Working long hours should not be demonised

The greatest danger from this is the effect on others as an unspoken expectation. No matter how many times it is repeated, by the University 'sausage' machine's (in)human resources policies to Deans and heads of dept that there's no compulsion to work long, often excessive hours. Staff and students, especially post grad students, pick up on this as a subliminal requirement to work too many hours adversely affecting the health, both (especially) mental and physical. That so many academics become their job title and lose all reality beyond it is unsurprising and the further up the greasy pole they clamber the worse it gets, the item on keeping up with academic literature also published today illustrates some of the issues too. And with the employers failing to keep pay in line with inflation why should staff be expected to give even more for less? The current under the radar offer of 2% if the unions don't consult the members and just accept without mandate, over the 'public' offer of 1.8% shows the level of continued exploitation of staff in the sector.

The last paragraph is very naff indeed.

I agree with NJF's comments above. Because staff performance is based on outcomes (e.g., grants obtained, papers published) and does not factor in number of work hours done per week, over-working then distorts these performance indices. This then creates a work environmental pressure for others to over work (e.g., 'look at XYZ, s/he managed to do ABC within a year (caveat: because s/he worked a 75hr workweek)' etc. I understand the author's reason about individual choice to over-work but the current job performance evaluation only makes it worse for people with legitimate non-work commitments (e.g., children and family) and besides it affects *their* choice to keep their work within the contracted number of weekly hours too, which is also their legal entitlement (you get paid for the number of hours you commit and what you do). All it takes is for 1 or 2 persons to over-work and they will soon be used as role models by the university management for everyone else to emulate. This is particularly prevalent in collectivistic Asian cultures where the line manager sets when employees get off work. In Japan, for example, an employee is pressured to continue to work until their line manager leaves the office. I do not blame people who choose to work more, I blame an inadequate job evaluation system. Until the job evaluation system corrects for this, my stance of advising people NOT to overwork still remains.

All I have to say - "define work". It is not having a cup of coffee and chatting in the common room. Most academics do "long hours " but their productivity is very poor. Its is the old Anglo-Saxon problem - " Look at me - I am always in the office/Lab - I must be good ". Really, how long does it take to rehash the last grant proposal and resubmit it? :-)