Feeling Like A Sector G Drone?

You have good reason to:

Americans work more, seem to accomplish less

By Ellen Wulfhorst
Thu Feb 23, 9:52 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most U.S. workers say they feel rushed on the job, but they are getting less accomplished than a decade ago, according to newly released research.

Workers completed two-thirds of their work in an average day last year, down from about three-quarters in a 1994 study, according to research conducted for Day-Timers Inc., an East Texas, Pennsylvania-based maker of organizational products.

The biggest culprit is the technology that was supposed to make work quicker and easier, experts say.

"Technology has sped everything up and, by speeding everything up, it's slowed everything down, paradoxically," said John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

"We never concentrate on one task anymore. You take a little chip out of it, and then you're on to the next thing," Challenger said on Wednesday. "It's harder to feel like you're accomplishing something."

Unlike a decade ago, U.S. workers are bombarded with e-mail, computer messages, cell phone calls, voice mails and the like, research showed.

The average time spent on a computer at work was almost 16 hours a week last year, compared with 9.5 hours a decade ago, according to the Day-Timer research released this week.

Workers typically get 46 e-mails a day, nearly half of which are unsolicited, it said.

Sixty percent of workers say they always or frequently feel rushed, but those who feel extremely or very productive dropped to 51 percent from 83 percent in 1994, the research showed.

This is all happening as the work force is getting older AND getting laid off with more and more frequency.

Part of this relates to another story I mentioned yesterday, about family income declines. Working harder is easy to do when you're seeing the benefits in your pocket. It's not so easy to do when you've been shortchanged as your employer makes money hand over fist and pays less in taxes than you do, collectively.

Welcome to Republican America, folks!

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky