Analysis of “The Lonely Grindstone” Essay

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This paper seeks to analyze “The Lonely Grindstone,” a grizzled workaholic who at one particular time haunted the darkened offices within the land. This haunting is now going to the way of other work place dinosaurs such as the Christmas bonus, the typewriter and the lecherous.

The book is written beautifully and its characters are compelling and believable. Statistics have suggested that the protestant work ethic and the aging workaholics with their central faith are today losing the office space fast to a new breed that is committed to the doctrine of the balance of the work life.

Some of the important things that could be drawn from the book include the number of working hours that workers may put in the work the do weekly. The statistics released from Canada reported the average hours that a worker put in work weekly. A worker puts in 36.5 hours every week. This figure reduced from 38.6 hours that was used by a worker some three decades ago.

The movement for a better work and life balance is a pathological social fact. This is evident from the article. According to the article, there is a fledging backlash against the Trojan horse of the technology. The technology has seen to it that gadgets such as the BlackBerry are designed ingeniously in order to invade the homes of the workers and their family time.

In making attempts to repel the stated incursion, the Citizenship and Immigration Canada implemented a blackout for BlackBerry between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. the balance of work and life is a major concern to the members; this makes it a pathological social fact.

People try to find different ways of performing their daily duties and at the same time having their real life without hindering what they do, enjoying their time with their aging parents, family and kids. The backlash which is against the unpaid BlackBerry time and the long office hours is part and parcel of the complex work habits that are spurred by the societal and demographic forces.

This movement has marked a change in collective consciousness. This change is motivated by things like putting in place blackout time for the BlackBerry as stated in the above paragraph. The backlash is also against the hours that are not paid like the BlackBerry time and the long office hours just as stated in the above paragraph.

In Canada, the workforce is really older and they boast of more women than ever before. The number of women who are working have almost doubled within the past 30 years. For instance 72.9 per cent of the mothers got employed in the year 2006 while only 39.1 per cent were employed in the year 1976.

Those leading the charge to short weeks of working are men including the aging workaholics. This is enough motivation to the change. From the Canada statistics, the number of men putting in long work week has fallen by almost three percent during the past decades. The statistics has it that 13.8 per cent of the men who are employed today work for 49 hours or even more in a week.

The men of 55 and over have since registered the most significant shift away from the long work week. The baby boomers are also now making transition towards their retirement by ensuring that they work shorter hours.

The workplace has today lost its function as an intermediary group within society. Several things that are related to the questions of egoism and anomie and regulation and attachment have since changed. Women today dominate most of the ranks in law and medicine. These professions initially demanded long hours and were occupied majorly by men. This has changed completely as women too have their say in most of such professions.

Although this is happening, women are very much less inclined that the men who adopt to work for long hours. Statistics now has it that only 4 per cent of the women in the work force work for 49 hour in a week or more in the year 2006. This means that employers have to increasingly address the issue of only few worker both women and men are willing to sacrifice their lives at home for any corporate good. Not only Canadians are in this desire of achieving better work and life balance.

A recent report from a study done by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development stated that 22 out of the 24 industrialized countries who participated in the study had a decline in their work week in the past decade. This was also seen even in Japan where the amount of time that was devoted to office work declined by approximately 2 per cent in a decade.

In Canada, the medicine profession is arguably practiced more than any other kind of profession in order to adjust to the reality. This has been catalyzed by the current shortage of doctors in the country. This is also a reason why things have changed. Women are now taking this profession than ever before. Working hours has been noted however to change from the normal 70 hours in a week to around 50 hours in a week.

This change though have its implications for the division of labor in society and for social solidarity, the changes are positive. Women also get the job satisfaction from the love of what they do which was not initially there because they were limited due to the hours of work that were required by particular professions.

Many women in this generation today look for a balance between their life and work. This is also a challenge and a task to the male population because they are also involved at home. The division of labor has however changed in the families. Men whose wives work for long in their offices have to take care of some domestic chores especially when they get home early. This was not expected before as it was men who were characterized by long working hours.

For this reason, women who are engaged din professions that take most of their time such as law and medicine pledge for a total reduction of their working hours. For the National Physician Survey, it was found out that 34 per cent of the family doctors in Ontario State have intentions of reducing their work hours in a week in the next two years to come. For the physicians who were among those of 55 even had a stronger urge to cut back the work hour in a week. 43.8 per cent of them said they are intending to reduce their work weeks.

From a functionalist perspective, the function of the growing change in work and life balance is to ease the burden of physician. The anxiety to attract and retain physicians has now responded to the reality of reducing the work week hours. The change has ensured that instead of working just alone, the family doctors operate as a part of the family health team or the group practice. Many of the doctors, because of the change, do not own office spaces where they work because they use the facilities that are owned by the municipality.

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