c. 1997 Religion News Service
(Dale Hanson Bourke is the publisher of Religion News Service and the author of”Turn Toward the Wind.”)
UNDATED _ To some, it’s just a job. They punch in, punch out, collect their paycheck, and think little about it.
But to a growing number of us it is so much more. It is where we find our friends, identity, community, self-esteem and, surprisingly, relaxation.
Even as we complain about being too busy, we come in earlier, stay later and find reasons to return to the workplace on weekends and holidays. Not all of these hours can be blamed on pressure from management or the desire for overtime pay.
We are, to a great degree, addicted to work.
This might not be so bad except that when we are at work we are not with our children, spouses or parents. And while we say our families are more important than our jobs, our actions say otherwise.
For sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, this perplexing dilemma serves as the basis for her latest book,”The Time Bind”(Metropolitan). Looking at a”family-friendly”Fortune 500 company that offers flex-time, job sharing, and other policies workers claim to want, Hochschild was surprised to find few takers.
Instead, she found workers who spend increasing hours on the job, regardless of financial rewards. Sifting through the workers’ conscious and subconscious motivations results in a fascinating look at how we view work in America today.
Home _ once the place where most of us found identity and comfort _ has now become a source of irritation, conflict and toil. We no longer enjoy home rituals, we fit them in. We shoehorn”quality time”into our work-dominated schedules.
Work, on the other hand, is where we see friends, work toward common goals, celebrate victories, and escape the hassles of home. It is where we have a place, where we fit in, where we are secure.
In effect, home has become work, and work is home, says Hochschild.
Companies, in their attempt to be worker-friendly, have largely succeeded. Employees dress more casually, enjoy enrichment seminars, find free coffee and soft drinks, and receive”warm fuzzies”in awards and special parking spots.”Although work can complement _ and, indeed, improve _ family life, in recent decades it has largely competed with family, and won,”says the author.
As examples, Hochschild cites working parents who drop their children off at day care in the early morning hours and pick them up at the last possible moment; suppers of carry-out food; and half-hour”quality time”blocks before bedtime. She reveals that working moms now are more inclined to buy goods and services that were once cherished family rituals, which she calls the”commodification of home life.” A working mother increasingly becomes”a manager of parenthood, supervising and coordinating the outsourced pieces of familial life,”she writes.
Meanwhile, back at the office, one manager confesses in the book that she is a better”mother”to her employees than she is to her own children. Others describe the company as a”helpful relative,”offering support and guidance in times of need.
In one of the most compelling sections, the author describes an event to deal with growing competition at the company she studied. Staged like”a revival meeting,”the author says,”its purpose was to convince each worker to renew his commitment not to his spouse or church but to his workplace.” It starts with what Hochschild calls a”confession”period in which workers offer ideas on what may be wrong with their own performance. They are then asked to sign a”commitment”card pledging to improve their work habits. Finally, the climax occurs with”a promise of redemption”and the hope of better times to come in a company that cares.
Work, it seems, does not just compete with the home, it also competes with religion.
While Hochschild does not ascribe subversive motives to management, she does point out that companies have learned to use methods that appeal to workers largely because they offer what is missing in so many lives: spiritual values, a higher calling, and a sense of belonging.
Righting the situation begins with a willingness to take an honest look at the home/work tug-of-war and face the long-term dangers of letting work win. Then it requires the courage to act consistently with both the individual’s and family’s values.
Hochschild, who is carefully objective through most of the book, leaves no doubt that she has strong feelings about working parents who do not face the conflict and move toward home and children.”One need not compare their childhoods to a perfect childhood in a mythical past to conclude that our society needs to face up to an important problem,”she writes.”The Time Bind”compels us to take a hard look at what many Americans truly value. If we are honest, we may discover that the”Protestant work ethic”has created a religion all its own.
MJP END BOURKE
