Working long hours: Is it worth it?

"30 hours and still going strooong."

That was the last tweet of 24-year-old Y&R Indonesia copywriter Mita Diran. Her death in 2013, possibly from a combination of overworking and excessive intake of Kratingdaeng, a strong energy drink, stunned an industry that has grown so used to a culture of putting in long hours.

Ad agencies are known for their extremely toxic work culture, often demanding employees to work overtime to catch a deadline. The culture is not just in Indonesia—it is everywhere. Teresa (name has been changed), who has recently resigned from her post as an art director in one of the largest ad agencies in the Philippines, says, “It doesn’t help that with the Internet, information is practically coming at you. For instance, a very catchy and huge promo is launched by a telecom company, and your client happens to be their competitor. You might just find yourself working through the night only to come up with ‘damage control,’ say, an equally huge and catchy counter-promo, to be launched the following day.

“I’m not really surprised Diran did what she did,” she notes. “Diran was young—it’s really the young ones who are most willing to take everything the management hands to them. They are so enthusiastic and so willing, that’s why bosses like them.”

Teresa, who has worked in the industry since graduating college and is now in her early 30s, has done her share of staying up till the morning to catch the deadlines. She even tells of an instance in which she felt that one more push could have garnered her a heart attack.

“I could feel my heart rate, it was palpitating. I decided to take a 2-hour nap, but when I awoke to continue working, the feeling was still there. The thought of getting a heart attack crossed my mind ... but it didn’t scare me at the time. All I thought was, ‘If that happened, I wouldn’t need to catch this deadline!’”

Learning

Of course, the willingness to see the project through despite the long hours and health risks can stem from the fact that young employees today constantly search for learning and progress, and they find those things here.

Teresa remarks, “I was under a really demanding boss for my last two years, and the only good thing I can really say about it is that I learned more in those two years than in my first four years as an art director under another boss and the four years of college before that combined. Do I regret doing all that overtime? No, I don’t. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s what made me—it was all a part of my training. You learn what works and what doesn’t, you grow in your art … and not to mention you learn how much flak you can take from people.”

With cases like Diran’s, however, it seems questionable whether the learning acquired is worth all the wellness spent. Is the company management to blame? The industry’s demands? The information highway? Perhaps the whole advertising biz needs to stop playing the blame game, take a step back and ruminate on justice: after all, on paper, these companies’ employees signed up for an 8-hour work day. Why isn’t anyone saying no to clocking in 16?

In an article for Digiday (www.digiday.com), Chapin Clark, Managing Editor of Copy at R/GA, an international advertising agency, notes, “In my experience, it’s a choice: A lot of times, when someone is constantly complaining or bragging about their hours, when you dig into it, the work does not demand it—the person is choosing to stay because they feel some sort of need to seem present, to project diligence, to score points by playing the role of the good soldier or to avoid going home because of whatever is going on there.”

A lot of times, when someone is constantly complaining or bragging about their hours, when you dig into it, the work does not demand it.

Vicious cycle

Looking at the overall picture, perhaps one cannot really just blame it on the employee and on the fact that they choose to follow orders, be seen as a “good soldier” or to be “in on it.” For that matter, it could be solely blamed on the others: the clients, the managers, the company executives. It’s the whole industry that apparently needs to shape up, particularly in the way they work together as an organic whole.

And, sure, employees can always resign. There are always more enthusiastic people out there who will take the vacated slot—the advertising industry is not without its perks. But people really have to start thinking about it because it’s not just talent that they are losing, it’s lives—both literal (as in Diran’s case) and figurative. The point to ponder really is: for a (insert a type of packaging) of (insert product), is it worth it?

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This article is posted with permission from the IESE Family-Responsible Employer Index, or IFREI Project in Asia