On Mar 11, 2005, at 9:24 PM, Michael Halcrow wrote:
On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 08:24:06PM -0700, Sasha Pachev wrote:A fast-paced work culture has a number of probelms. It kills your health in a number of ways. It cuts you away from your family. The extra value you might create by running fast at your job comes at a cost of high medical expenses later on in life. You also pay for it with your children underachieving, and possibly addicted to substances and in trouble with the law. It costs you more, and it costs the goverment more.
Do you have any evidence that this really is the case? You see, Sasha, in a capitalist country like America, when you work harder, you tend to make more money. You might be interested in this study (unless you are loath to bring pesky facts into this little discussion we are having here):
Ok, it appears to me that we are having two different conversations. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that Sasha is referring to the 40+ work weeks in which workers are expected to put in over 40 hours (and often ranging into the 50 and 60 hour region) on a consistent basis. He was not saying anything about how _hard_ one works, merely the length of time that someone works. By "fast-paced" and if you read into his marathon example, I believe it is completely true that in the long run, people are better off if they don't set a fast-pace (i.e. working 50, 60, 70 hour weeks). And what Sasha was saying about children is completely true. Studies show (and the LDS Church believes) that children are more likely to be well-balanced and happy when there is both a mother and father in the home and _at_ home on a consistent basis. Kissing your children goodnight when you get home from a 14 hour day at the office isn't the way they want to spend time (or lack thereof) with their father or mother.
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In fact, from this study I refered to above, one interesting quote is, ``Low-income parents are four times more likely to feel chronically stressed than parents with high incomes.'' After a careful analysis of these correlations, maybe the best thing to do for our own health and for the health of our children is to foster a fast-paced work culture so we can bring home more dough. At least we have some scientific evidence to back that theory up.
I would be very careful about linking how "hard" someone works with how much money they make. I know a lot of people that work extremely hard (just about anyone in manual labor), are very good people, and don't make a lot of money. Monetary success isn't always a scientific formula and it has as much to do with who you know as what you know. Even college is not a guarantee to success in todays world. Be careful with the type of thinking that if you work harder you will automatically make more money. Not that we should discourage "hard" work, but we also shouldn't say just because someone is not making a lot of money they are not working "hard" enough. Just some thoughts.
Grant
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