Posted on 11/28/2006 11:10:16 AM PST by freemarket_kenshepherd
American laborers are going to extremes working in jobs where 60 hours a week can be considered part-time, and overtime is an understatement.
Thats how ABC anchor Charles Gibson teased a story in the opening credits of the November 27 World News. Yet for all the hype, fewer than one percent of Americans hold these type of extreme jobs, and most are well-compensated.
The so-called extreme jobs, Gibson told viewers, involve high-pressure work that often comes with a very high salary and a very heavy personal toll. Yet its only about 2 million Americans that fall into this fast-growing category, Gibson conceded as he introduced a report by Betsy Stark.
In a nation of roughly 300 million people, thats only 0.67 percent of the countrys population, although Starks report made extreme work sound like a pandemic.
Whats more, Gibson got his 2 million number by rounding up from the 1.7 million Americans in extreme jobs as determined by the New York-based Center for Work-Life Policy (CWLP). Stark featured CWLP senior fellow Catherine Orenstein in her story but did not mention the organizations name or its ideological leanings.
A review of CWLPs Web site shows the group often focuses on traditional liberal workplace concerns such as the number of women and minorities in executive leadership in American business. Liberal activist and Princeton religion professor Cornel West serves as CWLP vice president. In 2001, West resigned his post at Harvard University after then-president Larry Summers criticized West for focusing on political activities at the expense of his academic obligations.
Stark chose a Florida lawyer as a textbook case of the extreme worker. The correspondent profiled 35-year old David Shontz, a man who rarely vacations, who is a trial lawyer hoping to make partner at his firm..."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessandmedia.org ...
I actually read this article in the Harvard Business Review this morning. What a bunch of fluff.
It ended up being a whinefest about how women who can't work 70+ workweeks are being discriminated against because they jump off the extreme job track to spend more time with their kids.
Their solution is for corporation to pay higher salaries to women who don't want to work extreme hours and would rather spend time with their families.
What a bunch of nonsense. These women can't have it both ways.
Maybe some -- or even most -- of them are. But that trial lawyer sure as hell isn't an "entrepreneur" in any sense of the word.
It's been two months since I had a day off. 280-320 hrs/mo is normal. NO, I am not a lawyer!
Perhaps he should put his effort into the extreme jobs that require putting your life on the line every single day. A job where most of the junior people with families are eligible for food stamps. Where they work 7 days a week, and are on duty 24 hours a day................!
That being our fighting men and women in the Armed Forces. Oh wait, MSM is not interested in them. They were to stupid to go to college and get good grades, so they "had" to go into the military. /sarcasm off
Gunner
Another thought.....people who work long hours probably don't make watching TV, drinking with friends, shopping, and reading the newspaper priorities.....so, saying that you are cutting a family out of your life with long hours doesn't isn't always true. Some people use the aforementioned to ignore their families.....while they work 40 hours a week.
Dude, no. And anyway, yer never gonna be self employed if you're always asking someone for permission.
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