorce? Well in 2003 the social cost of divorce was valued at $13 billion (source). So that puts us at a cost of $77 billion dollars a year. So $72 billion dollars a year in free labour creates $77 billion dollars plus in social costs.

So is it worth it? Will you be going home on time from now on? Should our government step in and say enough is enough – we are appalled at cheap labour in third world nations but we still give away our own time for free? To the tune of $72 billion dollars a year! What are we stupid!?

Go home people! Go exercise, be healthy, talk, catch up, bond… live! That’s worth more than the report, graph, figures, sales, statistics and everything else you spend your time on for someone else to enjoy their yacht and mansion and caviar and champagne. Far, far more!