Originally Posted by
wolfie_cr
Unfortunately (or fortunately) in my line of work, all I need to do my magic is a laptop and an internet connection, which means that ever since I joined the 'working' population in 1999.......there has not been a day (Except for when I went to my country's highest mountain......where btw they now have internet there too!) when I was not able to go online, but of course most people can't go on vacation whenever they want by just taking a laptop with them
I'd highly recommend reading the book "The Overworked American" by Juliet Schor. She documents in great detail how, over the long term, U.S. employers have always pushed to pay out rewards of increased productivity as more money (if they have to part with it) rather than more leisure time.
The 40-hour workweek, for example, dates all the way back to 1938. We've gone the entire computer age without any real drop in hours worked.
It's a cultural problem more than a technological problem. In places like Europe and Australia, more value is placed on vacation time and quality-of-life issues, even if that means governmental mandates (especially laws regulating store hours - without those, the mega-chains take over). In the U.S. there's more of a laissez-faire, market-will-take-care-of-it attitude that just hasn't worked out when it comes to leisure time. A good place to see it is in all the employees who take maternity leave or want to spend more family time and end up just quitting. Or how many people have tried to make a go of self-employment despite the likelihood of lower pay and zero benefits, just for the chance to have control over their time.
In another culture, your laptop might be liberating. In ours it can be interpreted as a 24-hour leash.