90 Hours Of Good Time

Reader SM told me to stick to my own job and forget about running a tea restaurant. Rents and competition are suffocating. Operational problems are unimaginable. Despite that, SM said, there were happy moments. One day, a guy offered them $2,000 to stage a marriage proposal. As planned, an engagement ring and flowers took his girlfriend by surprise, and everybody applauded. The guy said they met each other for the first time in the same tea restaurant back in their school days. That was so sweet! Dear SM, you must be proud of being part of other people's dreams.

Work is part of life. If you can't enjoy working, the chance is you can't enjoy life. Some people have a different theory. They find the best paying, yet most boring, jobs, so that their incomes support their wonderful after-hour lives, developing luxurious hobbies such as playing hi-fis.

i doubt that theory actually works.

Most people spend at least 50 hours a week working, 56 hours sleeping, 10 hours commuting. Taking showers and other housekeeping activities occupy another 12 hours at least. Actual leisure time lasts no more than 40 hours a week. The leisure can hardly compensate for the boredom, anxiety, pressure, anger, or simply misery, at work.

Luxembourg Income Study estimates that a typical American worker puts in 1,820 hours a year. According to OECD, his German and French counterparts clock up just 1,480 and 1,467 hours, respectively. Some economists say Europeans enjoy their leisure more than their American counterparts.

If readers follow my "half-full half-empty paradox" in Trust, they know i would invariably argue that Europeans do not enjoy work as much as Americans do. (That might have something to do with higher taxation in Europe.)

Europeans are famous for enjoying life. To be accurate, it is leisure that they enjoy. But if work is an essential part of life, which it is, Americans are not necessarily defeated when it comes to enjoying life.

Most economists identify working as bads and leisure as goods. That's why people get paid by working and pay for leisure.

Back to Hong Kong, i roughly estimate a Hong Kong white-collar salary man works for 2,360 hours a year. That does not include voluntary no-pay overtime. There are many reasons for workers to stay late. One of the reasons is that their bosses and colleagues do the same. Read Happiness. Thankfully, Europeans have strong labor unions, which effectively stop the rat race. We have none. Ironically, we grasp their jobs.

Apart from the rat race, there must be other motivations for staying late, by which i don't mean physically staying in the office. Many people spend their leisure time working, thinking, reading, talking to people, which are all about the work. Former GE CEO Jack Welch's book "Winning" has become another big hit after his "Straight from the Gut". Readers are not paid for reading the books. They spend time and money on them.

A fund manager told me he enjoys making money. A salesperson said he enjoys playing mind games and winning them. A Million-Dollar-Round-Table insurance salesperson said she enjoys giving the protections people need. A news reporter said he wanted to always prepare readers for the worst. All these people do not mind working extra hours.

Are these people workaholics? Let them be as far as they enjoy their work.

Then, for these people, working becomes consuming, goods that they got to pay for. Yes, they look for jobs that excite them. Salaries become a second consideration. Is that sheer hypocrisy? i don't think so.

A six-year-old knows 40 + 50 = 90. A total of 90 hours of good time a week. Take it or not? You decide.

May 25, 2005
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