The New Meaning of Work: It’s Only a Means to an End

At the turn of the century, the work ethic lived in the hearts and minds of the American worker. But at the end of the same century, if it resides anywhere, it’s probably at the Smithsonian Institution.

This is not to say Americans aren’t working. They are. In fact, they are working more than ever--about 160 hours more a year than they did in the 1960s, according to Juliet Schor, a Harvard economist and author of “The Overworked American.”

And Americans are working longer hours than anybody else in the industrialized world, according to the most recent data from the International Labour Organization. Americans log, on average, 1,966 hours annually--surpassing the workers of Japan for the first time in decades.

But America’s work ethic--the idea that work is a dignified duty, often to God, with intrinsic value and purpose--withered away long ago for the vast majority of American workers. Instead of being an end, work has clearly become a means to another end, argue some observers of American labor.

“Work is still valued,” said Robert Eisenberger, a psychology professor at the University of Delaware and author of “Blue Monday: The Loss of the Work Ethic in America.” “But it’s only seen as a way to get money.”

At the start of the century, such a conception of work seemed as fantastic as a space rocket or a personal computer. Americans prided themselves on pioneering and settling a continent by the sweat of their brow and the strength of their backs. People who didn’t work, even the idle rich, were looked down upon.

The nation’s economy, too, encouraged the work ethic to flourish as well at this time in history. For the most part, Americans were their own bosses. They were craftsmen, small businessmen or farmers who often were able to witness the tangible results of their labor, see the communal benefits and reap their own bounty. Their personal experience reinforced the popular belief that if you worked hard, you’d be rewarded.

But the rapid industrialization of the country in the early part of this century began to erode the ethic, say sociologists. While expanding industry boosted the ranks of the employed and paid relatively good wages, it also often consigned workers to mindless and repetitive tasks. They increasingly felt like cogs in a machine, able to draw less and less satisfaction from their labor.

“The individual was reduced,” Eisenberger said. “The assembly line was taking over and the pride of accomplishment became diminished.”

At the same time, America began reexamining its puritanical relationship with leisure. In the early part of the century, a nation enamored with work naturally adopted a disdain for leisure. Leisure meant lazy. Leisure meant unproductive.

“Americans didn’t trust leisure,” said Geoffrey Godbey, a professor of leisure studies at Penn State University. “The French or the British could sit for hours staring at the ceiling with a pint in front of them. Americans could last only a few minutes before they had a fit.”

But as more Americans began working for factories and large corporations, they began to warm up to the idea of leisure. By 1938, many workers were guaranteed a 40-hour workweek and suddenly found they had more time and money than ever before.

Further, workers often found their jobs boring and unfulfilling, which led to a greater emphasis on hours spent outside of work. A leisure industry quickly sprang up and Americans soon took to family vacations and weekend getaways.

Though the pursuit of leisure became more acceptable, it still was tempered by the work ethic. Even today when most industrialized nations routinely grant six weeks of vacation a year to their workers, America has kept to a standard of just two weeks.

“In the early 1900s, some business executives refused to take vacations at all,” Eisenberger said. “People believed work was so valuable and they got such enjoyment from it, they wouldn’t leave.”

But when taken, vacations weren’t--and aren’t--enough to restore the vitality of the work ethic, say some labor experts.

“Vacations relieve stress while you are on them,” said Terry Beehr, a professor of psychology at Central Michigan University who has researched workplace stress. “But it doesn’t last long. Usually, it’s a break only while you’re on the break.”

Another blow to the traditional work ethic has simply been the tide of history. The 20th century has seen unprecedented political, social and economic gains for the individual, embracing everything from the right to vote to a decent standard of living.

The sweeping changes brought with them a questioning of the old ways. Work was no longer automatically seen as intrinsically valuable. As that belief spread, more workers wondered about the point of competing in the so-called rat race.

In the latter decades of the 20th century, the kind of work Americans were doing changed dramatically and made a strong commitment to the traditional work ethic more difficult. In the early part of the century, most Americans performed physical labor. Whether in the fields or the steel mills, they sweated.

Toward the end of the century, most Americans may still have been sweating, but they did so sitting down. A telling statistic about our sedentary lives is that the average person spends only 12 minutes a day walking.

“The work most Americans do today is extraordinarily physically passive,” Godbey said. “That’s why we are a nation of fatsoes. We’re sitting on our butts all day.”

But even if the traditional work ethic had weathered assaults for most of the century, it’s unlikely it could have survived the explosion of the “knowledge economy,” sociologists contend. In some ways, workers who shuffle papers, input data and transmit endless streams of information can feel as demoralized as any assembly-line worker from the 1920s.

“In the Information Age, you have workers churning out things so quickly that it’s almost a case of here today and forgotten tomorrow,” said Eisenberger, who notes that workers are bombarded by rafts of e-mail, fax, pager and phone communications. “There’s little or no time to stop and think.”

Corporate downsizing hasn’t helped matters either, adds Eisenberger. Workers who had devoted most of their lives to companies were suddenly terminated to improve the bottom line. Workers felt betrayed and, worse, expendable.

“I think workers feel that they are just churning water. That they are not getting anyplace,” Eisenberger said.”This kind of environment saps your pride of accomplishment and the value of work gets totally lost.”

Resentment toward the workplace can be readily seen in everything from a office shootings to calling in sick.

Of the latter, a survey this year found that most workers who are away from the job on short notice are, in fact, not sick. The survey, conducted by CCH Inc., a Chicago-based publishing and research firm, found that workers are staying home because of stress, family issues, personal needs or because they simply felt that they deserved a day off.

The study, which surveyed the human resources managers of 305 firms representing nearly 800,000 employees, also revealed a new and growing “entitlement mentality” among workers. Workers who felt the company owed them a day off rose from 9% in 1995 to 19% in 1999.

Though workers may be more disenchanted with work than ever, ironically they are putting in more hours than ever.

Why? It’s rarely duty to God, or dignity, that pushes the masses into the workplace. While some may blame the rising cost of living or an achievement-obsessed society, many cultural observers argue that Americans are working more so they can spend more. In the new “work-and-spend” culture, purchases by middle- and upper-middle-class Americans jumped at least 30% and maybe as much as 70% between 1979 and 1995, according to Schor who followed up “The Overworked American” with “The Overspent American” in 1998.

The so-called necessities of life have greatly expanded in recent decades. Americans now “need” two cars, two or more televisions, cell phones, home computers, even bottled water.

But among a certain strain in the upper middle class, there’s been a backlash against the consumerist culture and soulless workplace. Such people seek personal fulfillment from their jobs.

These backlash workers have helped popularize such phrases as “Follow your bliss” and spawned books like “Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow.” Sociologists, however, are skeptical that the limited movement will do much to return the work ethic to society at large.

“It clashes with what work has become,” Eisenberger said.

“Many people are too satisfied with their standard of living to think about giving up a job they don’t like for a lower-paying one that they do,” Eisenberger said.

The work ethic may well have permanently retreated from the workplace, but it has marked much of modern life in America. Ironically, it may have most affected leisure time, which workers regard as an escape from the drudgery of the workplace.

For even in their leisure, the pressure to be constantly “productive” is there, Godbey said, from “working vacations” to the golden years.

Retirees who don’t need the money are increasingly returning to work, usually in low-wage jobs, research shows. The need to keep busy also affects those who resist the temptation to go back to work, Godbey said. Inevitably, many of these people end up filling their schedules with so much “leisure” that they can feel as pressured as a worker, he added.

“Americans fear being alone and fear tranquillity,” Godbey said. “It leaves them to confront the meaning of life and what’s important.” In the end, “they’d rather rent a video or pay Walt Disney to entertain them.”