Joe Ungemah - Punching the Clock: Adapting to the New Future of Work

Punching the Clock

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ungemah, Joe, 1976 author.

Title: Punching the clock : adapting to the new future of work / Joe Ungemah.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020039404 (print) | LCCN 2020039405 (ebook) |

ISBN 9780190061241 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190061265 (epub) |

ISBN 9780190061272

Subjects: LCSH: WorkPsychological aspects. | EmployeesPsychology. |

Psychology, Industrial. | Industrial sociology.

Classification: LCC HF5548.8 .U54 2021 (print) | LCC HF5548.8 (ebook) |

DDC 306.3/60112dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039404

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039405

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190061241.001.0001

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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

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9,020. This is the number of days a newly graduated college student can expect to work in his or her lifetime based on average life expectancy and retirement age. Put into perspective, work makes up just over 30% of everything we will ever do. The only activity that overshadows this level of commitment is really not an activity at all, but rather the time we spend asleep. On average, we sleep 10,608 days or 35% of our lifetime, taking account of the drop in sleeping hours from a high of 13 hours for infants to a low of 7 hours for seniors. Considering that two-thirds of our lives are caught up either working or asleep, this leaves precious little time for everything else we value and enjoy, including the time we spend with family and friends. Just from a time perspective, working could be considered the trait that best describes what it means to be human.

Yet this is not how the vast majority of workers would describe their existence. Roughly only a third of the workforce would describe themselves as highly engaged in the work that they do. The rest of us trudge through the day, doing tasks that may pay the bills but leave us hollow inside. When the BBC asked for examples of the most boring jobs their readers experienced, the examples were telling. Jane from Yate dreams of peas, I tested the temperature of frozen peas for a whole summer. I used to dream about endless rivers of little green balls. Petes story is not too different, I put pepperoni on 14,000 pizzas per day at a factory in Nottingham. If the conveyer belt broke down, we made smiley faces on the pizzas with the pepperoni. So, if you ever see a smiley pizza, thats why. At least Jane and Pete had tangible jobs, which is different from Jon who lives in London: I was once employed through the summer as someone to talk to. It was a small architectural company that only had three employees. When I queried why there was so little work to do, they told me it was just refreshing to have someone else to talk to and discuss ideas with.

If it isnt the job itself that makes you tune out, it is likely the people that you work with. In a poll sponsored by Samsung of 1,000 office workers, employees reported losing 22 minutes a day to unwanted distractions caused by their colleagues, such as moaning or eating loudly. Almost a third of those surveyed had left a previous job because their colleagues became too irritating, far outpacing physical workplace environment or technology limitations as key reasons to quit.

Potentially, some of these frustrations might disappear as the world of work moves to more virtual and tenuous forms of employment. Greater numbers of people are adapting to the gig economy, broadly characterized by workers cobbling together multiple jobs or becoming independent contractors who are not tied into traditional employment relationships. These workers are inserting themselves into a workplace increasingly dominated by the Future of Work, where routine tasks are augmented by robotic process automation while straightforward decisions are increasingly being made by artificial intelligence. The physical workplace is changing, too, with open-plan, flexible designs carrying names like neighborhoods replacing offices and cubicles. Not only are these new workplaces cheaper to operate, with their smaller physical footprint per employee, but they are also said to address the changing needs of employees to interact with and collaborate across a broader range of coworkers. Not every office will take it to the extreme of installing a fire pit or a tunnel-slide between floors, but perceptions about what constitutes a workplace are evolving. Propelling technological and environment changes further are the attitudes of new workers. Fresh graduates are putting increased priority on building skills (potentially for the next gig) and doing fulfilling work in a vibrant community of collaborators, as opposed to climbing the career ladder or seeking personal wealth.