How to Talk to People - How to Leave Work Time at Work

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Before laptops allowed us to take the office home and smartphones could light up with notifications at any hour, work time and “life” time had clearer boundaries. Today, work is not done exclusively in the workplace, and that makes it harder to leave work at work.  Co-hosts Rashid Rashid and Ian Bogost examine the habits that shrink our available time, and Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a professor of Latin American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, offers his reflections on American culture and shares suggestions for how to use the time we do have, for life.  This episode was co-hosted by Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost. Becca Rashid also produces the show. Editing by Jocelyn Frank and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Engineering by Rob Smierciak. The managing editor of How to Keep Time is Andrea Valdez. Write to us at [e-mail].  Want to share unlimited access to The Atlantic with your loved ones? Give a gift today at theatlantic.com/podgift. For a limited time, select new subscriptions will come with the bold Atlantic tote bag as a free holiday bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So Becca, many years ago I was driving home from work and I had a terrible day. I don't remember why, but I was just cheesed off. You know, it's like white knuckling my steering wheel. You know, still angry from whatever it happened. As I was driving, I saw a colleague of mine from work walking to the train to go home. And he was just kind of sontering down the street. And I noticed that he was carrying a book, like as if it were a lunch box almost, like he's very casually holding this book at his side. And he had nothing else, not a bag or a backpack or

anything. And I remember looking at him and thinking, oh man, he hasn't figured out like, what is wrong with me? That that's not how I'm behaving. Now that my work day is over. He has it figured out because he's holding a book. Well, the interpretation I had of what was going to happen to him next is that he left work, his work day was over, and he was going to get on the train and read his book and go home and, you know, make dinner do whatever he did in his evening routine. It just somehow came naturally to him to leave the office and begin the process of not being at work.

In a technical sense, I could do whatever I wanted with my leisure time once I'd left work, but there was something preventing me from really having control over that time. Welcome to How to Keep Time. I'm Becca Rashid, co-host and producer of The Show. And I'm Ian Bogost, co-host and contributing writer at The Atlantic. So Ian, your book story makes me think of how many of us can't leave our work at the door. And there's this specific dread when you feel like your entire day and

weeks and potentially your life will be expended at work. I wanted to quickly play this clip for you of a young woman I saw on social media in talking about how all her hours a day are expended at work and she's talking about her very first nine to five jobs. She's sitting on the couch, she's in her sweats and she starts tearing up a bit while talking about it. And I know it could be worse. I know I could be working longer, but like I literally get off its pitch black. Like I don't have energy. How do you have friends? Like how do you have time for like dating? Like I don't have time for anything and I'm like so stressed out. But like am I so dramatic? It's fine. Oh wow, I mean, yeah, she's got it, doesn't she?

I really empathize with this girl. I mean, I'm in a very different life stage, but the situation this young woman is describing, it's not really new, and it's not really confined to her generation either. It's just she's, she's got like these fresh eyes on it, you know? Right.

Like what the heck? My whole day, my whole entire life seems to be taken up by work or work related activities like commuting. Right. Right. And there's no life for me left. That's what she's saying. Right. And the obvious first solution would be working less and winning more time back to yourself, but that seems pretty unlikely as the only solution. Yeah, but what if you could live more for yourself even when you're at work? Like rather than seeing that as time that you've lost to your boss or your company, as time that's like not even yours, even though you're there, you know, you're there at work in your

body, in your time while it's happening. And I do think in her stating it so plainly, it forces us to revisit our mainstream approach to this binary we create between work and life, which is obviously bothering her. Yeah, like, thinking of your work time as something that isn't yours, like it's like some ghost or some other personality. Yep. That's the problem that has to be solved in some way. And it forces us to question whether there are maybe new ways to structure our time.

What I also think that, I mean, is I job worth not having a minute to think about yourself, you know, I don't think so. So you know, maybe our conditioning to prioritize work isn't just a thing in our heads, or because we're at the whim of our calendars. My name is Ignacio Sanchez Parado. I go by natural, which is short for Ignacio in Spanish. I'm a professor of Latin American studies at Washington, United States and Lewis, who researches Mexican culture broadly.

Depending on where you work or the nature of your job, a lot of people's work require you to leave your life at the door. Nacho's someone who spends time observing and studying cultural practices. And I wanted to ask him if and how time can be understood Nacho, someone who spends time observing and studying cultural practices. And I wanted to ask him if and how time can be understood as a reflection of culture. I'm wondering if our culture and social practices around how we should be using our time at work can feel like more of a barrier to using our time in a more cohesive way, where that binary between work and life

feels less disconnected. I think that what was surprising actually, is that in the United States, people work for working. And I think that one thing that I want to make clear with the sudden one, to create this narrative where Americans are working at the Mexican Artificial Center. Mexicans were very hard.

I'm very productive in Mexico, in the office culture, and the university culture. But I don't think the notion that you're defined by your employment is strong. Nacho, could you tell me about how that work and leisure time balance is in Mexico? So people see their job as a means to an end and the end is their family life, their social life, their leisure, their hobbies. I think the difference is not the kind of working for also the understanding that

the hobbies. I think that difference is not the car working but also the understanding that putting limits to your work is a right. And if you don't, you're just giving of your rights. I think that leads for people to, I mean, I know I have friends who draw work at the time that the work is done and they don't care if it's done or not. Right. Or people who who don't really think that they should be spending their weekend sunset in emails. I think that if you have the privilege to access employment, there's no job that is worth destroying your mind or your life. My mom didn't know how to cook because she works six days a week all day.

My mom didn't know how to cook because she works six days a week all day. She comes home. She does not gonna cook. But we will go together to an eatery. I need to gather. Yes. Traditional Mexican places are not necessarily designed for expeditions, eating. When I came to the US is the first time I saw a restaurant telling you that you have the table for a maximum amount of time. Right. You have the time preservation before. Yes.

I mean, we have reservations, but nobody tells you you have to live at 11.30, right? Yeah, right. You live when you want or when they close, but nobody's going to come and time you, whether you're using the table too much. Right. There's a word in Spanish called sobremesa. And it's sort of the after dinner conversation. Ah. And that is so much of a social practice

that there's a word for it. And it's called over table, right? So it means that it's right after it in on the table. It is expected that you will linger and continue a conversation, rather than just get a pack of relief. Right. What's the rush? What's the hurry? Yeah, exactly. Yes. Where in the US, it feels like even our productive approach to work is also when we're eating. But I, you know, it is also the fact that

dinner or supper also has all our social components to it. So it is common that people would go from work, maybe to meet their family, their children, maybe to meet their friends. But I also think that the culture is a little bit more gregarious, that motivates people, even in work spaces to socialize. When practice that we have, it's going away because of

fast food and stuff like that. But because our launch times are very long, that are about two hours, because it's the main meal. There are very huge restaurants that offer multi-course meals. And people usually go from their offices to those places to it as a group. And the two hours of the break allow you to have a more of an engagement with your coworkers than the Njafa Njawa launching your desk. This is during the weekdays? This is during the weekdays.

Oh, can you describe this meal to me? I'm so jealous. Yes, if it's a working class, place is called la comida corrida. Uh-huh. So it's like, I don't know if there is a director like a meal in sequence where you get a soup and then you get either rice or pasta or something Mm-hmm And then you get a main course with a sigh and the third Oh, sounds so good. It's not only the gastronomical practice, which is interesting on its own, but also

If you have office workers that go to a place like this in groups of four or five, sit together and are sharing a table for an hour or two, the social engagement in that office is different. Of course. And when everybody is sitting in the cubicle and the office, but I think that the embedding of social practice in the day makes a big difference in this case for the 9-5 or 9-7 worker. In Mexico, we have become more of a victim of the corporate culture. The minute we have lost the ability to have that kind of social-regardous launch. launch. Oh my gosh Becca, I just had yesterday, a supposedly social gregarious lunch with a friend in from out of town and the whole time we were still like looking at our watches. I want you to make sure you get back for your meeting and I was checking to make sure I wasn't going to be late.

So it's really difficult. We're still at work even when we take the time to eat that way. I mean, I think one of the things Nacho is pointing out is that it's too big a burden to ask people to create that time for themselves. You need to make space for it socially and culturally. There has to be a kind of common understanding that, you know, hanging out with your friends or even your coworkers in a different way

is important. And that that's just how your day plays out rather than, how can I figure out how to finagle a way to be social with the people who are important to me? Right. And as Nacho was saying, this multiple course lunch and these additional hours that people give themselves during the workday, there's this sort of freedom they have to go have that meal together and really enjoy it. And you know, some of the happiest countries in the world, some of their primary metrics of their happiness include that freedom to make decisions and social support, both of which could be understood as time related in a way. They have the flexibility to make decisions about their time and invest

that time in strengthening their relationships. I mean, do people in those countries just work less? Do they just have more time on their own to play with? Well, the three happiest countries in the world, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, aren't that far off from the average American work week in terms of average hours worked. And the average American work week, which is around 38.8 hours, according to data from 2022, is not that far off from Denmark's average work week, which is around 33.4 hours. Iceland's is around 35.5 and Finland is around 35.

So it's not so much a matter of not having enough hours in the day, which was so surprising to me. Which suggests that we don't require a whole lot of additional time, necessarily. It's not about finding more time, but figuring out a different way of conceptualizing that time in order to experience the kind of enjoyment and freedom that Nacho is talking about. Right. What I find worrisome and I see in my students sometimes, is that sometimes you ask people, who aren't richest you and they don't have an answer

to that question. If you don't have an answer to that question, I will be worried. I think that that's a question that you have to find an answer for. What kind of answers do they give you, if any? You don't have an answer to that question, I will be worried. I think that that's a question that you have to find an answer for. What kind of answers do they give you, if any? Well, sometimes nothing because sometimes the term

which is going to take talk right, or... I'm very addicted to social media, so I'm not gonna... I'm not gonna have any kind of moralism to that. It's okay if you look at Facebook, but you need to have something that is for you a little bit more enriching in your leisure time in order for you to develop a sense of value to it. I have a student that was doing crocheting in class and she really loved that. Sometimes they tell me I like to paint. I think that one of the cool pretzels universities, a private one's very

particularly because they have this structure of after curricular social activity that is built and regulated by the university and it takes over time of the students so the students never develop the ability to develop meaningful leisure time on their own. They're here all day, they live here. They're right. And I think that if you graduate from that to the world. Right. I've seen some of my students just they don't know what to do with themselves after their job is done. It might be that some people don't just don't even develop the skill to begin with. If I were to give practical advice, which I like to do sometimes is

begin by asking to yourself what kinds of things enrich you and then make a proactive effort to make sure that they're a part of your day. You have to be proactive about it in this culture. Most businesses juggle up to three different commercial cards. One for fuel, another for paying vendors, and another one for travel. It seems crazy. Well, Corpay's commercial card is the one card program built to do it all. Plus, we give you competitive payment terms, customized controls, and over 180 types of alerts to help reduce fraud.

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It does not feel like five, for sure, but I believe that. It does feel like five to me, either. Right. And, you know, I think the reason it doesn't is because we don't know what to do with those five hours of time or however much of it we have. And so it just kind of evaporates into little pieces. Instead of using it well, it just vanishes between our fingers. It makes me wonder, I mean, this is kind of an impossible question to answer,

but it only makes sense to talk about leisure time once you have work time to compare it to. Right. And so back before people had, these are lasers essentially an invention of the industrial revolution. So, you know, when you would have been a peasant working the land, and your whole day is worth of time was just taken up with subsistence from dawn to dusk, and then you couldn't do anything anyway because it was dark. At least you kind of knew maybe why you

were doing the things that you were doing hour to hour. Less of your time would vanish because you had so little of it to start with and also because you were making use of all of it. So you almost would prefer to know what you were going to be doing at every hour. Is there like a decision-making component there that makes it harder to know like, okay, if this is my free time and I just finished my work time, how do I make the decision about what to do now

that it's all mine? I can use it all over my life. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it Becca. It, okay, I'm at work. Oh, and now I'm not at work anymore. And so now I have to figure out what that means. Right, right.

Now I'm using my time for myself and I'm not at work, so I really have to make good on the leisure time that I have. And then by the time I've figured out what I wanna do, I've burned through half of it and don't have it anymore. But you know when you're a kid and even your leisure time is more structured, now is when you can watch TV because that's when your parents allow you to or it's time to go brush your teeth or what have you.

Something about that face of life feels a little better, doesn't it? In my memory anyway, because you know what's happening next and why. Yeah, it sounds to me Ian, like having that authority figure telling you how you should be using your time is helpful in a way. And as Nacho said, his university students have many of their leisure activities baked into their day-to-day. The place they work is also the place they live and sleep and make friends, so it makes it easier to decide what to do. If everyone's going to the football game or taking breaks between a study session, it guards you against the sort of decision paralysis you may have if you have a full Saturday afternoon free and there's so many more variables in Where should you go who do you want to do that thing with you know gathering everyone in one place Scheduling it and then make sure you have a good time and having that external force

That is making a decision for you is really helpful because now you no longer have to make a choice. And when you make a bad choice and it's your choice, then you feel guilty for it. You feel I could have made any choice. And I did the wrong thing with the time I had available. I don't care about what people think. Not everybody has their privilege, right? Yes.

Some people get pressures because their promotions, their salary is high to that, so we don't have to be free will lose about that. But I also think that I mean, is a job worth not having a minute to think about yourself, you know? I don't think so. How do you think someone who doesn't have that flexibility in their schedule could incorporate some of these practices in their life? I don't think you need to be working all the time that you're at work. Unless you have a boss on top of you or a computer timing you, which happens. I mean, if you are in that, you just don't have a way out.

You're just in like a work regime of constant surveillance, right? Since most people are known in that situation, bring a book to your desk and read, give yourself 10 minutes every hour to read it. Mm-hmm. Right? I mean, if you're gonna eat and work, you might as well eat while you're working

and then take your lunch break and do something else. Mm-hmm. People care that they're not being perceived as good enough workers, because you are aware of of adjustment that other people are going to have over you. Right, right. But maybe you shouldn't care. Right. Right. So Ian, as we're analyzing these work life boundaries, it made me think about our American cultural norms around work and home and which one people think has more value in their lives. And interestingly

I found this data on Americans evolving views about the meaning of life. And there was a survey conducted from September 2017 to February of 2021 and it sort of tracked these changes in people's views over this four-year period and the Pew Research Center asked a sample of American adults to answer the question what about your life? Do you currently find meaningful fulfilling or satisfying? What keeps you going and why so what did say? Of course, I assumed it was work, but surprisingly over the course of those four years, the share of adults who mentioned their job or career as a source of meaning

declined from 24 to 17%, which was already significantly lower than I thought. And people were more likely than the initial year in 2017 to mention society as a source of meaning in life. Hm. Yeah, back in almost sounds like we've been faking ourselves out. A little bit. And like we, yeah, we believe that everyone else

believes that work is where we should derive satisfaction. Right. But in fact, very few of us in America seem to think that that's really the case, and instead we want to find it in one another rather than in our workplaces. That's all for this episode of How to Keep Time. This episode was hosted by Ian Bogost and me, Becker Asheet. I also produce this show. Our editors are Claudina Bade and Jocelyn Frank, fact check by Anna Alvarado.

Our engineer is Rob Smersiac. Rob also composed some of our music. The executive producer of audio is Claudina Bade, and the managing editor of audio is Andrea Valdes. We're taking a quick break next week, and after all this talk about busyness and schedules, I'm really looking forward to some rest. That's also the topic of our next episode.

Talk to you then. Becca, I've been over sleeping lately, and I finally went to the doctor and he recommended that I sleep on a bed of herbs. This is ridiculous. What? What? You gotta give me a why.

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