After reading the above article I wrote to Merge. I have posted my response below.
Dear Merge:
Your article entitled How To Inspire the
Close-to-Retirement Employee has
inspired me to write after quite a bit of reflection on my part.
In my 30s, I worked as an accountant in public
practice. My chargeable hours totalled
2200 hours per annum. Just in case you
aren't clutching your pearls in astonishment as you fumble for your smelling salts,
I'll spell it out: 2200 hours is an incredible attainment. To achieve that, I worked 40 hours per week
like any person with a full time job. In
addition, during our "slow" time, I worked every evening Monday to Thursday and all day Saturday. In tax time,
I worked all the time. I mean that. I remember security coming in at 1:00 am and
asking me to go home. I did, but I was
back in the office by 7:00 am. What
about holidays, you ask? I am of
Scandinavian extraction and my family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve.
Big dinner with all the clan - present opening - laughter - the
works. I remember a Christmas Eve when
I looked out of the office while we were all frantically finishing up a few
last minute things before the Christmas break, and saw that every other office
tower downtown was dark. Every Last.
Building. At that point, I said I was
going home to my family. Bossy dearest
was livid. Scrooge like, he screamed
that I had the next day off. His anger
that evening was nothing compared to the day that I told him I had to have a
week off to have a lump taken out of my neck. I was lucky it wasn't
cancer: if it had been, I wouldn't have
had a job if I had been unable to work while receiving cancer treatment.
You will argue that mine was an isolated case - that my boss
was a manipulative workaholic. He
certainly was but I suggest that you read Modern Times, Ancient Hours: Working Hours in the 21st Century by
Pietro Basso: you will realize that all
employees face pressure at work. In a
way, I'm lucky as I have a professional accounting designation and accountants
are in short supply. Today's edition of
the Globe and Mail states that " a
host of factors are eroding job quality" and discusses how employers lack
commitment to employees in the long term
(page B 5, Report on Business Weekend.)
Ours is a
greedy, dysfunctional culture and
workplaces reflect that. Work is often
a demoralizing and shattering experience.
Perhaps age does bring wisdom: I'm not buying your suggestion that I
produce more and that I mentor younger
people to "leave a legacy." I
just do my job and go home. If my
current employer doesn't like my "coasting" they can fire me and pay for the privilege.
And you , madam, are promoting manipulative techniques to squeeze a little more productivity out of
workers instead of reflecting on the root causes of the oppressiveness of the
workplace.
What does this have to with the environment and climate change? What is the difference between ruthlessly exploiting the environment and exploiting workers? No much - it's the same mindset. There's a lack of empathy for other humans - other living things - or the earth in each.
