Why Working More Than 8 Hours a Day Can Kill You

[Will E Worm]

Why Working More Than 8 Hours a Day Can Kill You

If you're accustomed to being the last one to leave the office, new research may offer you cause to rethink your routine.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, shows that a combination of stress, raised blood pressure and unhealthy diets stemming from long working hours may be the cause of thousands of workers' serious health problems.

The study combined the results of different studies over the last 50 years and found that spending too long in the office resulted in a 40 to 80 percent greater chance of heart disease compared to an eight hour work day.

The latest findings discovered by scientists at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health support results from a 2011 British survey that revealed that doing more than 11 hours of work a day raised heart disease risks by 67 percent.

Lead researcher Dr. Marianna Virtanen and her team gathered data from 12 different studies going back to 1958, when researchers first suggested that working long hours could be linked to poor heart health. In total, the studies involved more than 22,000 participants, from Britain, the USA, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands.

"There are several potential mechanisms that may underlie the association between long working hours and heart disease," study authors wrote. "One is prolonged exposure to psychological stress."

Researchers said that other factors could be increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, poor eating habits and lack of physical activity due to limited leisure time.

Bottom line: ask yourself if those extra hours in the office everyday are really worth it, or if they're doing you more long-term harm than good.

Article

Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week

You may think you're getting more accomplished by working longer hours. You're probably wrong.

There's been a flurry of recent coverage praising Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, for leaving the office every day at 5:30 p.m. to be with her kids. Apparently she's been doing this for years, but only recently "came out of the closet," as it were.

What's insane is that Sandberg felt the need to hide the fact, since there's a century of research establishing the undeniable fact that working more than 40 hours per week actually decreases productivity.

In the early 1900s, Ford Motor ran dozens of tests to discover the optimum work hours for worker productivity. They discovered that the "sweet spot" is 40 hours a week–and that, while adding another 20 hours provides a minor increase in productivity, that increase only lasts for three to four weeks, and then turns negative.

Anyone who's spent time in a corporate environment knows that what was true of factory workers a hundred years ago is true of office workers today. People who put in a solid 40 hours a week get more done than those who regularly work 60 or more hours.

The workaholics (and their profoundly misguided management) may think they're accomplishing more than the less fanatical worker, but in every case that I've personally observed, the long hours result in work that must be scrapped or redone.

Accounting for Burnout

What's more, people who consistently work long work weeks get burned out and inevitably start having personal problems that get in the way of getting things done.

I remember a guy in one company I worked for who used the number of divorces in his group as a measure of its productivity. Believe it or not, his top management reportedly considered this a valid metric. What's ironic (but not surprising) is that the group itself accomplished next to nothing.

In fact, now that I think about it, that's probably why he had to trot out such an absurd (and, let's face it, evil) metric.

Proponents of long work weeks often point to the even longer average work weeks in countries like Thailand, Korea, and Pakistan–with the implication that the longer work weeks are creating a competitive advantage.


Europe's Ban on 50-Hour Weeks

However, the facts don't bear this out. In six of the top 10 most competitive countries in the world (Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom), it's illegal to demand more than a 48-hour work week. You simply don't see the 50-, 60-, and 70-hour work weeks that have become de rigeur in some parts of the U.S. business world.

If U.S. managers were smart, they'd end this "if you don't come in on Saturday, don't bother coming to work on Sunday" idiocy. If you want employees (salaried or hourly) to get the most done–in the shortest amount of time and on a consistent basis–40 hours a week is just about right.

In other words, nobody should be apologizing for leaving at work at a reasonable hour like 5:30 p.m. In fact, people should be apologizing if they're working too long each week–because it's probably making the team less effective overall.

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Article

 

[bobjustbob]

You know what Worm, it's like this. We work for what we want and need. What sacrifice for more money if that is what we want? We agree to do what the employers want and the limitations of what they ask? Know what you are going into and let them know your limitations too. Make that shit understood. I have been on both sides of the desk on this issue.

If you come in as a go-getter then you are expected to do everything they ask for. If you establish that you just want to do your job and go home then don't expect much when the overtime is limited or extra perks are available. I have learned to play the game that,"sometimes I can help you, sometimes I can't". Now the ball is in my court. When I think I can get something out of it, I say yes. Sometimes they are in a jam and MOST times I say yes. Not always. If I did then they would expect it any time they ask. Sometimes you have to say no because when you do say yes it reminds them that I am doing them a favor. It gives me the upper hand and much less stress balancing work with the rest of my life.

 

[Harley Spencer]

This doesn't apply to every job. IMO, it really only applies to office jobs/desk jobs. I work at a restaurant as a manager. No matter how many hours I work there, whether it's 15 or 70 hours per week, I will always get the same amount of work done while I'm there. I'm not writing articles, making presentations, or doing anything that requires creativity. It's the same thing day in and day out. Go in, do the food safety checklist, get someone designated to prep, cooking, waiting on tables, handling breaks, assisting customers at the register, answering phones, then cleaning and closing at the end of the night.

The only way working more hours affects me is how stressed I am while at work dealing with customers. If I have to deal with more customers that are assholes, I'm pissed and not happy working. If I don't have as many complaints and people screaming in my ear, I'm happier. I can say that over this past summer when I was only working weekends, I was much more pleasant at work than I am when I'm full time. So working less does mean that other people will be happier around me since they don't have a pissy manager to deal with, and I will be able to handle customer complaints in a more calm manner since I'm not over-worked.

Then there's also my modeling. I sometimes shoot for over 10 hours straight, and it doesn't bother me. So it also depends on whether you actually enjoy what you're doing at work. Is your job a hobby or is your job just a job to put food on the table? You can work 40+ hours per week doing your hobby and be very productive throughout all of it. But if it's just a job to you, then yeah, working more than 40 hours per week can take it's toll on you.

 

[D-rock]

Well,...I'm screwed then. Sadly, I think other things are going to go out before my heart at the rate I'm going. My hands are getting to the point where there going to be junk soon, and pain free days are getting to be a rarity for me.

Of course somebody should tell all this to my employer. Lets just say I have a strong feeling asking them to cut down the hours I work isn't going to go over very well. They are pretty good at exploiting the fact nearly all their employees don't have much of a choice but to work for them with the economy the way it is.

 

[Kingfisher]

I guess I should be a dead-man walking then. I routinely at my desk 80+ hours a week.
But I will admit I am tired. If I didn't get out for some exercise and have my hobby I'd have gone insane by now.

 

[Red Spyder]

And working less than 8 hours a day will not leave you enough for mortgage payment, car payment, hooker payment, porn site payment, cable payment, internet payment, cell phone payment, booze payment.

I got a budget for everything :tongue:

 

[PirateKing]

Sometimes I wish I was an actor. Even a mediocre one.

 

[Kingfisher]

And working less than 8 hours a day will not leave you enough for...
mortgage payment,
car payment,
hooker payment,
porn site payment,
cable payment,
internet payment,
cell phone payment,
booze payment.

I got a budget for everything :tongue:

I'm glad you have an order to your budgets...

 

[Death-Proof-69]

i guess those people never heard of working for a per/hr salary...and i'd laugh my fucking ass off if i found out someone had to put in extra hours to get those articles up on time

 

[Frank Fire]

Then i guess i could be in trouble some weeks as i have done 70 +hrs but it all good since i get paid by the hr

 

[Harley Spencer]

i guess those people never heard of working for a per/hr salary...and i'd laugh my fucking ass off if i found out someone had to put in extra hours to get those articles up on time

That too. A lot of people forget that a large portion of workers are paid per hour, not on salary. And they also forget that not all people have actual careers, like a dentist, lawyer, detective, reporter, etc. I'd say that a great deal of Americans are working in the customer service industry, as cashiers, waitresses, cooks, dish washers (though not many people hire a person just to do dishes, I know my place doesn't- everyone does the dishes), stocking merchandise, call centers, etc, where their job is on a clock. You don't make your own hours, you are scheduled for a certain time and you do not leave until your boss tells you to or until your side duties have been completed, even if that means staying late. You work around the customers, around the level of business, not around your own clock.

PS. This is something I hate about my Cosmo magazines, which I get monthly. There's always articles based around 9-5 jobs. Hello, most people don't HAVE 9-5 jobs! I really want to write to the magazine about that.

 

[SabrinaDeep]

If you looked at everything that could possibly kill you, you would probably kill yourself first = nothing changes.
Yes, dears, we are human and crafted to die, one way or another. The bizarre thing is that a pool of scientists got paid for stating the obvious: we will die.

 

[Will E Worm]

And working less than 8 hours a day will not leave you enough for mortgage payment, car payment, hooker payment, porn site payment, cable payment, internet payment, cell phone payment, booze payment.

I got a budget for everything :tongue:

Working to death and working your life away. :tongue:

Karōshi, which can be translated literally from Japanese as "death from overwork", is occupational sudden death. Although this category has a significant count, Japan is one of the few countries[which?] that reports it in the statistics as a separate category. The major medical causes of karōshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress.

The first case of karōshi was reported in 1969 with the death from a stroke of a 29-year-old male worker in the shipping department of Japan's largest newspaper company. It was not until the later part of the 1980s, during the Bubble Economy, however, when several high-ranking business executives who were still in their prime years suddenly died without any previous sign of illness, that the media began picking up on what appeared to be a new phenomenon. This new phenomenon was quickly labeled karōshi and was immediately seen as a new and serious menace for people in the work force. In 1987, as public concern increased, the Japanese Ministry of Labour began to publish statistics on karōshi.

Article

Japan's Killer Work Ethic

Death from too much work is so commonplace in Japan that there is a word for it -- karoshi.

There is a national karoshi hotline, a karoshi self-help book and a law that funnels money to the widow and children of a salaryman (it's almost always a man) who works himself into an early karoshi for the good of his company.

A local Japanese government agency ruled June 30 for the widow and children of a 45-year-old Toyota chief engineer who died in 2006.

While organizing the worldwide manufacture of a hybrid version of the Camry sedan, the man had worked nights and weekends and often traveled abroad -- putting in up to 114 hours of overtime a month -- in the six months before he died in his bed of heart failure.

The cause of death was too much work, according to a ruling by the Labor Bureau of Aichi prefecture, where Toyota has its headquarters.

The engineer's daughter found his body on Jan. 2, 2006, the day before he was supposed to fly yet again to the United States for more work on the Camry launch, said Mikio Mizuno, an attorney for his wife.

The ruling by the labor bureau will allow the engineer's family to receive work insurance benefits, Mizuno said. The family has requested that the man's name not be released.

For decades, the Japanese government has been trying, and largely failing, to set limits on work and on overtime. The problem of karoshi became prevalent enough to warrant its own word in the boom years of the late 1970s, as the number of Japanese men working more than 60 hours a week soared.

Thirty years later, overtime rules remain so nebulous and so weakly enforced that the United Nations' International Labor Organization has described Japan as a country with no legal limits on the practice.

The consequences show up not only in claims for death and disability from overwork but in suicides attributed to "fatigue from work." Among 2,207 work-related suicides in 2007, the most common reason (672 suicides) was overwork, according to government figures released in June.

Twice in the past year, Toyota -- the world's largest carmaker and a much-admired company in Japan -- has been publicly embarrassed by the deaths of employees who worked what Japanese authorities have judged to be killingly long hours.

Kenichi Uchino, 30, a quality-control manager at Toyota, collapsed at work and died in 2002, after having worked more than 80 hours of overtime every month for the previous six months. A court ruled late last year that overwork, much of it for no pay, had caused his death and that his widow was entitled to compensation.

Article

Unpaid overtime is routine in factories and offices across Japan.

At Toyota, it had been built into factory life -- in the form of long, after-hours quality-control sessions that were supposedly voluntary -- and was considered a key to the company's success. Participation in the sessions, though, often figured in a worker's prospects for promotion and higher pay.

Toyota announced in May that it would begin paying overtime to workers who take part in the quality-control sessions.

McDonald's Japan, having lost a lawsuit to a restaurant manager who claimed his health failed because of long hours, announced in May that it, too, would pay more overtime.

In the wake of the case of the engineer who died after working night and day on the hybrid Camry project, Toyota said last week that it would try to improve its monitoring of workers' health.

 

[xfire]

Why Working More Than 8 Hours a Day Can Kill You

Why are you so lazy?

 

[bobjustbob]

Lower end management gets abused when they are on salary. Bosses are free to say you can't leave till everything is done knowing they don't have to pay you more. They will make you work extra days and promise to give you comp time back at a later time. HA! Many of them have very short memories and the time you want to take is never convenient with them.

A big box club got sued over this kind of thing. Salaried personnel managers were taken from their desks and had to do tasks that hourly employees were doing when short handed. Their desk duties were later done after hours or taken home to meet their deadlines. They sued and won for accumulated overtime and got a lump sum.

Just a few years later the same company was sued again by the overnight managers, also salaried. Upper management would come in the morning and keep these overnight managers there for hours doing projects that were at their whim. It was like free labor for the upper management. The overnight manager won their case because they were doing things that salaried employees did on a regular basis. They changed the overnight managers salary structure from salary to hourly. Now if the upper management want these people to stay they know that it is going to come out of their budget. Needless to say, these overnight managers are going home on time now.

 

[xfire]

Lower end management gets abused when they are on salary. Bosses are free to say you can't leave till everything is done knowing they don't have to pay you more. They will make you work extra days and promise to give you comp time back at a later time. HA! Many of them have very short memories and the time you want to take is never convenient with them.

A big box club got sued over this kind of thing. Salaried personnel managers were taken from their desks and had to do tasks that hourly employees were doing when short handed. Their desk duties were later done after hours or taken home to meet their deadlines. They sued and won for accumulated overtime and got a lump sum.

Just a few years later the same company was sued again by the overnight managers, also salaried. Upper management would come in the morning and keep these overnight managers there for hours doing projects that were at their whim. It was like free labor for the upper management. The overnight manager won their case because they were doing things that salaried employees did on a regular basis. They changed the overnight managers salary structure from salary to hourly. Now if the upper management want these people to stay they know that it is going to come out of their budget. Needless to say, these overnight managers are going home on time now.

Good post, bob. I worked in the laundry of a nursing home back in 1993 and the maintenance supervisor gave me some sound advice; "never take a salary". His job was a salaried position but after he took it he renegotiated to work hourly and made a lot more money that way. He knew they would try to use him for slave labor if he let them.

 

[Harley Spencer]

Good post, bob. I worked in the laundry of a nursing home back in 1993 and the maintenance supervisor gave me some sound advice; "never take a salary". His job was a salaried position but after he took it he renegotiated to work hourly and made a lot more money that way. He knew they would try to use him for slave labor if he let them.

That is a good point. But also one problem with hourly is that many employers don't want to pay people overtime because that's money out of their pocket. Labor costs are a huge concern for companies. So sure, you can always work overtime and get more money than you would on salary, but there's only so many hours an employer will let you work before he doesn't want to pay you anymore.

My biggest concern with working is that I get along with the people I work with. It's very hard to find a job like that. I'd take a job that I enjoyed that paid less than a job I don't enjoy any day. Comfort and sanity is very important to me.

 

[Deepcover]

Well said

That is a good point. But also one problem with hourly is that many employers don't want to pay people overtime because that's money out of their pocket. Labor costs are a huge concern for companies. So sure, you can always work overtime and get more money than you would on salary, but there's only so many hours an employer will let you work before he doesn't want to pay you anymore.

My biggest concern with working is that I get along with the people I work with. It's very hard to find a job like that. I'd take a job that I enjoyed that paid less than a job I don't enjoy any day. Comfort and sanity is very important to me.

 

[D-rock]

What's sad about my hands is that years ago I used to do things like hardcore bodybuilding and weightlifting and the amount of strain and damage something like that did pales in comparison to the repetitive motion and twisting around I have to do on my job now with objects that weight no more than a kilogram or two.

Sometimes I wish I was an actor. Even a mediocre one.

Or mediocre athlete.

Now that I think about it backup quarterback must be the greatest job in the world. They don't really have to do anything most of the time, they still get payed millions of dollars a year, and in the unlikely event they are needed they aren't expected to do well anyhow so their isn't much risk or pressure to do well. If they do great they are a hero and if they do badly, well, people expected that anyhow. Plus they have a better view of each game than tickets can get people. I should have put more effort into getting one of those jobs. :1orglaugh

 

[Red Spyder]

I'm glad you have an order to your budgets...

I usually do save up a bit to go visit the more expensive clubs in Mexico :tongue: