http://www.msnbc.com/news/964116.asp?cp1=1

<<Sept. 30 — John De Graaf thinks you work too much. He wants you to stop. If you’re not willing to do that he’d like you to take just one day to talk with other overworked souls about how working less could improve your life. “This is the conversation all the other countries are having and for some reason we haven’t had it,” he says.

>>

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Wouldn't it be wonderful if my company would let me take the time off like that Maybe in an ideal world. My company doesn't even offer its employees sick or personal days. We get 12 days comp time each year that we have to use for sick, vacation, etc. And if you call out sick then it is an unexcused absence. What is the workforce coming to?

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"Just go with it."

Yeah. I wish we all had 40 vacation days, could retire and get social security at 50, have 35 hour work weeks, and government about to collapse like France. Wouldn't that be the life.

If you work smarter and not harder, you can get everything you need to get done in 40 hours or less a week.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

well, blob, we still have a government like that. klo, where do you work? I get three weeks, five sick, and 3 personal. I guess I should be happy.

I work in center city for a welfare to work program. It is pretty much a sucky job because the company doesn't support its employees at all!

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"Just go with it."

(snip)
JenniferKronstain"]http://www.msnbc.com/news/964116.asp
<<Sept. 30 — John De Graaf thinks you work too much. He wants you to stop. If you’re not willing to do that he’d like you to take just one day to talk with other overworked souls about how working less could improve your life.
(snip)

Uh oh, does this mean that Mayor Street and the black clergy will now have to schlep out to MSNBC to protest race baiting by the use of
"Take Back"?

Off topic.

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* Name: Jennifer Kronstain
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HA HA, Jen you gotta admit, it was funny and timely, while off topic.

Anyway to get BACK on topic, I work like mad, but I am doing that ultimately to be able to have my own web development / Internet Marketing company which will hopefully free up my time to spend with kids some day when I have them.

Some of us just have that ADD personality (funny when I was a kid ADD was just being hyper, now they medicate it, damn drug companies). I constantly need to be involved in multiple things, it makes me tick, relaxing is not high on my priority list, I try to have a great time w/ friends on the weekends.

I also don't believe in working for someone else who doesn't value your contribution to the company. Unfortunately people can't be that honest with themselves to say "I don't really contribute much", but most people think they deserve something better.

I just have a hard time busting my hump for someone and then having to beg for a couple more percent on my raise. I wouldn't mind working for another company as long as we truly were a team. I wouldn't mind getting low raises if the company did bad and even the top management took a hits too.

I read about a company called Nucor in a book called Good to Great
There is a story in there in which the company had some bad years, instead of cutting the rank and file's pay, the CEO cut from the top, stating that to take 1/2 of my very high salary still allows me to live well, but to take 1/2 of the salary of a worker that makes 30K, would prevent him/her from being able to feed their kids.

It is a damn shame that most managers and execs don't look at companies this way and often wonder why turnover is so high!

For some other good books on working try these:
Work 2.0 rewriting the contract by Bill Jensen
and
Survival is not enough by Seth Godin

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Yes it was funny ... sorry if I was too flip.

I've met Jensen before ... when I was in DC, I did some volunteer work withthe Company of Friends (Fast Company magazine's group) and we had him in for a seminar. Great guy.

__________________
* Name: Jennifer Kronstain
* Status on PhillyBlog.com: Co-Founder
* Job: Principal / Founder, KMG Worldwide Public Relations (http://www.kronstainmediagroup.com)
* Connect with Jennifer / KMG. Here's how: http://www.jenniferkronstain.com/contact.htm

I just had a conversation about this very thing last night, with a friend of mine who got laid off two weeks before I did. The company we used to work for is still laying people off and there is a rumor going around that 1000 more will be laid off within the coming year. There are 55 executives in that company, half of which are on the senior exec level, and half of which are millionaires. If they were to cut their salaries even slightly, they'd save several jobs. How much money does one individual need? You can only live in one house at a time; drive one car at a time... How does one sleep at night in your fabulous house knowing that you have altered people's lives forever?

The sad thing is that after I got laid off, many of my former coworkers started working themselves into a frenzy trying to prove their 'value' to the company..... which ultimately did not matter.

The company 'values' their bottom line, so working harder didn't save them at all. They told us, "it's not personal. It's not people we're eliminating, it's positions." Funny -- it was very personal to me.

The whole outlook is askew these days. I say, why work 60 - 80 hours a week for a company that doesn't value its employees at all?

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