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I agree with your points, however, the major differences is what each spends their 60 hour work weeks on. The busy professional works on activities that has so
by dmd149 13y ago
I agree with your points, however, the major differences is what each spends their 60 hour work weeks on.
The busy professional works on activities that has social prestige (even if it is a lot of useless meetings and e-mail) and ultimately, these activities build career capital which can be leveraged. Not to mention, they pay a lot more.
The working poor may also work 60 hour weeks, but their work does not carry social prestige, build career capital, or pay particularly well. Ultimately, their work can not really be leveraged into opportunities to focus on the big picture.
Again, I agree from a cognitive processing view that yes, both the working poor and the busy professional partake in activities that distract from higher value work, but the latter has much more opportunity to give himself breathing room to focus.
Good post!
- alanctgardner2 13y ago> the latter has much more opportunity to give himself breathing room to focus At first this just seemed like a kind of self-congratulatory post: 'Yes, sure, cognitive bandwidth is a finite limit that affects kings and beggars alike, but at least I'm accomplishing something with my life.' But then you pulled out this whopper. Do you honestly think that someone who is concerned about feeding their children or paying their rent has more free time and bandwidth? Working professionals have their own, imagined stresses associated with pumping up their own importance, but these are much higher up Maslow's heirarchy than basic physical needs.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gjm11 13y agoI think the comment you're replying to says exactly the reverse of what you think it does. 1. Not "... but at least I'm accomplishing something in my life" but "... but the busy professionals have an important advantage: the stuff they're frantically doing is valued by other people, so that it gets them more money and more social status". 2. It's the busy professional, not the overworked underpaid poor person, that the comment says has "more opportunity to give himself breathing room to focus".
- alanctgardner2 13y agoMy god, that was easy to misread (not your post, GP). I realize he was referring to the immediately preceding sentence, where he inverted the order from the much more prominent list. Sorry GP.
- ronaldx 13y agoI am not sure but I think you are trying to say: We should not forget that professionals have a lot more advantages than the working poor. Comparing them in this way is useful, but may hide the serious problems and lack of opportunity that the working poor suffer: professionals inflict this problem on themselves where the working poor have limited choices.
- bryanlarsen 13y agoVery few poor people work 60 hour work weeks. Many of them would love to work 60 hour weeks but are stuck working 31 hour weeks. They'd love to grab two 31 hour jobs, but of course they don't know their hours until just before they work them so it's impossible to actually work 2 part time jobs. The reason they have reduced cognitive bandwidth is because their mind is occupied worrying about money instead of relaxing during down time. And for many poor people, those 31 hour jobs are jobs that should be mentally relaxing. To a rich person, sweeping the floor is a job that lets you zone out and rest your brain. But if you're stressed about something, it just gives your mind more time to dwell on it.
- notacoward 13y agoThe ones who really get screwed are the ones who do work 60 hours per week but not at one job (so they don't get benefits from any). Unfortunately, they're not so very few.