SLC-S29/W4-“Thinking and Ideas!| Rethinking the Normal!”

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Name one practice, belief, or system that people accept as normal but should be questioned.

The culture of being always on the job, which many individuals believe to be a normal practice, is a practice that needs to be called into question because being productive, always available and busy is an indicator that one is of personal value and professional achievement. Long working hours, immediate response, and the lack of clear work and personal life boundaries are observed not as the warning signals, but as the virtues in most societies, including white-collar ones. It is a point of pride to be swamped, whereas rest is simply a tacitly accepted label of laziness or unaspiritedness.

Why do you think people rarely challenge it?

This norm is not challenged by people because of a number of reasons. First, it is closely connected with economic survival. When employment is hard to come by or unreliable, doubting the employment prospects may be something people hesitate over; they will be scared to be replaced by an individual who is hungrier. Second, the culture is self-promoting. Managers are not new managers since they were once the employees who faced the same pressure, hence the system does not seem imposed.

Hard work has also an attendant moral story, particularly in cultures with concepts of so-called Protestant work ethic, where discipline and self-sacrifice are regarded as good in themselves. Lastly, technology makes constant work to be inevitable. Once email, messaging apps and cloud platforms are always accessible, not to use might seem antisocial or even unprofessional even without anyone explicitly requesting it.

What could improve if this “normal” way changed?

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In case this normal mode of operation was altered, a number of other things might be enhanced. The most direct likely benefit would be mental and physical health. Overwork is closely associated with chronic stress, burnout and anxiety and decreased pressure might alleviate all the three. Productivity might also enhance long-term and creativity. It is always found that rest does not mean the opposite of work, but is a prerequisite to doing so. The fewer hours and more definite boundaries might result in the increased focus, less number of mistakes, and greater contributions. Socially, individuals could gain time and energy to devote to relationships, civic participation, and personal development, and make neighborhoods that are already overstretched stronger.

What might be lost if it disappeared completely?

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Some individuals find hard work to be a way of gaining structure and identity as well as purpose. It is also possible to push high-pressure environments to speed up learning and innovation, particularly in areas where speed and competition are important. There exists a possibility that tearing down the norm without a proactive replacement would diminish chances of individuals who like to be challenged or those who want to climb the ladder. Also, expectations that are common regarding availability, though may be excessive, do assist teams in organizing and reacting in emergency circumstances.

Challenging the culture of working 24/7 does not imply the denial of hard work or hard ambitions in general. It implies the question whether success is supposed to be constant exhaustion. A reconsideration of what we consider to be normal can allow societies to strive to have systems that appreciate both achievement and well-being- without assuming that one should be offset by the other.

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