Workplace Stress Internet Article
There's no doubt that factory conditions, and even office conditions,in the nineteenth century and the first third or more of the twentieth weredangerous, stress-inducing in the extreme, as Carol Hymowitz and RachelEmma Silverman pointed out two years ago in an article for ITworld.com. Inaddition to the real physical dangers of industrial-society workplaces,they noted that letters by business tycoons, commodity clerks and assemblyline workers in the early twentieth century were filled with complaintsabout no one having time to stop and give a stranger directions, or taketime with the family or for community service. [1] Thankfully, they don't pretend to say that just because it was acurrent reality back then, it's OK for it the same sort of clock-oriented,production-hungry attitudes and behaviors to prevail now. The authors openwith the case of an attorney who has five children to put through collegeand a retirement nest egg to build. He is stressed by those factors. Buthe is more stressed by the fact that he's working longer and harder notdespite 'labor saving' technology such as cell phones and email, but The authors seem to say that this scenario, multiplied by
, because he or she just has to know right then ifPackage A went to Seattle on time-something which needlessly annoys theemployee at a time when nothing can be done about it anyway and they are ontheir own time, that behavior should not be tolerated by the company'sexecutives. One would have to question the needfor extra time off when the stress load is low, except, of course, thepossibility of being jobless being a stress-inducer. In short, business has not, in either case, done the ethical thing,the thing that would convince anyone that they valued their people andwanted to do right by them. Some companies, finally, are doing so. Is there an ethical component to that' Indeed there is, but possiblynot one that can be managed or legislated. Back then, it was "an eye for aneye, a tooth for a tooth. " Surely, with media and human resources professionals, companiesdo know better about the causes and effects of stress. One could return tothe Old Testament to get a handle on it. In somecases, it was probably like getting two cows for one goat. " Or, "If you take my goat, I get your cow," andso on. ")' The authors quoted several people wholamented the loss of privacy because they now had to answer cell phoneswhile driving, rather than winding down on the trip home listening tomusic, or because they were on a beeper and so on. [2] That may beso; being tethered to various devices that can ring, jangle or otherwisefetch us any time of the day or night means there is no private time, no'downtime.
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