Ember Duke | layout editor |

Your job isn’t your life.

However, it does determine how you get to live outside of work. It determines your financial liberties and can be detrimental to your attention out of the office.

The average American spends a third of their life at work, according to Gettysburg College. Even off the clock, there is still an expectation from many employers to be readily accessible and happily willing to jump into action. This doesn’t take into account the exhaustion following work and subsequent lack of will to do things that are not work related.

When you’re working full-time and just making ends meet, like so many Americans are, your job can be a threat to any free time you were hoping to enjoy. The boundaries blur even more when your employer expects your attention outside of work hours.

But American culture treats work like this, as we have for so long, because we are brought up on the notion that we can achieve anything with hard work. Employees devote their lifetimes to work customs and companies that feign respect for them.

Fifty-seven percent of employees reported symptoms of work-related stress including: emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation, lower productivity and irritability, according to The American Psychological Association.

I’ve worked in customer service for seven years. Looking back at this time and into the future of the more “professional” work setting, I feel a deep dread. Not at the prospect of the work itself — I’m excited about that. It’s the anticipation that having a life which feels genuinely separate from work is near impossible, which I have already experienced at a micro level in the service industry.

This August, Australia put into effect a “right to disconnect” law which poses potential legal action against employers who unreasonably seek attention from their staff outside of working hours.

The bill intends to promote work-life balance and good mental health following a rise in remote work during COVID-19, according to NPR. Other countries like France, Mexico and Italy have seen employee satisfaction rise from similar laws. A bill modeled after Australia’s was presented in California in April but was shut down.

In so many work settings, the support for mental wellbeing is all talk. It’s treated more as a theoretical issue and is not actively promoted.

Only 43% of workers reported mental health coverage in their insurance, 35% reported having a job that encourages breaks and 29% said their workplace has an employee assistance program, according to the American Psychological Association.

Work culture is exploitative. The average salary for Americans is approximately $59,000. For non-salaried workers, hourly pay varies, with the minimum wage in Pennsylvania staying stubbornly at a dismal $7.25. With the rising cost of living, the disparity between price of goods and take home pay becomes greater.

The stress of low funds on top of the expectation to devote yourself to your job is all consuming, especially when workers aren’t encouraged to disconnect and/or don’t have protections.

So, work hard, but if you get sick or want to start a family, remember your job isn’t required to pay you. On a federal level employees’ jobs are protected for 12 unpaid weeks in instances of parental leave or serious medical conditions. Many states have expanded leave laws to provide more care for workers. Pennsylvania is not one of those states.

The heart of this country is money and an idea that we are the land of possibility, despite the numerous systemic roadblocks that keep people from actually moving up in the world financially. This decanters human experience that is unrelated to monetary value.

There’s little freedom to explore without the funds to do so. We lose passion for what makes us happy, for what provides meaning in our lives because we don’t have guaranteed stability. American work culture asks us to betray ourselves in the name of something bigger than ourselves, then turns around and shows us how little we truly matter by devaluing our lives outside of work.

The four-day workweek is a new and necessary push toward reclaiming our autonomy while we rot in the belly of capitalism. As of April, 30% of U.S. companies are considering a shift to a four-day work week, said CNN.

Spending less time at work gives people the chance to explore more creative and fulfilling interests as well as provide needed time for rest. In two separate studies, workers in the UK and Spain have reported greater mental health under the four-day model.

Work will not cease to stop being a main player in everyone’s lives and for many it can be incredibly fulfilling, but the mindset that this country approaches working is toxic and considers a person’s commodifiable output over their personal needs.