Long on Time, Short on Thought

Writing for the We Are Mammoth website, Jason James considers the idea of working long hours in terms of what it means about an employer and what it can mean to an individual. He concludes his insightful analysis with the following advice:

[I]f you are going to put in the extra hours, make sure it's on your own terms. And if some place or some job is making you feel like long hours "come with the territory" just know they are misleading you to their benefit, and you can find a better situation with some extra effort.

I was particularly impressed with the author's emphasis on two often-overlooked aspects of this practice: the fact that the employer-employee relationship is supposed to be a mutually-beneficial trade, and that work is supposed to be a life-promoting value. James doesn't use the term, but his analysis demonstrates the abject poverty of moral intrinsicism -- in this case the common notion that long hours equal productivity or virtue. He demonstrates that this is very often not the case at all.

-- CAV