The American Workplace: More Risk Than Reward

Approximately 40 hours of work a week, which in plenty of cases is far more efficiently assigned to four day workweeks than to the conventional five day work cycle, leaves more time outside of work than inside it, but not in a way that always gives people enough time to handle more important matters.  Many use work as a supposed excuse to not think about philosophical matters--everything is philosophical, but they might at least have greater difficulty focusing on the abstract necessities of reason.  They have no excuse for forsaking the intrinsic, universal, and universally accessible truths of reason.  When it comes to the lesser issues of practical health, however, there is still the need for sleep, hydration, and food, with any atypical health conditions probably requiring additional, precise treatments that work infringes upon.

Professional work by nature occupies time that could have been otherwise invested, whether more directly or just invested at all, in these more significant things like explicitly philosophical reflection (unintruded upon), relationships with worthy friends or family members, or managing one's health.  Though it could be unsafe for workers and people around them, for instance, a desperately exhausted worker will be expected or pressured, under the possible threat of something like homeless or starvation, to drive (if working non-remotely) to what might be an hour away for their job even when they are risking their lives to do so.

People might also have to forgo the non-necessities that make living through the necessities more bearable, even forsaking things they need to take care of non-mortal health issues because it would be inconvenient for their work.  If all jobs paid an amount that was both survivable and allowed for saving and attaining progressively more comfortable or secure circumstances, then making some sacrifices of time for the workplace would not be a terrible thing, even if it was despised by some subjectively.  The unfortunate reality is that workers could constantly offer 40 hours of their lives to a single job, some having more than one, and still do little more than financially run in place even if they are not economically reckless.

There is at large far more risk than reward in the American workplace of today.  Unless someone was born into sufficient wealth, obtains it by happenstance, takes advantage of other people, or somehow secures a very high-paying job (which is often a matter of luck), they might very well wind up giving the majority of their free time away to an employer who would kill them and sell their corpse if only it would increase their profits by a small number and they could get away with it.  Everything from irrelevant expectations for "professionalism" to vague promises to active egoism (an expression of irrationalism) and incompetence only adds to the hellacious nature of many careers.

While there is nothing about being an employer that makes this the case, many employers give absolutely no sign of caring that their workers, without whom their operations could not continue or would have a greatly diminished capacity, are losing time to solely focus on philosophical truths, to enjoy non-professional relationships, to sleep, or to otherwise maintain anything about their health due to work.  They will take what they can and rarely give even compensation that is livable without multiple jobs, sacrificing numerous needs or desires, or financially relying on someone else to get by.  All that these individuals care about is appeasing their irrationalistic version of self-esteem, fitting in with other predatory managers or business owners, or seizing whatever ounce of profit they can at the expense of practically everything else.