Friday, May 02, 2014

Fuck work: our jobs are still killing us...

The improving weather is probably making you consider quitting work for a summer ambling about in the sun, declining to check your account balance as you splurge your savings on cava, boat rides and stupid hats. But face it, you're not going to do that, because unless your parents own other people, you need your job even more than you hate it. Otherwise why the fuck would you do it? While images of muscular workers grimacing into blast furnaces don't really resonate in this country any more, your job is still surprisingly likely to rob you of your sanity, physical faculties or even your life. Happy May Day, everyone!

While workers getting aggy with their bosses have resulted in concrete gains over the years – which, in case you didn't know, is what May Day commemorates – people are still dying with their boots on, even if those boots have been replaced with some sensible office shoes from Next. Over the past couple of years there have been a number of high profile deaths as a result of people working too hard.

For instance, there was a Mita Diran, a young Indonesian copywriter who tweeted “30 hours of working and still going strooong” last December. She died shortly afterwards. Six months earlier, Gabriel Li – a 24-year old employee of PR agency Oglivy & Mather – apparently worked so hard that he had a heart attack at his desk; one of a reported 600,000 deaths a year in China that reportedly result from "work exhaustion". Then there was the sad tale of Moritz Erhardt, a 21-year-old intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was found to have died of an epileptic seizure after working 72 hours in a row at the investment bank. The coroner said fatigue may have been a trigger but there was no evidence it was and the seizure could have just happened. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Rise of the 'super workers' who never take time off...
  2. The world's hardest working countries. Insane!!
  3. Retired LA teacher is teaching again ... for free!!!
  4. I hate my job, I hate my job, I hate my job – what many think but won't tell...
  5. Busting the myth of France’s 35-hour workweek...
  6. Swiss to vote on world's highest minimum wage...
  7. Singapore workers unhappiest in Asia...

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