Married to the Job: Why We Live to Work and What We Can Do About It [Hardcover]

Ilene Philipson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2002

Work is not "life," we tell ourselves. Yet too many of us stay at work till midnight and hunger for our bosses' approval. We socialize with colleagues and supervisors. We might even wear the company's logo and make its slogan our mantra. And when something goes wrong--when we're laid off, transferred, or simply chewed out--ourworlds fall apart.

We are a nation obsessed with work.

In this provocative and chilling book, clinical psychologist Ilene Philipson explores the idea of the overworked American from a startlingly new perspective. She doesn't believe, as some social commentators have suggested, that we work to buy fancy toys and to keep up with the Joneses. She's convinced that, more and more, life outside work seems colorless and unfulfilling, and that it is our jobs that generate feeling of self-worth and the sense that we're connected to something larger than ourselves. For too many of us, work has become the closest thing to family and religion we have--the core of our emotional and spiritual lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Through her work observing Americans' work habits, psychotherapist Ilene Philipson found that people increasingly look to their jobs for self-worth and a sense that they're connected to something larger than themselves. Work is "colonizing our emotional lives," she writes, and in Married to the Job: Why We Live to Work and What We Can Do About It, she shares stories of people who seek to fill the self-worth void by working until midnight and having a social world that revolves around their colleagues. It's important not to become overattached to your job, Philipson says, and she shows readers how to see that there's more to life than work.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Philipson, a psychotherapist, has written a bleak account of "the problem with no name," or the way employees overinvest in their workplace. She has treated many patients for whom work has become their life and obsession. The author provides numerous case studies that describe how people look to their work for emotional fulfillment, feelings of self-worth, and family connections. They stay late at work, socialize with their colleagues, and thrive on praise from supervisors. When these employees feel snubbed or betrayed by their workplace, they are often incapacitated over their treatment and are unable to return to work. Philipson contends that this is not an individual's problem but society's problem, as society places a higher value on work than leisure. Most of the book focuses on personal stories and the psychological factors behind being "married to your job," but the author does suggest ways to set emotional boundaries at work and become more involved with family and social activities outside of the workplace. This title joins such other workplace studies as Arlie Hochschild's The Time Bind and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed as an essential purchase for public and academic collections.
Stacey Marien, American Univ. Lib., Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (September 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743215788
• ISBN-13: 978-0743215787
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,098,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and highly relevant, March 11, 2003

By 

Douglas B Kubel (Chapel Hill, NC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Married to the Job: Why We Live to Work and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)

This work by Ilene Philipson tackles the American epidemic of emotional over-investment in the workplace. She makes the case for the growth of the problem, then follows with analysis of the causes and the implications of this pervasive cultural change from both individual and social perspectives. She illustrates the book throughout with cases from her clinical counseling practice.

I respectfully disagree with the prior reviewer who suggests that this book is for women only. I and several of my male friends have read the book and found it informative and useful in thinking through our professional situations and personal attitudes toward work.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, male or female, who is asking themselves hard questions about why they or someone they care about has been working so hard for so long and not really understanding why they're doing it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative and insightful, April 16, 2006

By 

Remus Miclea (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Married to the Job: Why We Live to Work and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)

Few years after the book was published, its message seems to stand out even clearer. Especially true in companies who are leading the market and/or trying to be part of the "new revolution", the work-life balance is getting harder to find and keep.

Looking at how a lot of my friends and I work and live, it certainly seems that the trend, even though few would admit it, is this: work longer hours in the hope of making the world better (but who benefits?), postponing leisure for an undetermined time, most often in a distant future, when we'll be done changing the world...

I found the book very relevant, for men and women alike. I would highly recommend it to anyone who believes "working to live" is more human than "living to work".

3 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More for women than for men....., December 21, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Married to the Job: Why We Live to Work and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)

If you're a man and you'd like some perspective on why you work as much as you do----don't buy this book. The author admits that 85% of her clients are women, so perhaps the information is helpful if you are female. But for me (a man) it missed the mark as to why men work so much and what we can do to work less and feel like adequate providers (or just keep our jobs, for that matter!!).