Shouldn’t we have other interests (and time for them!) outside of work?  Shouldn’t we have time for our families?  Shouldn’t we have time to maintain a sense of a food culture that doesn’t involve processed food?

For many of us the hours in an office, sitting behind a computer don’t allow any of this.  Some of my friends are or have worked upwards of 80-90 hours per week!  That’s a staggering amount!

Most jobs only start at 1-2 weeks of vacation time, while in Europe most people have at least a month off (plus numerous holidays).  So while the hours pile up, the days off are few and far in between.  And then while on vacation, most people still can’t quite let go, checking their work email and voice mail messages on a daily basis!

Hard work is definitely a virtue, but what about its opposite- over-work?  Who determined the amount of hard work that is sufficient?

Maybe in the mad dash to constantly work harder and longer, in the seemingly unending struggle to get bigger and better we are leaving more and more behind?

Any thoughts?

Considering that at my previous job I had to wear slacks and a dress shirt for the first year and a half and a tie thrown in for the last six months, I definitely feel blessed.  Slacks and a shirt aren’t too bad, but with the (dreaded) tie included you’ll catch me running the opposite direction whenever I get the chance.  Case in point- I attended an all-day seminar earlier this week and I thought that perhaps I should dress up a little for the occasion.  Upon arriving I quickly noticed that I was the only guy (granted there weren’t many people there) wearing a tie.  A swift removal of said tie occurred before the seminar began.

I was surprised to find out that there is quite a history behind some form of fabric being worn around one’s neck.  While its predecessors date back to ancient Egypt, the modern necktie has its origins in the industrial revolution (here is a history of the necktie courtesy of wikipedia).   Whatever its history may be I absolutely put myself in the “anti-tie” category (whether one exists or not!).

I’ll acknowledge that ties do make us guys look professional/handsome.  Now whether that’s because we’ve come to associate ties with looking professional/handsome, or whether we actually look professional/handsome is another matter.

The fact remains that I hate wearing a tie (let alone a suit AND tie; that would be a rant too long for a single post).  Why we force ourselves to essentially wear a noose around our necks is beyond me.  Seriously, isn’t that what a tie is- a piece of fabric constricting our ability to breath?!  Forgetting about what wearing a tie signifies, if anyone can explain to me how a tie enables someone to do their work any better, by all means please do.

I know the resulting question- why not let everyone come to work dressed however they please then?  Ok, ok, if everyone came to work in pajamas I admit there could be a problem.  And I understand that if people are dressed in a “professional” manner, there may be more of a likelihood that they act in a “professional” manner.  But I like the idea of being comfortable while I work and “sans cravat” certainly makes for more comfort.  In fact, make that jeans and a polo.

Be it late at night, or on the weekend, there is a constant pressure to check our emails, to stay tuned in, to make sure we aren’t missing anything. I have been to movies, to dinners, to coffee, and everywhere I turn, the site is a similar one. People taking away from their interactions with others to fiddle with their Blackberries. My question then is WHY? I just don’t get it. Maybe that’s because I don’t have one myself, maybe it’s because I didn’t even have a cell phone until 2004 (seriously, I’m not lying!). Whatever the reason may be, I just don’t get it.

When I am out and about, I don’t need, and in fact I don’t want to check my email, surf the Internet, or Google chat. I want to enjoy attempting to live in the moment, which is already hard enough for me to do without another added distraction. I know the counter argument is that you can still enjoy what you are doing, and that may be true. But, how about for those around us? To the people we are spending time with? Are they still able to enjoy our company, when we are busy trying to multi-task: perhaps having a conversation, while writing an email, while waiting for yet another email. What would happen if we just put our Blackberries away and simply enjoyed being free from our email and the Internet? In most cases nothing would happen! What happened a few years ago, when most of us didn’t have them…

And it’s not just in our personal lives where the Blackberry phenomenon has taken hold. Over the past few months, I was in countless meetings where most of the people in the room were busy doing something on their Blackberries. Most likely, they were writing work emails (though you never know, seems like having a Blackberry provides an easy cover to do some browsing of the Internet, some on-line shopping, some chatting with friends- can’t you just see the Seinfeld episode here? just picture the trouble George would have gotten himself into with a Blackberry during meetings). Everyone is in their own world, instead of paying attention to the actual meeting. Result: long, drawn-out meetings, where not much gets accomplished (you could argue that this happens at most meetings anyway!).

To be fair, I have also been on the positive end of a Blackberry. When it comes to providing directions or the answer to a friendly (or not so friendly) wager, they are great!

Isn’t there the possibility, though, that we might be better off without them? At least when we are with others in our free time? Or is this to be our curse- never being able to unplug from the virtual world, and forgetting what human interactions without a mini-computer in our pocket are all about?