Sigh. The article you link to is an opinion piece that is hyperbolic and demonstrably wrong. For instance,
Sorry, I personally know people who retired well on their 401k investments. 401k’s only became widely available in the mid 1980’s and take a full working career to build up. My age group (I’m 51) was the first to really be able to take full advantange of the 401k. I have been enrolled since I was 20, through several employers. Most of us are still working, so the real “proof” of whether a 401k can provide for retirement will not come for another 10-15 years. To judge the plan’s effectiveness based on those who could not (or did not)participate for a full working life is disengenious at best.
He has several doom and gloom predictions and amazing estimates, none of which are backed up with facts. That’s OK, it’s an opinion article with some facts mixed in (but only those that support his conclusion). By that same token don’t take it all as fact.
All my mentors retired with with very handsome 401K investments back in the early '90s. A couple of them had left the company before retiring, and just left their 401Ks intact with the old company on the theory that they’d lose money if they moved it: They wouldn’t have as many years invested with the new company.
I did the same. We’re in the same age bracket, so it’ll be interesting to see what the exact amount will be when we retire.
I used to be this person because I couldn’t stand NOT being busy. It was like I had this go-go-go button that switched on the minute I punched in for my shift. I was always given the behind-the-scenes tasks because nobody else wanted to do them. That was fine with me – that back room became my own little queendom.
You also have to understand, too, that if you have a manager who is an old fashioned taskmaster, you’d better move your butt or he’ll turn into the Hell’s Kitchen version of Gordon Ramsay. I kid you not. That particular persona was endemic to my industry for many, many decades. Those who were trained in it, like me, moved their butts automatically. That kind of management is now going out of style…if you’ve been indoctrinated in it, the change is like being slapped in the face: Things are no longer THAT important. And if that’s true, then why did I spend X years busting my butt?
I’ve had many coworkers over the years who either had ADD/ADHD or were bipolar. None of them could be still, so, to management, it made sense to load them with as much work as possible. They loved bipolar mania because in particular because the employee involved got SO MUCH done within a particular amount of time.
If you were indoctrinated in this early in your working life, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to shake it.
I am not a workaholic, but I do take my job seriously. I think part of the reason is that I have deeply entrenched in me the idea that I have to work harder than everyone else. Everyone else can afford to sit around and chitchat and get into hijinks. But if I do it, that would be the moment HR decides to crack down. I’ll be the poor sap who gets disciplined. And no one will say, “Oh, poor monstro. She got singled out for something we all do.” They will say, “Well, we all make choices. She knew better.” I never ever want to be in that position.
But the main reason is that I like being busy. When I have a project, I get completely engrossed and fixated on it. It’s all I can think about. Once it’s over, I go back to my normal work habits, but when I’m “on”, I’m “on”. I have coworkers who tell me I am too serious and that I need to relax a little, and I understand why they say this. I can be a bit unapproachable when I get in that mode. But I don’t give anyone advice on the “imbalances” in their life, like I’m some magical sage on a mountaintop. So I’d appreciate them butting out of mine. They have their priorities set on their kid’s soccer matches and their grandbabies, and that’s fine. I have mine set on writing papers and showing off what my department is all about. I don’t have grandbabies or soccer matches to attend, so my choices should also be “fine”. But some people don’t see it that way. Fuck them.
When I went from newspaper to commercial print production I had to make myself slow down. It wasn’t constant deadline time.
I spent a summer doing road patching, and occasionally we would stop halfway down a road and go back to the shop. “Gotta leave some for next summer,” said the supervisor.
Loyalty (or at least, commitment to the goals of the organisation where you work) is a valuable and marketable attribute - that’s kind of paradoxical, but it’s true - learning to be able to really care about doing the best you can for your employer is a behaviour that is great to be able to sincerely list on your CV/resumé.
A 401K is really a poor substitute for a pension. It is based on your money, not the corporation’s. Employer’s match amounts are much less than the contributions to a defined plan. That’s why corporations went to 401K’s - it is much cheaper than a pension. I have a small business, and a 401K for the employee’s. The only cost I have is for the match, the investment company ( Fidelity) is happy to get whatever money they can from the employee’s and the employer match.
This *is (mostly) why I don’t bust ass. There’s enough job loss out there without me showing that we could put half my department out of a job and still meet our goals. Ass-busting is also a short trip to burnout. So I work smart, but slack smart too. The trick is to appear consistent, to be slightly more productive than average, and make people like you. You want to look good and endear yourself to as many coworkers as possible. Trying too hard risks making your job look too easy, which could mean cutbacks. And why would anyone give you a raise for doing an easy job?
I used to work for a guy like that. True story. Well known in the industry as a real hard ass. Turns out he was a hard ass for no other reason than he really could not care less about the well being or safety of his employees. This came to light after he was indicted and plead guilty third degree murder when it was revealed that he knew the nightclub he was managing was in imminent danger of collapsing yet refused to close it for repairs.
When I joined my current team, my boss told me “don’t work so fast”. Back when I was younger I wouldn’t have understood what she was talking about, but I’ve seen too many cases where the reward for a job done well and quickly was so much more work that the person ended up doing overtime - on tasks which shouldn’t have been theirs to begin with.
So, I “work more slowly”, or rather, work as fast as usual but don’t tell people. Ebooks are a great thing, specially if you get them in pdf or word-readable formats.
Some of the things I do are for a different team who is not pulling their weight at all. They don’t communicate among themselves or with us, their expertise is lacking in things that are absolutely basic, and they have managed to stick their feet in their mouths quite spectacularly several times.
Yesterday I told the boss that I’m ready for testing on three things I’m creating in advance of our team’s schedule so that the other team has them available (they should be able to create them, but they aren’t and they also aren’t interested in learning). She said “oh, nice!”
Then I said “I’m not telling the other team until a few hours before ETA.” “Oh, GOOD :evil grin:”
I was told that on my first day of work at the only government job I’ve ever had, a summer job when I was in college. My supervisor came up to me and told me “Slow down. You’re working for Uncle Sam now, and we don’t work that fast.” He didn’t specifically tell me that working hard/fast would make everyone else look bad, but it was certainly implied. I’ve been reminded of that day every time I’ve been in a government office since.
Want to join mine? We’ve been operating at a crazy pace for about the past six years, and there’s at least another year before there might - might - be a respite.
If Uncle Sam has some smart, capable people sitting around with not enough work to keep them busy, I wish he’d send them my way. Just found out yesterday that I’m losing a good person to a promotion out of our area, and have no idea who’s going to do her part of our project.
I never had anyone tell me to slow down because I was making people look bad but I have done things like stayed late a few nights and had my boss say “I appreciate that but tell some of these people they’re going to get their numbers a day late and get home on time tonight”. The culture at this office is very much about a balance between work and personal/home life.
I sometimes have new faculty who want to join every committee, mentor students, develop three new classes all their first couple of years. Yes, they have to be told to slow down, get their classes under their belt, work on their research and then pick up new projects as they can. If not they will burn out or not focus on career areas that are required for tenure and promotion and they will sink themselves.
