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Modernity or bust

by Anna McNamee

Is the modern pace of work killing us off? Anna McNamee reveals a nation on the edge

Not long ago I visited the office of an aspiring corporate bigwig. I was running late. ‘Have no fear,’ Ian assured me when I phoned to make my excuses, ‘I’ll be here until at least nine.’

When I finally arrived, the office was still packed with bustling workers. A somewhat crumpled underling with sweat patches under his arms and bags under his eyes ushered me into a room. There peering out from behind a stack of open folders and a computer screen was my contact. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said again, cutting my grovelling short. ‘I had a lunch meeting and so I’m just catching up on some of my emails. If you don’t reply as soon as you get them people think you’re a slacker.’

A quick game of I-spy around his inner sanctum told a sorry tale. Several changes of clothing hung on the back of the door (‘just in case’). He had his own coffee machine (‘the staff canteen closes at 5:30’) and a miniature basketball hoop (‘I can’t always get to the gym’). Perhaps most poignant of all was the collection of children’s books in one drawer. (‘My wife likes it if I can read the kids a story down the phone a couple of times a week,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘Just so they don’t forget who I am.’)

Gentle probing revealed a 13-hour work day was par for the course for this prime specimen of management material. The framed photos of a grinning wife and three adorable children balanced on one corner of the desk were, no doubt, there to remind him what they looked like. The fact was, he’d also been working weekends and hadn’t really seen them in a while.

‘I know it must seem crazy,’ he admits. ‘But I work in a very competitive field and it just wouldn’t look right if I went home when there was still work to be done and deadlines were looming. There’s always either a crisis or something left to do.’