Monday, March 21, 2011

Cell phones, PDAs and PCs was the work of no-limits

At first it was the Commodore 64. Then came mobile phones, internet, broadband, email, beep-beep of the Blackberry, the army of the tablet, Skype and teleconferencing. A godsend, guaranteed. The key hi-tech to free man from slavery after thousands of years of work allows - as John Maynard Keynes prophesied - "to devote a maximum of 15 hours per week." Too bad that did not go their way: new technologies have allowed us to increase our efficiency for four (9 hours today in what we produce in 1950 was made in 40) but our office hours are not shorter than one second .


On the contrary: the progress, pace Keynes, led us straight-straight into the arms of the "24-hours economy" as the English say. An era in which not only works harder - from the mid '70s, the time spent at the desk or in the factory has been on a stretch - but also no longer able to pull the plug, turn off the computer every night, clock in and return home.

But the office - accomplices the wonders of technology - is with us. In the form of a shower of mail, video, files and documents to be checked when changing diapers for children, the roast in the oven sends a worrying smell of burning and the dog, nervous, wags his tail at the door waiting for the evening stroll.

Welcome to the century of work without boundaries (of time). Virtual office - a man, his phone and his computer - open round the clock, seven days a week. A world where the stakes are skipped between duty and pleasure, as well as - often - those between day and night. The routine 9-17 time is only a good memory: you wake up out of bed compulsive disorder (for work) e-mail, you fall asleep lulled by the soft glow of an Excel spreadsheet sull'iPad, then get up in the middle night for a conference call with Seattle.

A revolution that is gradually overturning metabolism and habits of half the world put at risk not only social relations but also, experts say, health. The first alarm on the silent revolution of the work no-limits was launched, not surprisingly, the World Health Organization. To the world, the statistics of the International Labor Organization, an employee in five is currently involved more than 48 hours per week.

A hard core which is now added to the army forced from workaholic Blackberry & C. about 24 hours to spread their professional availability. WHO has undergone a scientific screening such persons and in the end, compelling data in hand, put the work out of hours as a potential cause of health risk with an increase from 30 to 80% of the possibility of contracting cancer .

For experts it is just a confirmation. Japan - where loyalty and productivity of an employee are directly proportional to the time that passes the desk nailed or glued to the screen of the PC at home - has been forced to coin a term ad hoc karoushi to define the deaths caused by overdose work.

Several large companies have paid compensation to families of employees stratospheric squeezed like lemons and then cut off from the extraordinary. And today all of the big Tokyo Spa, the lesson learned by blows yen, have imposed very strict stakes extra hours worked, including those hurry up home.

Elsewhere, we prefer to prevent. Korea - world record in the field with 2,301 hours of work per year per person, 33% more than Italy - has launched a very prosaic "procreation day." A day where everyone is forced to return home at 19 at night and not turn on more PCs or cell phones until the following morning.

Stated objective in pleasure (forgotten) of married life and, possibly, by embarking on new arms for the country's economy. The science, moreover, is clear: humans (and animals) are not made to work 24 hours on 24. Circadian rhythms of our metabolism is a complex instrument, calibrated with the sling, we have at least a hundred life cycles - the temperature at the production of enzymes to brain activity - inseparably tied to alternating day and night, with highs and lows in their values that affect a lot of our mental efficiency.

Blow them up, as in the 24 hours economy means not only risking your health, but also (an argument that the laws of capitalism understand very well) dramatically reduce productivity. The Queen Mary University of London, when in doubt, tried to test the ability to respect the most tireless workers in the animal kingdom: the bees.

British scientists have used identifiers radio on the body of 1,049 "workers" of a hive in arctic Finland in the summer, when all plants are in bloom and the sun shines in the sky 24 hours 24. Result: "Despite the possibility of working without interruption, the insects would retire to rest in the combs from 23 pm to 8 am - Ralph Stelzer explains, one of the coordinators of the experiment - showing that the benefit of the rest in terms of production Honey is more than a whole day long working hours.

" The same conclusion was reached thanks to her intuition, Henry Ford, founder of the old American car, the first tycoon of the great stars and stripes to unilaterally cut the duration of the workday of his employees: "If you do not have time to have fun and enjoy those who never buy our machines? "he said.

Concept that today, by dint of demonstrations with algorithms, even the pundits agree that Harvard and MIT. "A good balance between work, rest and free time is the secret of an economy that works," assures Jon Messenger ILO. The numbers confirm this: Spain's Iberdrola has eliminated two-hour break at midday (the correspondent of the old siesta), allowing its employees to go home at 16 pm, registering a surge of productivity and a sharp drop in absenteeism.

The city of Houston has launched the plan "Flex in the city," persuading many local companies to liberalize the time of entry to reduce traffic and ease of travel for commuters. The result: traffic jams at peak and a cut of 58% for the measured stress on workers. "There is no doubt that the world is globalized and technology allow us and somehow force us to revise the flexibility of our times", they admit to Ilo.

It takes most shops open at night. Some conference call after hours must be taken into consideration. But the 24-hours economy, if only for purely health reasons, "can not become the rule." At the bottom of anthropological studies conducted in recent years on the tribes of Machiguenga, in Amazonia, show that Keynes, instead of looking forward, he had better watch out.

The Peruvian Indians proudly dedicated to work (in their case the hunt) 4 hours and 56 minutes on average per day. Then, happy, think only of themselves. In the middle of the rainforest, fortunately, there is no field for the Blackberry.

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