A recent Roper poll finds that job satisfaction is at its lowest ebb since the organization began its surveys. As corporate profits and stock prices have plummeted in recent months, people are working longer and harder-for less pay, fewer benefits, and fading job security. Something has to give. Fatigued by their round-the-clock regimen and fast-forward pace, people are arriving at work with their enthusiasm gone, energy spent, and creativity stunted. "Everybody is exhausted, and nobody really thinks things are going to get better," says New York management consultant Robert Swain.

The deterioration of the white-collar workplace began in the 1980s when hostile takeovers and colossal mergers led many companies to adopt a "slash and burn" approach to cutting expenses and positions. Over the past twenty years, some 45 million employees have been laid off-at least once.

Those who have managed to keep their jobs have faced rising expectations and unsettling uncertainties. Executives and professionals now work four hours longer each week than in 1979, and they take twenty percent fewer vacation days. As the Lexus commercial boasts, "Sure, We Take Vacations. They're Called Lunch Breaks."
The average woman works nine more weeks a year than she did in 1970. The breakneck combination of overwork and frenetic leisure leaves no time for true relaxation. Hurtling from meeting to meeting, project to project, cell phone to laptop, we ignore our children and neglect our spouse. Burnout is rampant. Our morale grows stale even as our work grows more intense. A sense of melancholy kidnaps us as we navigate the relentless routine of our workaday world.
Longer working hours and greater stress also degrade our health. The American Medical Association reports that the average white-collar worker gets 60 to 90 minutes less sleep than needed. Job dissatisfaction, not cholesterol, smoking or lack of exercise, is the surest predictor or heart trouble.

Of course, Americans have from colonial days embraced a dedicated work ethic. But it has gotten out of control. New technologies have made work a 24/7 activity. People are shackled to their jobs, skipping lunch hours and taking laptops, beepers, Palm Pilots, and cell phones home at night. In White-Collar Sweatshop, author Jill Fraser quotes a manager at a large financial services firm who reported that "she had been so overloaded and understaffed that she had been forced to work through the entire night before her wedding."

On average, Americans work 350 hours more per year than Europeans. For many people, the 37-hour workweek has become afond memory. The average workweek for professionals in the

United States is now 47 hours. Over 25 million Americans work more than 50 hours per week, and another 11 million spend more than 60 hours on the job.

Such frenzied schedules help explain the surge of work-related disorders.

Stress accounts for almost 90 percent of all primary-care physician visits. One estimate claims that work-related stress cost the economy over $200 billion last year.

True, some people seem to thrive amid the longer hours and constant pressure. Their compulsive personalities require the constant stimulation of such high-octane careers. A Gallup Poll reports that 44 percent of Americans call themselves "workaholics," many of whom willingly put in insanely long hours-and often brag about it. Some use work as a refuge from the chaos and conflicts of home life. Others have become addicted to high-octane, "we need the money" careers. These "work to spend" Americans are convinced that they must generate more and more income to support their increasingly expensive habits. "You get trapped by big houses, big cars, the lifestyle, the nice vacation," admits a senior manager at Intel.

Some exhausted workers, however, are seeking a way out of the "white-collar sweatshop." Polls show that 20 percent of salaried employees have exchanged fewer working hours for lower salaries. These "downsizers" are seeking a better balance between their work and their personal lives, and they are asking employers about part-time and flex-time options.

To be sure, restoring balance to work lives careening out of control is easier said than done. Busyness has become our business. To slow down seems impossible. But there are always options, however painful they might seem. Rearranging our priorities and redefining goals requires a courageous conversation with our selves and our bosses. We need to spend our days as carefully as we spend our dollars. After all, time is our most precious possession. It is life itself.