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Tyler Marshall / Getty Images / Rubberball
For workers with mobile e-mail access, work is creeping into everything.
We do it in bed. We do it at the dinner table. We even do it on family outings.
Workers with mobile access admit they check their work e-mail pretty much all the time.
A new survey of 1,000 working adults with mobile e-mail access finds that those who have the ability to check in on work in their off hours are doing so. A lot.
The poll was conducted last May by OnePoll for an e-mail security company called Good Technology.
It found that 50 percent of full-time workers with a smartphone are checking their work e-mail while they're still in bed, and 69 percent won’t go to sleep without checking their work e-mail.
More than half – 57 percent – said they are checking work e-mails while on family outings, and 38 percent said they check work e-mails at the dinner table.
The work creep isn’t entirely optional. Almost half said they feel they have no choice but to stay connected during off hours because their customers demand it.
Related:
Many dads feeling pressure to 'do it all,' juggling work and family
CNBC's Mandy Drury reports a new study finds most of us check our smartphones for work email from home, including the bed.
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F that noise. I don't put my work email account on my phone. Of course I don't have to deal with customers either.
I like to work, so I don't mind checking email in my "off hours" most of the time. If something is going on, I generally don't check email...but if I'm just sitting around at the house, I'll check periodically.
You like to work? What kind of job do you have, drinking beer, or maybe watching TV?
I don't check mine because I don't allow my work to intrude. I told my boss I'll be happy to stay in touch via phone/email/txt as soon as he pays for the phone and the service. He won't, so I don't.
The most inappropriate time to check business e-mail? If your anywhere other than at work.
I turn off the volume and vibrate at home and while driving. I had to answer the phones 24/7 for years. Now, I do not have to answer except the few I choose. I also never set up my celll for email. I just checked with my computer when I had to. It sure is nice not to have to worry about that stuff or being connected all of the time.
Work! Slaves of money. Work! Harder! Shaack! [Whip splashes on their back].
Too many people looking at their cell phones all the time. If someone arrived here from 50 years ago they would think we've taken praying to a whole new level.
I can't stand it going up to the counter to buy something and the cashier is looking at their phone. Don't give the excuse it's work related.
Looks like the writer didn't spend enough time on the smartphone. I'm sure the correct usage of their, there, and they're is documented somewere :-)
It found that 50 percent of full-time workers with a smartphone are checking their work e-mail while their still in bed, and 69 percent <<==== while they're still in bed (as in they are still in bed).
Call me old school if you will, but I believe my workday ends when I walk out the door at work, and doesn't start again until I walk in the next morning. I absolutely refuse to check anything having to do with work after hours or while I'm on vacation, and will not answer the phone if the call originated at work. Those are times to relax with friends and family and recharge yourself for work. If you are always checking emails, etc, when do you ever recharge? Too many people are either too scared to leave work at work, or they are addicted to the attention that getting emails and answering them seems to give to them. I have a smartphone, but my use of it is for my personal benefit and enjoyment only, not to have anything at all to do with work.
Amen.
Amen!
It would be nice if life worked that way. Many of us have jobs that will suffer (cause us suffering) when we return to them, if we're not at least occasionally available to someone at work for questions etc. It is a bother, and an intrusion but the possibility of walking into a landmine of chaos when I return to work outweighs the hassle.
Sorry pal, but a 'well-oiled-machine' will run in a seamless manner..................
Fral0659....................you get another Amen from me :-)
I think some professions, by their nature, require offhours ontime, such as police, firemen, doctors, certain government officials - you know, people who do important things in the world. However, a low level employee at an investment firm or some marketing agency - wooptie do. The world will continue to spin if you wait until tomorrow to answer that email.
Smartphones, tablets, connected TVs, etc, are part of the 1% conspiracy to extract even MORE UNPAID OVERTIME from non-exempt managers than they already do!
That does seem to be the effect of all this connected technology, although I am reluctant to call it a conspiracy.
In my last job, they wanted me wired in. My feelings are when you pay me XXX dollars then you can contact me day and night. With what you were paying you don't have that privilege to contact me 24 hours a day. The idiots were running around in a frenzy getting calls all day, on vacation, on the toilet, during sex, during surgery (ha-ha). Let them die at age 50 from stress but I am not. I am in the process of starting my own business because I am too smart for the corporate jail. What idiots. Not only are poeple working long hours/days but now they have to have the corporate world in their living rooms 24 hours a day. Go to hell corporate world!
Last September, I went on a cruise to Greece and Turkey and then on to Barcelona. I had to take my work phone and computer with me. My phone wouldn't work and my computer was being difficult. I did finally answer 80 e-mails in Barcelona but ha, ha I didn't let work interfer with my vacation at all. Had a blast and quit the job in November.
The President of that company goes on vacation and gets calls all day and night (ha-ha). He is an a$$ and makes the big $$$. He will probably croak by mid-50s. He stated that if someone dies we would just walk over them (the male population). What an idiot! This tool can't run a 5k let alone a company.
Souless
'
Many jobs and even many careers - but still only one life time - I'll spend my off time doing what I work for - family and hobbies.
In my industry we are fully expected to be available all of the time. Our laptops and smartphones go with us everywhere, including on vacation, and it isn't just our boss driving this. Our clients call all hours of the day and sometimes night and expect that we will answer or return their call immediately. I would love to shut down but I would be looking for another job. Being a technical professional requires that level of commitment these days.
Jaden..........bull
Jaden-001...."Being a technical professional requires that level of commitment these days."
Only because some people let clients get away with it. Unless it's a life or death situation the clients world most likely will not come to a screaching end..... not including medical situations of course.
Clients pay the bills...if I don't answer the phone they will call someone else. I work in communications and if there is a service outage then the virtual world will come to a screeching halt. It doesn't have to be a life or death situation for you to lose a customer and hurt your company's reputation. Industry talk can destroy a business and sometimes to prevent that sacrifices have to be made. I'm sure most of us connected professionals try to balance it as best as we can. My biggest point I'm trying to make is that I agree with this article. This is the direction the workplace is going and I don't see it getting better.
Sorry about your situation, Jaden, but if your customers need 24/7 access to your company, your employer should hire enough people to service those customers when you (and they) aren't on the clock. Indispensible people get paid 7 figure salaries.
How can you say bull? Do you know me? Do you know where I work? Did you not just read the news article that talked about this? I think in the technical professional world this is more the norm than it is an oddity.
I work in a techno geek world too for 26+ years, but I control it, it does not control me. We can talk tomorrow, I am going fishin' tonight....'click'.
Jaden right. In insurance sales, 10 other broker in line for the business need answers now all the time... so and so is sick in the ER can't get the insurance carrier on the phone can you help.... it never stops.
My boss and I try to take turns to get a little relief
All the more reason for a single payer insurance carrier.
Couldn't turn it off if I wanted - if you work in a global industry like I do you don't have a choice. The cliche in my industry is "cellphone/laptop" - that's how business is transacted in a 24/7 world. If you aren't on your laptop - your cellphone (starting to be Pads) is the backup.
Sure, there are still some jobs that don't require it, but I would bet most professions now demand perpetual connectivity and interaction. business never stops. If you aren't 24/7, then don't question why your coworker who is plugged in got promoted when you didn't.
It's also why firms can do more with less workers - 1 person now does the work of 2 or 3. Think of a business as a machine - if you are the component that only stays on 8 hours a day, don't be surprised to be replaced with an upgraded component - a component that stays on 24 hours a day.
Because of this phenomenon, Brazil just enacted a law that businesses have to pay overtime for any and all (email included & even for salaried workers) work outside of the business day. Most firms have now programmed their phone/email systems to NOT forward anything after work hours.
Frankly, Brazil did a great thing for their society and it's a great law. We can wish the US would take the same stance, but in a fascist nation this will never happen.
I would bet that most of the people on here that talk the trash, "I work for what I get paid for, when I leave work, work stays at work until tomorrow", are the same people that get on here and trash the people they work for, "they are getting rich off the backs of us workers". I won't slam you, it is nice to have commitment to ones self but it is also nice to have commitment to ones employer, to a certain extent (it is called job security). There is commitment and there is over commitment and parameters need to be understood.
The person that said when you pay me $$$ then call me, otherwise don't. If he worked for me, I would tell him that the company is cutting back and we are keeping those employees with the most commitment. Sorry, we will be cutting you loose. But we all know that jobs are easy to come by, so he would probably give me a 1 finger salute and say I quit.
People that are in sales or self employed (I am), their phones are their livelihood. I refuse to answer the phone at dinner, at checkout counter or any other place that I may inconvenience the cashier or people waiting on me, that includes my family. I have voice mail they can leave a message. Email I check periodically anyway.
The one thing I hate more than anything, is the A-hole that has to have his/her phone on the golf course and talk when it is their shot.
I keep work at work and home at home and that is the way it is supposed to be!
Thanks for the comments that concurred with my posting. I agree that most professional jobs do demand prepetual connectivity. I carry a smartphone, iPad, and laptop pretty much everywhere I go.
When you work from home (i.e. you don't have an office) its a difficult argument to make that you shouldn't check your e-mail. What I do is this. Unless there is a very time critical need for me to answer an e-mail after work hours, I will not, I may read the e-mail but answering it will not happen.
Lastly, if your boss and most of your colleages are on the west coast and you are on the east coast, a 7PM dinner time for you is 4PM for them...so you have to be somewhat available untill all your colleauges are out for the day. No matter what timezone.
Thank the Gods I don't have one for work. My rather large company is more worried that we'll be out playing golf than working! So, due to their paranoia, I blessedly leave work at 5pm and don't give work another thought until the next morning at 830am!
Actually, I thought being constantly connected was the whole point of having a smartphone and/or tablet. That is what pays your bills people, not facebook or angry birds or whatever you are using your devices for. My business is certainly why I have my devices.
I have been a sort of satellite field service engineer since the early 90's with an office at home and the company on the other side of the country. early on we used pagers, I considered the cell phone era a godsend and smartphones with instant constant international connectivity was like dying and going to heaven.
As a satellite I love the connectivity, because I never want to feel out of the loop. As another commenter said, this is what pays my bills and feeds my family. And I'd prefer this over 9 to 5 punching a clock every day.