FRONT PAGE - WEEKEND FT:
Today's generation of high-earning professionals maintain that their
personal fulfilment comes from their jobs and the hours they work. They
should grow up, says Thomas Barlow Financial Times ;
A friend of mine recently met a young American woman who was studying on a
Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. She already had two degrees from top US
universities, had worked as a lawyer and as a social worker in the US, and
somewhere along the way had acquired a black belt in kung fu.
Now, however, her course at Oxford was coming to an end and she was
thoroughly angst-ridden about what to do next. Her problem was no ordinary
one. She couldn't decide whether she should make a lot of money as a
corporate lawyer/management consultant, devote herself to charity work
helping battered wives in disadvantaged communities, or go to Hollywood to
work as a stunt double in kung fu films.
What most struck my friend was not the disparity of this woman's choices,
but the earnestness and bad grace with which she ruminated on them. It was
almost as though she begrudged her own talents, opportunities and freedom -
as though the world had treated her unkindly by forcing her to make such a
hard choice.
Her case is symptomatic of our times. In recent years, there has grown up a
culture of discontent among the highly educated young something that seems
to flare up, especially, when people reach their late 20s and early 30s. It
arises not from frustration caused by lack of opportunity, as may have been
true in the past, but from an excess of possibilities.
Most theories of adult developmental psychology have a special category for
those in their late 20s and early 30s. Whereas the early to mid-20s are
seen as a time to establish one's mode of living, the late 20s to early 30s
are often considered a period of reappraisal. In a society where people
marry and have children young, where financial burdens accumulate early,
and where job markets are inflexible, such reappraisals may not last long.
But when people manage to remain free of financial or family burdens, and
where the perceived opportunities for alternative careers are many, the
reappraisal is likely to be angst-ridden and long lasting.
Among no social group is this more true than the modern, international,
professional elite: that tribe of young bankers, lawyers, consultants and
managers for whom financial, familial, personal, corporate and
(increasingly) national ties have become irrelevant. Often they grew up in
one country, were educated in another, and are now working in a third. They
are independent, well paid, and enriched by experiences that many of their
parents could only dream of.
Yet, by their late 20s, many carry a sense of disappointment: that for all
their opportunities, freedoms and achievements, life has not delivered
quite what they had hoped. At the heart of this disillusionment lies a new
attitude towards work. The idea has grown up, in recent years, that work
should not be just a means to an end a way to make money, support a family,
or gain social prestige - but should provide a rich and fulfilling
experience in and of itself. Jobs are no longer just jobs; they are
lifestyle options.
Recruiters at financial companies, consultancies and law firms have
promoted this conception of work. Job advertisements promise challenge,
wide experiences, opportunities for travel and relentless personal
development.
Michael is a 33-year-old management consultant who has bought into this
vision of late-20th century work. Intelligent and well-educated - with
three degrees, including a doctorate - he works in Munich, and has a
"stable, long-distance relationship" with a woman living in California. He
takes 140 flights a year and works an average of 80 hours a week. Some
weeks he works more than 100 hours. When asked if he likes his job, he will
say: "I enjoy what I'm doing in terms of the intellectual challenges."
Although he earns a lot, he doesn't spend much. He rents a small apartment,
though he is rarely there, and has accumulated very few possessions. He
justifies the long hours not in terms of wealth-acquisition, but
solely as part of a "learning experience". This attitude to work has
several interesting implications, mostly to do with the shifting balance
between work and non-work, employment and leisure. Because fulfilling and
engrossing work - the sort that is thought to provide the most intense
learning experience - often requires long hours or captivates the
imagination for long periods of time, it is easy to slip into the idea that
the converse is also true: that just by working long hours, one is also
engaging in fulfilling and engrossing work. This leads to the popular
fallacy that you can measure the value of your job (and, therefore, the
amount you are learning from it) by the amount of time you spend on it.
And, incidentally, when a premium is placed on learning rather than
earning, people are particularly susceptible to this form of self-deceit.
Thus, whereas in the past, when people in their 20s or 30s spoke
disparagingly about nine-to-five jobs it was invariably because they were
seen as too routine, too unimaginative, or too bourgeois. Now, it is simply
because they don't contain enough hours.
Young professionals have not suddenly developed a distaste for leisure, but
they have solidly bought into the belief that a 45-hour week necessarily
signifies an unfulfilling job. Jane, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer who
works in the City of London, tells a story about working on a deal with
another lawyer, a young man in his early 30s. At about 3am, he leant over
the boardroom desk and said: "Isn't this great? This is when I really love
my job." What most struck her about the remark was that the work was
irrelevant (she says it was actually rather boring); her colleague simply
liked the idea of working late. "It's as though he was validated, or making
his life important by this," she says.
Unfortunately, when people can convince themselves that all they need do in
order to lead fulfilled and happy lives is to work long hours, they can
quickly start to lose reasons for their existence. As they start to think
of their employment as a lifestyle, fulfilling and rewarding of itself -
and in which the reward is proportional to hours worked - people rapidly
begin to substitute work for other aspects of their lives.
Michael, the management consultant, is a good example of this phenomenon.
He is prepared to trade (his word) not just goods and time for the
experience afforded by his work, but also a substantial measure of
commitment in his personal relationships. In a few months, he is being
transferred to San Francisco, where he will move in with his girlfriend.
But he's not sure that living in the same house is actually going to change
the amount of time he spends on his relationship. "Once I move over, my
time involvement on my relationship will not change significantly. My job
takes up most of my time and pretty much dominates what I do, when, where
and how I do it," he says. Moreover, the reluctance to commit time to a
relationship because they are learning so much, and having such an intense
and fulfilling time at work is compounded, for some young professionals, by
a reluctance to have a long-term relationship at all.
Today, by the time someone reaches 30, they could easily have had three or
four jobs in as many different cities - which is not, as it is often
portrayed, a function of an insecure global job-market, but of choice.
Robert is 30 years old. He has three degrees and has worked on three
continents. He is currently working for the United Nations in Geneva. For
him, the most significant deterrent when deciding whether to enter into a
relationship is the likely transient nature of the rest of his life. "What
is the point in investing all this emotional energy and exposing myself in
a relationship, if I am leaving in two months, or if I do not know what I
am doing next year?" he says.
Such is the character of the modern, international professional, at least
throughout his or her 20s. Spare time, goods and relationships, these are
all willingly traded for the exigencies of work. Nothing is valued so
highly as accumulated experience. Nothing is neglected so much as
commitment. With this work ethic - or perhaps one should call it a
"professional development ethic" - becoming so powerful, the globally
mobile generation now in its late 20s and early 30s has garnered
considerable professional success. At what point, though, does the
experience-seeking end?
Kathryn is a successful American academic, 29, who bucked the trend of her
generation: she recently turned her life round for someone else. She moved
to the UK, specifically, to be with a man, a decision that she says few of
her contemporaries understood. "We're not meant to say: 'I made this
decision for this person. Today, you're meant to do things for yourself. If
you're willing to make sacrifices for others - especially if you're a woman
- that's seen as a kind of weakness. I wonder, though, is doing things for
yourself really empowerment, or is liberty a kind of trap?" she says. For
many, it is a trap that is difficult to break out of, not least because
they are so caught up in a culture of professional development. And spoilt
for choice, some like the American Rhodes Scholar no doubt become paralysed
by their opportunities, unable to do much else in their lives, because they
are so determined not to let a single one of their chances slip. If that
means minimal personal commitments well into their 30s, so be it.
"Loneliness is better than boredom" is Jane's philosophy. And, although she
knows "a lot of professional single women who would give it all up if they
met a rich man to marry", she remains far more concerned herself about
finding fulfilment at work. "I am constantly questioning whether I am doing
the right thing here," she says. "There's an eternal search for a more
challenging and satisfying option, a better lifestyle. You always feel
you're not doing the right thing always feel as if you should be striving
for another goal," she says.
Jane, Michael, Robert and Kathryn grew up as part of a generation with
fewer social constraints determining their futures than has been true for
probably any other generation in history. They were taught at school that
when they grew up they could "do anything", "be anything". It was an idea
that was reinforced by popular culture, in films, books and television. The
notion that one can do anything is clearly liberating. But life without
constraints has also proved a recipe for endless searching, endless
questioning of aspirations. It has made this generation obsessed with
self-development and determined, for as long as possible, to minimise
personal commitments in order to maximise the options open to them. One
might see this as a sign of extended adolescence. Eventually, they will be
forced to realise that living is as much about closing possibilities as it
is about creating them.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited
Well... maybe not!!!
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