A Glimpse of the European Approach to Work Can Really Ruin My Morning
June 12th, 2007 by Brian
I’m well aware that Europeans generally work fewer hours and get more vacation time than American workers but this still ruined my morning.
This morning I was in a teleconference with a whole group of scientists collaborating on a project. Some of the scientists are in Europe. The meeting was in the morning central time to accommodate the fact that it’s many hours later in the day over in Europe.
One of the points that came up in the meeting was the imposition of a firm deadline to achieve one of the project milestones. Basically we have to complete a certain task (can’t be specific, sorry) before mid July because at that point in time one of our European collaborator’s company closes for three weeks so everyone can have a long holiday.
The entire company shuts its doors and sends everyone off on vacation. It’s really too bad that American companies haven’t figured out that doing this really won’t kill their bottom line. Projects will not derail and fire won’t rain from the heavens on their corporate headquarters. Speaking from experience, at my work there are a handful of frazzled, burned out people who could benefit greatly from a 3 week summer holiday.
The other thing that happened during the call was that about 3/4ths of the way through the agenda one of the European scientists abruptly left saying “it is dinner time here and I will be getting home now. Goodbye everyone.” I couldn’t help but think that if he were American he unquestionably would have been expected to stay for the whole meeting. Instead he cut out early with absolutely no shame so that he wouldn’t be 30 minutes late to dinner with his family. That just goes to show you how different their attitude is over there.
Both of these minor incidents reminded me how exploited and overworked Americans really are in the workplace.
The meeting was ended after 2 hours by a surprise fire drill at our facility. Yay!
Employees who are exhausted, bored, and distracted by family problems don’t work as efficiently as those who have a reasonable amount of control over their schedules and some free time. There was a fad of “efficiency expertise” that pushed employers into using methods that were supposedly “scientific,” but that also required using as many measurable tools as possible. Time is measurable, so it’s rigidly enforced. Unfortunately for everyone, efficiency is too vague to be measured effectively. In jobs where creativity and/or initiative is required, you can never really know what would have happened if you didn’t try to keep your employees working to the point of exhaustion. Did that 39th or 40th hour of the week really produce anything other than resentment?
Scientists who can’t look at a problem and answer, “I don’t know” are a pet peeve. It’s one thing to theorize in a lab, but the reason we have rigidly-enforced work weeks of 40 hours is that certain social scientists attached their careers to the idea that they had to take a guess, even if it’s not supported by anything substantial.
I’ve been thinking about this kind of thing a lot lately. It seems someone in your building had to pull the fire alarm to get out of the meeting, but the guy in Europe just said, “I’m leaving”.
Can you imagine how relaxed and comfortable people would be at work in the US if they had a feeling that their homelives were respected? Man, i think we all would work much harder for our employer.
My idea is that we bring in the four day work week. We work two days, have Wednesday off, and work two more days.
I have to admit though, I can;t see this becoming a reality in the US. I have a theory about this:
I really do think our government is bought and paid for. I believe that powerful corporations really do have great power over our governement. And if you watch the movie “An unreasonable man” you’ll see why…
Anyway, I belive that being a cog in the turning wheel of capiptalism is what is keeping this stuff from happening. The companies aren;t one person, they are a machine that generates money, the more money the better. They often don;t think creatively and crank out what they can.
They aren’t going to try new stuff. It will take a long time to get a company to “go Green” or whatever. It has to be of benefit to most companies financially before they will do it. I think it’s the same with work culture.
Anyway, just my two cents…
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