Blog 8

After reading the article in GIG about the software engineer, it makes me happy to think that I have gotten away from that life. He talks about having to work long days and long hours over projects way outside of the work day. He comes from Bosnia, where he worked minimum and focused on leisurely acitivities, even in the workplace. He calls overworking the "american dream" because everyone seems to be doing it and is happy.

The next reading in CWW was "High Tech Stress", which emphasized the new technology that is leading to the over working of employees. The first thing that stood out to me was the word "karoshi" from Japan, which literally "death by overworking." The funny thing is when googling "karoshi", there are games coming up called "Karoshi Suicide Salary Man". If that isn't the perfect way to get out your work fustrations. Anyways, this article also emphasizes the new ways of management by group. I think this is a bit ridiculous, because people already have enough peer pressure around them besides having more than one boss. This group management also encourages andon boards. These things light up when stress is being put on the routine to show the weaker points. All of this causing even more stress on the worker because it looks like their fault and they need help. The next topic in this article is about the biological clock. The pace of the workplace is far too fast for the human body.

The hours being put in, the institution of work taking over our life, and constantly being over stressed is all too much. The statistics in the CWW article are astounding, showing the increase of stress and machines. There is a passage referring to all the health problems coming from this new technology, via stress. If you asked the software engineer from Bosnia, he would say that Americans don't know what they are missing, so this stressful life is the only way of life to get things done.