Have you met a person at your job that literally can’t stop working? If so, is it a coworker or your boss? Is it YOU? If so, why the extra time spent working? Simple questions but the answers aren’t so simple.

Let’s say you have what people call a ‘9-5’ job, five days a week. There are many scenarios and there are perks, such as you may be able to work from home, work various hours each day or get to play ping pong at lunch. But by Sunday, let’s say on an average week you have put in an extra 15 hours over five evenings and over 10 hours on the weekend. You worked 65 hours and are paid for a 40-hour salary.

Can you answer these questions:

1. Why did you work so many extra hours?
2. How did you feel at the end of the week by working extra hours?
3. What did you miss out on by working extra hours?  What did you gain, if anything?

If you google ‘Am I overworked?’ or ‘What to do about being overworked?’ you will find many articles on tips about how to talk to your manager, the human resources team or to make sure you take ‘mental breaks’ at lunch to clear your mind. Let’s say you take some of the advice and you take a walk outside during the workday or you meet with other colleagues to discuss how to deal with burdening work hours, which most likely turns into a bitch fest. All of this may bring temporary sanity, but at the end of the day you will go home and open your laptop on your couch or if not, go to bed and wake up stressed from being even more behind the next day.

Listen, there is a truth that in working out, talking to friends, talking to your manager and human resources or other types of mind/body/spirit therapies to figure out how to cope or change your workload. But unless the actual demands of the workload go away, you will still spend less time with your family and living your life outside of work.

This article isn’t going to give you advice on how to manage long hours from a company that is guilty of encouraging the culture of overwork. What it is going to tell you is that if your company has a culture of overworking its employees, the company is an asshole.

Whoa! Can you call a company an asshole? Yes, you can. 

It doesn’t mean it’s the worst place in the world or has the worst people, it means the company needs to rethink working hard versus working smarter. I don’t care if it’s a company that is launching a new product or has intense demands from investors to grow globally and ‘do more with less’ – it’s not acceptable.

Working long hours damages our health, productivity, and family life. Somewhere along the way, working more has been confused with working smart.

Read that again. And again. The problem with most guidance on how to navigate a burned-out work environment is that its a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard ‘it’s just a period of time we have to work harder/longer and it will get better soon’. It’s no different than a partner telling you they only cheated once, it will never happen again.

We have to demand better and not judge across all factors, including marital or single status or whether people are caregivers for children or parents or not. It doesn’t matter how busy people are outside of work, we all need to stand together.

So how do we get back to our lives outside of work really being ‘outside of work’? Here are some suggestions.

1. It starts and ends at the top, so get their attention. AT a previous job, I met with my human resources person to discuss guidance on how to speak to my manager about my workload. I was told to expect a reply that others received: it’s just the way it is going to be because my manager and their manager worked the same hours. This is unacceptable and squarely on the shoulders of all executives and leaders of the company. What can you do when HR has depressing advice?
   • Be honest on the employee survey or ask human resources to consider a confidential survey if there isn’t one.
   • There’s safety in numbers, talk to managers with a group of colleagues about real-life situations. It may work out better to have an intellectual conversation in a group so the managers understand it’s a company culture problem, not just an individual.
   • If you are worried about bringing up the issue, email your manager and cc: HR and give specific examples If you are working at home until 11pm three nights a week, it’s ok to go into detail by giving an example of your workday. If you have 3.5 hours of meetings, answer emails for two hours, you end up with only 2.5 hours a day to actually work.

If your manager(s) want to commiserate, no matter the avenue you take to talk about the workload, get them back on track to your situation so they have to address a problem with a solution. Do not end up feeling sorry for them, it is up to them to address their issues with their managers.

2. Stop feeling chained to work 24/7. Work is now accessible on your hip, in your purse, on your couch – yes, your emails demand attention on your phone, especially if you work in a global environment.

WIP…set expectations. Don’t answer emails after work hours. Easier said than done, but you may only have repeat offenders, so stop answering those people, just reply to your boss only if she/he needs something. talk about priorities, more with less work mentality doesn’t work as it’s always MORE. Work with management to convince that you can do three things really good and that’s it. Demand a good manager that supports this way of working. If your boss is constantly behind, cancels meetings, etc. – that’s a problem and part of the asshole mentality. Everything you do, think: does this help the customer? If not, how can you cut it out? Are there things that are done because ‘it’s always been this way’? Will the company allow interns? 

3. Don’t assume working more hours will get you [fill in the blank: the raise, the title, the recognition you deserve]. After all, your job is your career choice. You reluctantly or willingly stretch your workday hours, assuming you are building your career with hard work.

WIP…talk about getting wrapped up in the i can do it all mentality, including networking, building my brand, etc. Talk about weighing the downfalls and keeping it simple and focused on what’s important to you: more money (this still doesn’t mean more money means more working hours, it should mean working even smarter for you and your direct reports!) or industry awards…what does it really take to get what you want and are you doing it for you or others? be careful if you are proving yourself because you are a woman, etc. 

4. Be careful by telling yourself it’s ok, it’s for a good cause. You have a passion for your job because it’s ‘doing good’ and you feel you are helping the world.

WIP…Make sure it’s from the heart and you ‘see’ a difference in people’s lives but just as your own family, you can only help others if you are in a healthy place, etc. 

5. Don’t make excuses for working long hours and assume it will get better. You tell yourself you are fortunate to have a job with great benefits and long hours is part of the company, it’s growing and fast-paced and you are in good company with everyone else working the same hours.

WIP…We are messing up our health and family and social lives, while putting everything else, except work, on the back burner. Talk about how to demand a difference. A company doesn’t want to be an asshole and there are nice ways to let them know, such as…