Work Life Balance: Is All That Unpaid Overtime Really Worth It?

"Stress is your body's way of saying you haven't worked enough unpaid overtime." -- Scott Adams, American cartoonist (Dilbert) "More men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies." -- Rudyard Kipling, British author "By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day." -- Robert Frost, American poet. As I write this, we're mired in the Great Recession of the early 2000s. The job market is tighter than it's been in decades, which means that most of us are willing to do what it takes to keep the jobs we have. This often means putting in overtime, increasingly of the unpaid variety. The reasons that individual workers are willing to do so vary, but two factors are repeatedly cited: the need to prove themselves … [Read more...]