What up with your job?
Issue #23
Love it? Hate it? How’d you get to where you’re at now?
By Amy Schroeder
Published: March 1st, 2005 | 11:59am
Do a search for books on the topic of “working” on Amazon.com, and more than 80,000 options come up. There are books about dealing with stress on the job, books boasting survival tips for working parents, books about workouts for working people, and books that give tips on how to avoid work. The latter is called Hardly Working: The Overachieving Underperformer's Guide to Doing as Little as Possible in the Office.
There’s even a book called A Working Stiff's Manifesto: A Memoir of Thirty Jobs I Quit, Nine That Fired Me, and Three I Can't Remember by Iain Levison. Got a job? There’s a book for you.
As you can see, the topic of work is not a new one. After all, most Americans invest a huge chunk of their lives at their money-makers. Statistics vary, but most of the figures show that, on average, we’re working more than ever before. In fact, Americans work 10 hours more per week now than in 1987, said author Mary Lou Quinlan.
Quinlan, who calls herself a classic overachiever, published a book in January called Time Off For Good Behavior: How Hardworking Women Can Take a Break and Change Their Lives. The book’s impetus came from her own life-changing experience. After moving her way up to be the CEO of a large advertising agency and realizing that she was overworking herself, she took a five-week break to reassess her life and whether she was happy. During the hiatus, she said she became so much calmer and happier. “I decaffed myself. Spent time with people I loved rather than with people who wanted something from me. I slept like a baby,” she said. Quinlan ended up quitting her high-power advertising job and started Just Ask a Woman, a marketing company that educates other companies about working women’s behaviors. The career switch, she said, has allowed her to “keep that time-off spirit while being on.”
Whereas Quinlan found out the hard way that working too much can oftentimes lead to stress and unhappiness, Diana Lind said she hopes not to fall into the same situation. Lind, 23, is finishing up a master’s in creative writing at Columbia University. In the meantime, she’s working on her own start-up magazine, appropriately titled Work.
“I think at least half of people are unhappy at work. Maybe about a quarter dread it,” Lind said. “I know that people need to work for money, but I feel there might be some small ways to improve things.”
The ultimate goal of Work — which features articles about the issues that influence why and how people work — is to revolutionize the culture of work, Lind said. “[The goal is for] better workspaces, better salaries, better corporations — maybe even impact the local or federal government.” Targeting an audience of people in their 20s and 30s, “Work magazine hopes to improve the way that people consume, practice their trades, and live their lives through innovative approaches to work,” she said.
Lind said balancing her grad-school work with Work’s work is challenging, but she’s being healthy about it. She — like the other six women profiled on the next five pages — likes her job. It’s not all peaches and cream for them, but what job is?
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