I would agree with the “toxic office” syndrome. However long hours are often expected by the company, particularly in full time employment. Some of the methods I have been subjected to in some companies have included the following:-

An expectation that the employee works until the project is finished. However when that project is finished there is always another project waiting.

If long hours are worked on one project, then this sets a precedent for the type of hours expected to be worked for all projects.

Expectation that staff commence work at earlier times, such that they would be able to work longer hours in the day.

Scheduling meetings for late in the afternoon. If the meeting goes overtime then staff were expected to work back until the meeting was finished.

Requiring staff to “drop in” on weekends or on holidays to see how things were going. These drop in visits then become expected, often becoming a normal full days normal work.

Bonus payments were connected to hours worked, such that increases in pay were connected to hours worked, although productivity or work performance were always expected to be high.

When all these things were combined then the hours worked could easily exceed 60 hrs per week plus travel time. The hours expected to be worked were also variable from day to day, such that family related activities could not be planned beforehand or had to become secondary.

But it can often work against the company or organisation eventually, as such systems tend to burn people out and work performance eventually declines. Eventually the company and the employee's family will both loose.

Agree with Timkins 100% - his experience corresponds exactly with mine.

Hopefully, as more women and men, rally for family friendly workplaces we will achieve a bit more equilibrium - organisations cannot rely on burnt out employees forever.

No argument from me Alex. the old saying that 'no man on his death bed ever said 'I wish I had spent more time at the office' is true.
Raise your children well. Read to them. Nurture their humanity. Do not covet thy neighbour's BMW - his children never see him.

Very good Alex.

We definitely need to look at the idea of school and business hours being similar.

t.u.s

Very good article, I have worked in some pretty toxic workplaces, and even though I don't have kids, cannot imagine how parents can juggle (or be expected to) the more important parts of your life around that. I don't think any job is worth 60 hours a week (especially if you're only getting paid for 38 when it comes to the quality time with the stuff that's irreplacable. Good on you Mark, hopefully we'll see a turning of the tide rather than just forgetting this rational and responsible decision.

There is something distinctly Australian about this issue of working too much and having trouble accepting equal family roles for men and women. Australians work the longest hours in the OECD (apart from South Korea). According to ILO data our working hours haven't declined in the last 12 years, whereas in other countries they did, especially in Japan (see http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/strat/kilm/kilm06.htm).

I tend to get the impression that Australian managers equate long hours with high productivity, a completely bizarre belief given that 1. It runs counter to the very definition of productivity and 2. Individual effectiveness tends to decline after about 7 hours at work. Then again, employees seem to have no trouble going along with the mutual deception. The common response of people is not to fight the insanity, but to opt out (downshifting). Which means the system remains intact, the 'traitor' is quickly forgotten and the 'slaves' go back to sending another email.

For once, we ought to look to Scandinavia instead of US/UK for some answers. Norway has the lowest working hours and highest productivity (output per hour) in the OECD. Makes sense?

Well if I had his (Latham's) pension I reckon I'd be writing something along these lines too! But then again I might just be too busy working and being a dad to worry about it.

While I agree with the thrust of the article, I don't think we should go overboard. Planius' statistics show, for example, that we are still averaging fewer than forty hours a week.

And although I have no reason to believe the tables are anything but accurate, I do not buy this "it must be an Australian thing". I have worked for multinational companies and through them have seen first-hand the work habits of my colleagues in upwards of twenty countries, and every one of them worked harder than their Australian counterparts. Even in Germany, where most of them had six weeks annual leave, their work habits left us in the shade.

While there may be many extremely toxic workplaces around, the stark reality is that we as a nation revere two things. We idolize the rich bloke, no matter how the money is earned or who suffers along the way, and put him on a pedestal. And as a counterbalance, we have the overt bludger, who is known for the amount of work he can avoid, and is a hero among his mates in the pub. The cultural change that is necessary to mellow these two extremes into a workplace that can earn our respect, is beyond human imagining. It is unlikely to happen while we still call ourselves Ostrayans.

The only answer is, unfortunately, that to which the article refers. To be able to retire on the pension that only a politician can achieve, paid for by the rest of us who are forced to carry on juggling the family and the crust.

Awesome article, it touched on a lot of very real issues. I have rearranged my hours to suit some school drop offs and after school pick ups, and yes being one of the first out the door gets stares sometimes. I think most are used to it now and some might even note that the days when I don't have my son I'm one of the first in.

Of course Latham's party probably had a lot to do with the "Capacity to Earn" provisions used in Child Support that make it difficult for separated payer parents (of either gender) to reduce work hours to better manage parenting responsibilities or to relocate if it involves taking a lower paying job (to stay near your kids). I have heard of parents who have been forced to return to Sydney to work after moving to a rural town to be near their kids and taking a lower paying job only to have CSA continue to assess their obligations based on previous earnings.

The gem that says that if you earn X dollars when you are part of an intact family then you have the capacity to earn X dollars regardless of what else changes in your life.

One more item for the list that makes it hard for some parents to balance family and work committments.

Like many my wife and I both work full time and have a young family. We both have had enough but hang in there. Quite frankly we haven't got the time to have a breakdown, nor as in Latham's circumstance the luxury of just throwing in the towel.

"Like many my wife and I both work full time and have a young family. We both have had enough but hang in there. Quite frankly we haven't got the time to have a breakdown, nor as in Latham's circumstance the luxury of just throwing in the towel.

Posted by PFH"

Planning PFH, its all about basic essential needs and planning.

Assuming you are a 'average' working Australian with a close to half a million dollar house mortgage, which you have to question its need and the personal effort to keep it up which will equate to your time from what you need to do which primarily is be a parent to your children who are your future 'you' because afterall that is the main purpose to build a house for most people (to raise children in).

Putting yourself in a position where you then fail to reasonably fulfill your duty as a parent then pointing to someone else who realizes what is of most value (realizing its not their ego of relating their identity with their job) and doing something about it begs the proper validity of your statement.

Sorry for using your post but this is what people say to justify their lives on most street conners relating to this area to live this unbalance life style. When I am about to die I want to see my children next to me and who Want to be there with love and appreciation from knowing I did what was right by them and not me (Mostly Me, stops when you create your first life but of course I am speaking for the men)

Sam

Well said Sam said,

There is definitely a trade off, if you choose to buy a house worth $500,000 you are probably choosing to trade time with your kids to pay the mortgage.

It is a choice that an expensive house is better for your kids than time with parents.

Personally, I would recommend to people to move to a regional area for a tree change or sea change to see what it is like.

My house cost just $190,000 and has four bedrooms, an inground pool and huge living areas. And its only five minutes drive from work.

This means I can spend at least an hour more with my kids than I could when I lived in Canberra (and commuting is worse in Sydney and Melbourne)and my wife doesn't have to work to help pay the bills.

Not everyone has total choice in this regards but parenting is often about sacrifice for the children.

I remember a magnet mum used to have on the fridge "Spend twice as much time and half as much money on your kids and they will grow up happy.

As one of six reasonably successful, well adjusted kids, it just might work you know.

t.u.s

I thank the common sense of Australians who didn't vote for him, since judging by his insular irratic personality,we would now be all in a whirlwind of chaos.

Sam & tus, I’m glad you enjoy your lifestyle, and I hope your children enjoy your choices as well. However your arrogant assumptions that you have all the answers – and only your way of raising children is correct - are an insult to parents everywhere who don’t choose to your way. Who do, either for choice or necessity, live in cities where the cost of living is higher. How dare you assert that working parents cannot be good parents, that the two states of being (worker and parent) are mutually exclusive. Oh, unless you have a wife doing the parenting part for you of course, while you’re in the paid workforce, albeit for one hour less per day. Sorry, this does not make you a better parent than anybody else. But learning a bit more acceptance and understanding of other peoples’ positions – and teaching this to your children - just might.

Katyana,

Sorry if I came across as arrogant, that's not the intention.

Iwas just saying that for me personally I prefer to forgo a bit of earning capacity to spend more time with my family.

What I do is just one of many options but it is the right one for me and I did say that not everyone has total choice in this matter.

The article is about getting out of the struggle of the rat race, I proffered my idead of how you can do that to some extent.

Some people like the pressure and that it is their choice but the reality is it often leads to less time with the children - something I will not do.

I do not condemn anyone who does not get to spend a lot of time with their kids, because it is quality not quantity that is important.

Still though, I enjoy as much time with my children and wife as possible and it is possible if you sacrifice some things, just as Mark Latham did.

t.u.s.

katyana

I am not sure of the exact cause for your excessively emotive post but in it the answer of what you really think and feel about your life show and it also shows that you are doing the expected thing of toeing the official line to this so called over working parents can be good parents.

Eventually you are not the decider of how good a parent you are but your child is and if your child who are by the way are smarter than most of us think and have a good understanding of what their parents should be and do in caring for them and helping them grow then who grows as a effective mentally and emotionally balanced adult capable of handling challenges in life then you should be proud as a parent.

But if your child is fearful and under command to obey rules having little expression of who they are as you usually get in these government and institutional care when our children are spending most time and which number of parents acutually want and their nurturing care increasingly neglected by their busy parents then you are more of a failure as a parent.

Nothing personal and its the way it is and you make the decision of do you want your child to one of the obeyers or a independent individual.

Sam

I can honestly agree that from the experiances of my fahther who just recenlty passed away at the early age of 52 and who loved us dearly that I wish he was able to spend more time with us rather then working, but I understnad that he needed to work to put food on the table and care for us, and I don't blame him for wanting the best for us, but I still wish everyday that he was able to be there when i graduated year 12, or on my formal day, or my school award days. I am only 20 and now that he is gone he will miss my graduation from university, my engagement, my wedding the birth of my children etc.

A fathers love is so important... I wanted to share all of these experiacnes with him. I beg those fathers out there with children, try not to miss out on the really important aspects, my father was a generous loving man who worked 10-12hours a day down a mine to keep us going and becasue he worked causal he couldnt really take any days off.

I always just wanted to share these moments with my father as I wanted him to be proud of me, I wanted him to know how succesful I was going to become.

Eventually the stress of working long hours away from family got to much for him, and his heart couldn't keep up. the last few weeks he always told me how he wanted to spend more time with family when he retired, all of the things he missed out on he didnt want to miss out on anymore. But he never got that chance to enjoy hs family. He was going to retire in two years time when he worked up enough money to live off...