Spring 2003
Nine to Five
by David Stone
"I have been so close to an eagle in the air I could hear the wind in his wings as he went by, and his eyes were like polished black onyx," said James Fieser, an avid hang glider. "The hair on my body stood on end. When I fly with eagles I do so with their permission. My wings are fast but they are the masters. They’re just amazing."
Fieser, an equipment operator at the Anacortes Shell Refinery, said hang gliding is religion, work is life. He has been hang gliding for 15 years. Seeing eagles is a large part of the experience, he said.
"You cannot get anywhere near an eagle, it chooses to get near you, and when it does, you realize that no matter how much technology you have, nature chooses how close it comes to you," Fieser said.
He said he started hang gliding after he realized work should not consume his life.
In his first year of hang gliding Fieser flew 162 times. Now he said he works at the refinery so he can afford to hang glide. Fieser usually works 40 hours a week, but has worked up to 84 hours a week for eight straight weeks when machines at the refinery were broken. Despite the hours, Fieser finds time to fly.
Many people don’t have the same opportunity. American workers put in more time on the job than any other industrialized country according to a 1999 report by the International Labour Organization, a United Nations agency.
In a survey conducted from 2000 to 2003 by the National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, 72 percent of people said long hours at work constrained their recreation. The survey revealed the growing trend that Americans are feeling pressured to work more and recreate less.
"The main reason people don’t recreate is because they are forced into making money," Fieser said. "Most of the world has given up."
"Work is very much the core of what we would define (as) success in our lives today," said Charles Sylvester, a professor of recreation at Western Washington University. "I think in a lot of peoples’ lives their recreation and leisure are their priority. Still, the prevailing message in our society is work is what counts first and foremost. I think a lot of people see work as an end in itself rather than a means to an end."
Sylvester said the work ethic goes back to the Protestant reformation. Protestants believed God called all people to participate in his plan, and one of the main ways to do this was to serve God in a job. Protestants believed people were predestined for heaven or hell, so many tried to answer their calling diligently.
"There was a tendency to put into two camps the people who were industrious in their calling and the slackers," Sylvester said. "That was a convenient way for folks to say, ‘Well, they’re the ones who are destined for hell in a hand basket.’"
As the Protestant work ethic became more secularized, people continued to look to work for answers and meaning in their lives. Many continued to distrust leisure as "the devil’s workshop," Sylvester said.
This work ethic has affected the way we view work today, he said.
"Who do we frown upon in our society?" Sylvester said. "Who are the useless folks? Well, first of all the unemployed, the bums. Somehow it’s a reflection of their moral character."
Edgar Jackson, a professor at the University of Alberta and co-author of "Leisure Studies: Prospects for the Twenty-First Century," said people are putting off their leisure for longer periods of time, hoping to work now and play later.
Jackson said the trend is for people to defer their leisure, trading time for money, hoping to be able to take more time off in the future. Some people wait for several months so they can take a vacation, while others postpone recreation until retirement, he said.
"Some people are being much more conscious of balance," Jackson said. "Others are making choices that may leave them off balance for 40 years."
Deferring leisure until retirement has its own problems, Jackson said. When people get older they lose much of their physical ability and are more isolated from facilities and people. They have the time and the money from years of work but they also have new constraints, blocking their leisure, he said.
Matt Durand, a teacher at Horizon Middle School in Ferndale, Wash., said people often feel when they start a family, go into retirement or start a career, they have to give up recreation.
"I see a lot of families and a lot of kids I grew up with whose parents were active before they had kids, and then (when) you have kids you have to give that part of your life up," Durand said. "I think it is values that get instilled that you have phases in your life that you have to keep changing."
Changes in life bring on changes in constraints, Jackson said.
Geoffrey Godbey, professor of leisure studies at Pennsylvania State University, said his research has shown people have enough time, but busy schedules and consumption prevent recreation.
He said people have an average of 35 hours of leisure time a week but time is wasted on television, surfing the web and other activities that require little time and effort.
"The majority of (leisure) comes on weekdays rather than weekends and comes in short periods," Godbey said. "There is time to do it if you add up all the chunks."
A couple hours is not enough time for people to go on a hike, ride a bike or get into the outdoors, he said.
Even if people do have the time, Godbey said, consumption limits what they can do. People can continue consuming indefinitely and not feel fulfilled; they always want more things. The objects they consume take time at work to afford and free time to maintain.
"Whatever we own, owns us," he said.
Godbey said people pick consumption over leisure because they are not limited in the amount they can consume.
"Consumption is open-ended so there can never be enough time, never enough anything," Godbey said.
Chester Zeller, a co-owner of reSport Consignments, LLC, a sport equipment consignment store in downtown Bellingham, runs his business trying to help people regain their leisure time and money.
"For the exercise equipment it’s the standard, ‘I use it for six months and I find I do not have time to use it anymore,’" Zeller said. "Someone gets a new snowboard so they want to get rid of their old snowboard. It is still good but they do not want it in their closets anymore."
People have closets and garages full of sporting equipment because Americans live in a hoarding culture, Zeller said. People purchase new products when the old ones are still usable, he said.
"Our society is built on style and what’s in," he said. "I mean, how much more technology can you get into a snowboard. It’s the look, the style, it’s always the bottom line, so we live in a society of over-consumption when it comes to style."
Some wonder if the solution to overwork and over-consumption lies overseas.
"We need a European model, there is no question," Durand said. "I am a firm believer in the four-day work week, maybe the eight-hour day. It’s almost like school schedules; having summers off. I think the European model would be a good move for us."
According to the ILO, after France put through legislation limiting the workweek to 35 hours, they reduced their time at work to an average of 1,656 hours yearly. This is compared to the U.S. average of 1,966 hours yearly, a difference of 310 hours.
"There is nothing holy or sacrosanct about a 40 hour work week," Sylvester said. "I am convinced it can be reduced."
He said for people to work less they need institutional support much like many European countries. In some European countries, the law guarantees six weeks of paid vacation.
There are other solutions for people before America has an institutionalized system, Sylvester said. Education is important so people can see the difference between the United States and other countries. It is also important so they can critique their own time on the job and make a decision, he said.
Fieser has his own solution to the problem.
"The sun is the author of all life and creation on earth, and sun is a metaphor, but not just a metaphor, it is the light of the world," Fieser said. "It makes the air move. It makes the trees grow. It makes the water rise and fall. My advice to everybody would be to get out in the sun.