The Bruce Report

I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but at some point over the past few weeks, my office desk sprouted two, brand-new laptops.

Where once there was one, now there are three, incessantly blinking screens all urgently, often simultaneously, demanding attention to clients through pass-word protected, remote servers (whatever those are).

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not afraid of hard labour. In fact, I thrive in the controlled chaos of 80-hour work weeks. Given the economically wretched era from which we’re just emerging, I’d be a precious little princling to feel otherwise.

It’s just that over the past few months of relative, if largely unwelcome, indolence, I had grown accustomed to a simpler lifestyle. Sleeping in till 8 wasn’t so bad. Neither was knocking off at 5. There were gardens to attend, bikes to fix, insulation to install, Facebook friends to make. Hell, I even considered a new career as an urban farmer as long as it didn’t interfere with cocktail hour.

Now, I find myself up at the crack of dawn, pouring over technical manuals on web-site design. I’m becoming a pupil of “content management systems” and the latest advances in “Web 2.0” technology. I’m rediscovering the charms of “Gant-chart” planning and magazine production “work-backs”.

In short, I’m pumped. . .and a tad bewildered. How fast things change in a world that, until recently, seemed to be circling the economic drain.

Of course, not everyone shares my renewed enthusiasm for earned (even unexpected) opportunity. A study just released in Canada suggests that the highest-paid, hardest-working, most successful professionals are among the least-content members of the American workforce. They worry more, complain more and risk more injury to their health and family relationships than their less financially comfortable counterparts.

It seems counter-intuitive, but the report’s author, University of Toronto sociologist Scott Schieman, says in a Globe and Mail article, “It’s the Mad Men idea. When you get more, there are consequences. Most people would say that [job authority, skill level, decision-making latitude and personal earnings] should actually lower the risk for work-family conflict. But we’re actually finding the opposite.”

Harold Eisenberg, a Toronto psychologist adds, “To achieve that level in the hierarchy requires a lot of self-sacrifice. But once they are there, it is sometimes a psychological coping mechanism to keep that engaged. Not because they have to prove anything, but because of their anxiety. . .A warning sign can be a spouse saying they’ve had it.”

Fortunately, that’s not my particular problem. My wife and I have owned and operated our little business for years. And the only time we argue about such matters is when we recognize than one or both of us are not spending our days and nights productively – recessions, notwithstanding.

All of which may say something about the nature of entrepreneurship – at least, the mom and pop variety. More likely, though, it says something about the nature of society during a time of dwindling expectations.

Some of us take nothing for granted. Some of us embrace every chance to turn a corner, learn a skill, and grab all the little brass rings we can, knowing that they are as rare and as valuable as polished platinum.

The lazy, hazy summer past is less a season than a state of mind. Growing accustomed to what was is a recipe for personal disaster – whether that’s forced idleness or intemperance or wistful acceptance.

As for me and my manual, the screens are blinking, the email is thundering through, and the phone is ringing off the hook. I don’t know exactly how it happened. I don’t know that I care much.

For the first time in several new moons, work beckons. And, like legions of other Canadians emerging from their recession-induced slumber, I’m answering the call.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.