THE WORK ETHIC AT MID-LIFE: A DISABLING ADDICTION
Men of this generation have made a heavy investment in hard work, and at mid-life they are forced to come to terms with what that means. In large part their difficulties stem from a gigantic gap between myth and reality: Taught to expect more from work than it could possibly deliver, they find themselves waiting for rewards at a time when work itself is less rewarding than ever before. Jobs today are more impersonal and pressured than in the past, less satisfying in terms of providing a sense of human worth. Moreover, the rules for playing the game—and winning—have also changed.
“What it takes to get ahead in the organizational structure is almost directly opposite to what we’ve been taught,” claims Shumaker. Working hard and being loyal—basic tenets of the Horatio Alger myth—are not enough. To be successful, he says, a man must be more concerned about his boss’s needs than his subordinates. He must be self-centered, manipulative, and totally committed to his career—sparing almost no time for his family.
Businessmen themselves are gradually becoming aware of this. In a recent survey they agreed overwhelmingly that “pleasing the boss is critical to success” and that “a dynamic personality and the ability to sell oneself” is more important than “a reputation for honesty or firm adherence to principles.”
But if striving and hard labor are not enough to get to the top, neither are they enough to lead a fulfilling life. The trouble is, however, that many men of this generation don’t know how to do anything else but work. In response to disappointments and anxieties on the job, pressures that push them to re-evaluate the meaning of their pursuits, they toil even harder. Many, in fact, become work addicts.
Still largely unrecognized as a sickness, work addiction has only recently been identified as a neurotic syndrome, a syndrome that is peculiarly American and primarily male. Professor Harrison M. Trice of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations describes it this way:
“Like addiction to alcohol or food, addiction to work develops as a means of managing heightened anxieties and tensions, whatever their source. Work addicts become attached to work as an expression of neurotic conflict and obsession. . . . They are not the employees who simply work hard, but rather individuals who work all the time. They live, eat, and breathe their jobs. They stay late at the office, take work home with them, work all weekend and on holidays, and refuse to take vacations.”
What happens to the work addict when his job responsibilities are curtailed, or when his value to the organization diminishes? He becomes anxious and depressed; and then— Catch-22—responds to these feelings by working even more. The neurotic quality of his addiction becomes still more apparent when he is formally demoted or fired: “Separation from work can bring on feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy that reach such extremes as chronic depression and suicide,” says Trice.
Other alternatives, both for men who lose their jobs and those who continue working at jobs where they feel useless, include giving up their aspirations or sublimating them into nonjob activities. However, since these choices are generally repugnant to men who feel compelled to achieve, they more commonly resort to drinking—and the reasons are understandable.
“If you become addicted to work and then become obsolete, what the hell have you got left?” says Trice. “You don’t know how to play. You don’t know how to enjoy leisure. Drinking is pretty easy to learn. You just drink the stuff—it goes down real easily.”
Today an estimated 4.5 million American workers are alcoholics, and physicians and psychiatrists report that countless more men are excessively heavy drinkers. Evidence is mounting which suggests that the responsibility falls directly on corporate shoulders: Alcoholism is caused primarily by job factors, especially the specter of obsolescence, according to a study of drinking pathology conducted by Professor Trice and his colleague, James A. Belasco.
The majority of men they questioned, 82 per cent, had no drinking problem until they moved into a period of competitive career effort and upward mobility during their mid-thirties. Typically, alcoholism began when the older man felt forced to keep up with younger, more recently trained competitors; and it accelerated when he felt increasingly worthless—when his work role was diminished, or his responsibilities reduced.
To put it more bluntly, men become alcoholics when industry treats them like expendable objects. Despite the evidence linking alcoholism to work pressures, however, and despite the cost in sick pay and absenteeism now estimated to total a whopping $8 billion a year—industry has, with rare exceptions, refused to accept responsibility for this huge problem. Moreover, the few corporate programs that do exist to rehabilitate alcoholics almost never cover executives or professionals.
At mid-life when the scramble for success accelerates, the man who has become addicted to work finds himself in a double bind: Even if he doesn’t turn to drink to ease the pressures, he will probably wind up as a coronary candidate. Compelled to ovcrpcrform in his job role, the addict tries to manage his anxiety by pouring all his energies into his work—withdrawing from his family, shunning leisure time, and suppressing his feelings. But he never really escapes anxiety; he merely passes it on to his heart.
Horatio Alger’s disabled offspring, the work addict, is really the psychological counterpart of the Type A man. Unfortunately, however, both patterns are rarely seen as sicknesses in our society because, despite being harmful to the individual, they are valuable to the organization.
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