My Experience At The End Of The Summer

The problem is that it only makes them feel better for a short while and eventually leaves them feeling empty. We are now said to be a “harried leisure class starved for time. Economic growth entails a general increase in the scarcity of time.” They say it is as simple as this: increased susceptibility to affluenza means increasing headaches from time pressure. The pace of work has seemed to increase dramatically and we are working much faster today than we were in the past. This contributes to our sense of being overworked, frenzied, harried, stressed out, and burned out by our jobs.

There are also varying degrees of alienation depending on the particular work environment. Some workers subject to particular tasks may feel 'distant' from their co-workers. Without this sense of belonging, these workers let their work related alienation penetrate their personal spheres which is seen in the struggle they have maintaining personal relationships, as a result of the feelings of isolation that they harbour. This in turn can lead to problems of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness such as depression and violent behaviour stemming from underdeveloped social interactions. (Macionis: Chapter 4)

“People were forced to work in harsh, dangerous conditions in order to be able to provide for their families” (Document 8). Although most people were grateful to have a job, the conditions that they were forced to work for in order to provide for their families were unfair to them, and their families. Just because they obtained a job one day, doesn’t mean they would have it the next day, for example, if an employee was sick, or injured and had to miss a day of work the employee wasn’t guaranteed to continually have the job after they finally recovered. “I am at work in a spinning room tending four sides of warp which is one girl’s work” (Document 1) working conditions such as these are very harsh for the employees, not only do they have to keep up with the work of four people. Not only do the employees have to keep up with the sea of work, they also have to attempt not to get injured with the very harsh conditions lots of employees did in fact end up with serious injuries. “5 in the morning till 9 at night…” (Document 7) Those were the harsh working hours according to twenty-three year old Elizabeth Bentley. Long hours such as those were very common for factory workers, which made life hard for employees. Not only was harsh working conditions bad, but also the worst consequence that came about through the Industrial Revolution was child

Some feel that it is more important to enjoy work and get less money than it is to hate work and get paid more. There are many things in life that are overlooked. Everyone has family and it is important to value that. People who can value their families have achieved success in their own way.

We cannot let our work and living conditions limit our success, we must take control of the situations in our lives. As much as we have all heard it, we need to keep a positive attitude and mindset, or at least try to. This is probably the easiest way to take control of the situations you are in; keeping a positive attitude has been known to increase your physical and mental health, which can really only benefit you. In a study performed by the University of California, Riverside, in which productivity, happiness, and overall physical and mental well-being were analyzed in working individuals, it was concluded that a positive attitude and outlook has a great effect on one’s life. Generally positive, or “happy people,” were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, to perform tasks better, and less likely to be unemployed and more likely to be physically healthier and live longer than their less happy peers (Joy). Positive people being less likely to be unemployed allows these individuals to accumulate more money, which makes the general public happier nowadays, and this ultimately makes the dream of having success more easily attainable. Happy individuals being found to be healthier and to therefore live longer than less happy individuals gives these happy individuals more time to attain the “American Dream” as well. Keeping

You think your life is hard and miserable now, think back during The Great Depression.

In finding happiness at work, there is a large but limited set of values or factors; the key is determining how much of each value is needed. The individual is the only one who can make the determination of how much of each value is needed. What makes one person happy at work is not the same combination for the next guy. One guy may value a big salary to be happy while another could be just as happy with a little less pay and a little more involvement. The right mix of variables is personal because priorities need to be set. Rare is the job that provides all the values that you need in the exactly right proportions. Because of the rarity of the perfect job, we need to decide on what values we could be content with upholding.

Many people in today’s society find themselves guilty of believing the common misconception that money can buy happiness. They go to school to become a doctor, lawyer, or other high paying job, with money and social status as their only incentives. Many will find that they have fallen into a trap, when they start earning their large salary, but still are not happy. While there were many messages present throughout Studs Terkels Working: a graphic adaptation, the most important reoccurring message seemed to be that having pride and dignity as well as working at a job that fulfills one’s life passion or is simply enjoyable are more important qualities than earning a large salary and having a high rank on the social ladder. The interaction of

Many people today find themselves in “dead-end” jobs, or they feel like work is purposeless and frustrating. At the same time, some people figured out that work is a blessing to them. People who suffer their lives in a slavery for many years in another country, think that work is a curse because they were ruled by people. They work because they are forced by other people. Work is a blessing for most people, but for some people work is a curse because of the lack of opportunity. Work is a blessing for those who understand it. To understand that work is a blessing was one of true understanding the purpose of life. It is important because not knowing the purpose of life brought people depressed. As Honore said “I'm retired from the Army, but

When I was a young whippersnapper I would always think about being a firefighter, police officer, or a professional athlete. Some of the young dreams have fallen into reality and I know they may not come true or I have changed my mind. Many adults in the world have families they need to support and sacrifice many hours of the day to earn money even when they hate their job. Work takes up the majority of the day so it is a good way to end up hating the whole day just because people hate their job. Now that I am in high school and understand a little bit about the importance of money, I would like to have a job that has a high pay rather than being happy at work.

When critically analyzing the some of the themes discussed in the course with respect to my volunteering experience and majority of positions held by the working class. creates an environment of concern such as the feeling of being alienated which is defined as an “estrangement, or separation in feeling or affection; to be alienated is to be withdrawn or cut-off in feeling or affection, to feel separated from others or oneself. “ that slowly builds within the work environment, the reasons is due to lack of job enrichment or more specifically when the job becomes monotonous without much change. For example while volunteering reporting at 8:30am to open the office and start my shift from 9:00am created an atmosphere of enthusiasm which slowly diminished over a period of time as it was the same task I executed for 2 years. This when related to an individual who works in a car factory feels dehumanized and more like a machine when the carry our the same task in a factory of line production. Due to lack of change the employee becomes less productive and hence a cost to the firm therefore ends up being laid-off. Furthermore in a capitalist environment the inability to contribute in decision making and the operation of the firm significantly contributes to the alienation of workers. Creating a more involving firm such as the Body Shop that accepts a more open response from its employees allowing a greater enrichment and growth of employees and the business its self. In addition

“Snap.” It’s broke. I just heard the sound and felt the pop of my leg breaking. The actual breaking of my leg was abstract compared to the disappointment and difficult adjustments I would face through the summer before me. Having suffered the consequences of a hasty decision, through the discouragement of not experiencing the long awaited plans for the season, and patience accumulated through the process of being dependent upon another, lessons applicable to all areas of life were created through this unfortunate experience.

As human beings, one of the most fundamental aspects of our existence, according to philosopher Karl Marx, is the act of work. More specifically, it is the idea that work fulfills human being’s essence. Work, for Marx, is a great source of joy, but only when the worker can see themselves in the work they do, and when said worker wants to partake in the work they are performing. In the capitalist identity, workers are “a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital” (Marx and Engel, 1946, pg. 116). Labourers were simply described as “a commodity” (Marx and Engel, 1946, pg. 117) by the ruling class; they are but pieces of a large, intricate gear system, all for the profit of those above them. In this, the worker loses touch with their essence. This concept is referred to, more or less, as alienation. Alienation is a form of separation of how one sees themselves, and how one sees themselves in what they do. Alienation, in many ways, relates to the idea of false consciousness. False consciousness, for Marx, revolves around the idea of misleading society; It is an ideological way of thinking in which no true perception of the world can be achieved. Both alienation and false consciousness delve into the notion of what constitutes true reality. Alienation describes how those that are controlled by the ruling class are subject to a form of disconnect, and false consciousness is a hierarchal idea in

The first is the alienation of the worker from the work he produced, or from the product of his labor.” (Boundless. “Work and Alienation) Modern technology has led to tensed, dispassionate correlation, as it replaces the perception and gesture which is essential to a healthy workplace. Being that technology is so important in this modern era the importance of humans is deteriorating. Cooperation owners seem to feel as if the machines are more important than the human workers and are even considering the human workers as machines. A prime example is that my boyfriend is a hardworking man who works for a body shop and has been doing so for about 7 years. He's a buffer. A painter has to paint the cars first, and then the buffer comes in. Buffing is when you go over the fresh paint job with a buffing machine to remove dust, air bubbles, and all imperfections from the new paint job. A car insurance company pays the body shop about 5,000 to 8,000 dollars for this paint and buffing job while the shop pays my boyfriend about 600 weekly while he puts out 7-12 cars a week. When those cars get put out and the owner's profit financially do you think they thank him or the workers, and give them a percentage of what was profited? NO they don't, they thank the customer and tell the customer to refer “His Body Shop” to friends, family and coworkers. As work and alienation expresses, “The product's design and the manner in which it is produced are determined not by its actual producers, nor

There are numerous reasons on why precarious work is not ideal. Individuals have to hold the whole burden of holding low-paying jobs (Porter, 1996) these could hamper their future plans as well as affect them psychologically.