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I'm a chaplain at the University of Guelph.”… “I'm Fred. I'm a professor of sociology.” It is the language of employment and occupation. Only very unusually would we introduce ourselves by referring instead, for example, to our key relationships: “I'm Lucy. I'm married to David and we have three teenage children.” … I'm Fred. My wife is Susan and we have two wonderful adult daughters.” Similarly, the question, “What do you do?” is often answered with a response not about doing but about being: “I am a teacher.” A teacher becomes who I am, not just a job I do. My work defines me. So I evaluate myself according to that definition, I build or lose my self-esteem in the workplace, and I wonder who I am when the role ends with retirement or redundancy.

      Naturally there is a tremendous amount of anxiety around getting and keeping a job, not only because work is the main source of income for most people, but also because of the identity issue. Parents exert pressure on their children to get a job, to “be somebody!” It is as though, without work, we are nobodies. And so work can easily become tyrannical in its emotional — even existential — hold over us.

      One of the themes of the popular British movie The Full Monty is the breakdown of male identity in a situation of widespread unemployment. One character, formerly a manager, has been going out every day, apparently to work as usual, but hiding from his wife the fact that he, too, has been made redundant. Without his job he considers himself to be a nobody, ashamed, so all he can do is pretend. Stories abound also of 0those who gave their all to their jobs and then died shortly after retirement, as though the body did not know what to do without work to go to and focus on; or workers who were made redundant and went crazy, bursting into their former workplace armed and ready to kill. Work, then, can meet our material needs and fulfil our need for meaningful self-expression and development, but when it becomes the primary lens through which we see the world and ourselves, it can be a ruthless captor.

      Workaholism

      Slavery was abolished more than one hundred years ago, but a subtler form of imprisonment has emerged in the modern workplace, which we know as workaholism. Author and poet David Whyte, in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea, refers to this as a post-modern form of serfdom, where there is a crippling lack of time and spaciousness in our working lives, because of our entanglement in a culture that demands an endless cycle of production and consuming [Whyte 2001, 164].

      Like an alcoholic, the workaholic is trapped in a pattern of destructive behaviour over which he or she feels there is little or no control. Long hours at work are the norm, with “time management” techniques being used to shoe horn as much as possible into the working day. The pace and stress level of work escalate to the breaking point. The “rock bottom” that the workaholic hits is complete burnout, with physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social collapse. Typically family life breaks down first, as the workaholic spends more and more hours either at work or consumed by work worries, and withdraws from family activities. There may be initial rewards for this — a bigger pay cheque, promotion, the boss's approval. In fact, it has been said that workaholism is the only addiction that is socially sanctioned and rewarded: getting ahead by working around the clock and sacrificing one's personal life is often held up as an admirable path. The toll is brushed under the carpet.

      Of course, there have periodically been times in human history when groups of people have had to work very arduously, from the European immigrants who settled in this country to today's emergency workers at disaster sites. But it is a new phenomenon for people in modern society in normal circumstances to be choosing, seemingly, to overwork. In post-World War II Japan, during its technological boom, workaholism became almost a cultural norm, and a new word, karoshi (meaning “death by overwork”), entered Japanese vocabulary, as the up and coming executives, and sometimes even students, worked themselves into the grave or committed suicide on failing to accomplish their goals.

       Sam's story

      Sam is an executive in a thriving company. He holds an MBA and rose rapidly to his vice-president position. His large salary enables him to own a fine house as well as a cottageand to take expensive vacations with his wife and family. The only problem is that, for the last four years, Sam has not taken more than a couple of days' vacation time in a row. He is just too busy. Even when he does take some time off, he keeps his cell phone with him, and his palm pilot, and his laptop computer, so that he can respond to the urgent and incessant demands of the office.

      Sam's family has become accustomed to holidaying without him, and he tells himself that this is for the best. He's poised on one of the top rungs of the ladder; and to become CEO and the best provider he can be, he knows he must make sacrifices.

      But Sam is lonely. Sometimes when he gets home late from work, his wife and children are already asleep in bed. He often sits alone in the darkened house drinking a nightcap so that he can unwind and feel better. And he secretly dreams of one day walking. away from the world he knows and starting a new life. But until then, he feels as though the high-rise office building where he works is his prison.

      Burnout

      Many of us at work today would admit to fitting the “HALT” definition of burnout: we are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. We are over-eating (or over-drinking) to comfort ourselves, lashing out at colleagues or family members when the elastic of being over-stretched snaps, feeling isolated and alone as we toil ever harder, and suffering from constant fatigue. As noted ealier, sociologist Reginald Bibby asked Canadians what concerned them most in life, and 48% identified not having enough time as their number one problem [Bibby 2002,205]. Worse still, there seems to be no way out. We feel trapped. The very jobs that promised to provide for us and give our lives meaning have us in a stranglehold, because if I am what I do, then ceasing to do threatens the core of my existence. Far from providing our livelihood, work sometimes threatens to squeeze the life right out of us and leave us limp and exhausted rags.

      Many employers expect their employees to do what it takes to get the job done. If this means working one hundred-hour weeks, then fine. If it means missing your daughter s piano recital, never mind — there will be other recitals. These expectations are usually not written down anywhere, but new employees quickly learn what it takes to keep their job and advance in the organization. They comply, but often harbour deep resentment. Yet when their turn comes to set expectations and standards, they will often demand the same of others, arguing that if they themselves have had to do this, there's no reason why others can't. And so our work patterns are perpetuated, and the singe of burnout hovers almost visibly in the air.

      It may be that reining in the insatiable demands of work and keeping it from absorbing all our energy is one of the quintessential challenges of our time. A spirituality for the workplace must engage with this challenge and help us find the wisdom and courage to do things differently, swimming against the tide of a work-addicted culture. With a perspective that values each one as a person, regardless of income or career standing, we can detach our self-worth from our work just a little, and become freer to step back from the proverbial rat race.

       Questions

       How many hours a week are you working?

       Why?

      Downsizing and under-utilization

      In the last two decades, in Canada and elsewhere, significant changes in the workplace have occurred, placing new stressors on workers. Some organizations have downsized, no longer employing as many people. Some of the changes have been structural; for example, many large organizations have reduced the number of “levels” between the top position (chief executive officer or president) and the bottom position. In large bureaucratic organizations such as a government agency the structures traditionally resembled a steep pyramid, with many levels of managers, department heads, and vice-presidents between the top and the bottom. By reducing the number of levels from, say, ten or more to three or four, the organization is reducing the number of workers and changes

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