Customer Reviews

The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work

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Hocschild's book can be criticized for being limited to only one case study -- a real Fortune 500 Company. That aside, she presents disturbing findings that do ring true with other observations on contemporary corporate culture. Most significant is the way in which an organization manipulates total quality managerial approaches to create work groups that begin to provide greater levels of social satisfaction than our families do. This is not to say that Hochschild blames the corporate top brass entirely -- she also points out the ways in which parents and spouses have willingly shifted thier time allotment and devotional energies from familiy settings to work groups.

Hochschild's book not only asks what becomes of the family if such a trend is prevalent, but also what becomes of an entire generation that may be placing more and more value on work-related achievements than on the nurturing experiences of family life. While again it should be pointed out that Hochschild's findings are based on a singular case study, her observations have a disturbing resonance with other looks at the fast and furious pace of attaining the American Dream. I would recommend this book to anyone who has questioned the supposed virture of climbing career ladders, as well as to those who have suspected that families are being gradually shoved out of the mainstream of American social life. Another work that is very related, and amplifies many of Hochschild's findings (while taking a more general perspective) is Stephen Bertman's excellent "Hyperculture," also available at Amazon. Perhaps we see here the beginning of the most significant issue of the next millenium: how do we define what is of REAL value as the assault on our time continues?

I picked this book up just by chance. I found it truthful, enlightening and very thought provoking. It is clear that the battle for our time is present. How should we be judged? Are we to be judged based on the hours of servitude or our accomplishments? What is the ultimate effect of long hours on our lives and families? In the modern job shuffle, are the hours justified?

The Time Bind is not about work. The reason that Hochschild uses so much work based data is because she wants to show that there is nothing at work in particular that makes us HAVE to be there. She talks about the horrible lack of support for young families that ends up making work more pleasant than home because at least at work parents are supported and know when they are doing the right thing or the wrong thing. (At home you never know if taking or not taking the lollipop from your 2-year-old will render them into raving loonies in 20 years.) The only time she really gets into how work itself contributes is when she says that many family friendly policies are an illusion or are believed to be an illusion by the workers. However, this book is not quite as clear as the Second Shift, which I thought was brilliant. It is also clarified by a knowledge of the Second Shift; it's easier to see the family orientation if you're familiar with her other work.

Summary:
The book is essentially a report of the findings of a 3-year qualitative study by the author, Arlie Hochschild, of a Fortune 500 company's 'family-friendly' practices. The author interviewed people in all tiers of the organization, conducted surveys, followed employees, and did participant observations to try to understand how the company's family-friendly policies were being implemented.

The result is The Time Bind. Though the company wants to give the impression that it is family-friendly, certain factors are working against the company actually living up to its policies. One is that for many of the managers at the company 'face time' or actually being at work is more important than actually doing anything at work. If your understanding of 'family-friendly' includes the possibility of working fewer hours, this is going to work against anyone that wants to participate in an hour reduction program.

Another thing that the author posits that is working against family friendliness is that companies are turning the work environment into a safe and comforting environment (though doing this actually covers up the temporariness inherent in companies) and in essence are replacing the home environment or turning the home environment into something more akin to what work environments have traditionally been seen as being (e.g. scheduling time for kids and spouses, running from one thing to the next, not being able to rest, etc.). The result is that many people actually want to spend more time at work then they do at home because they feel more relaxed at work then they do at home. (Read the book to understand this argument more fully.)

My Comments:
I think the book is great. Admittedly one could claim that the author is biased - perhaps she is a social democrat that hates capitalism and sees her efforts as a way of attacking capitalism. I guess that is a possibility. And it does lead to the one criticism I see in the book: Arlie Hochschild never openly states the perspective she brings to the table in exploring the ramifications of The Time Bind. At one point she does posit that children that are left home alone have a higher rate of drug and alcohol abuse than do kids that are not left home alone. So, I guess her bias does seep out through comments like that. But, for individuals that share her bias (which is probably most people), I think this book does a great job of illustrating that capitalism really does have some problems - one being the deemphasizing of the family and the focus on work instead. In this sense, I can't help but comment that perhaps Emile Durkheim, in claiming that the eventual dissolution of religious authority that lent solidarity to society would be replaced by the workplace, seems to find a home in The Time Bind.

Overall, the book is very well-written and engaging. The findings are presented using specific people and their stories which makes the book more like a morally laden collection of stories. But the scholarship does not appear to be influenced by the plight of the individuals. And, the author does not write this book at a scholarly level and fill it with sociological jargon. The book should be readable by anyone. I would highly recommend it.

Caveat:
There has been some follow up research done on Hocschild's theories about how the workplace has become more like home and vice versa. Most of the research says this isn't necessarily accurate. Though there could be some truth to this, the more likely cause of increased time spent working is due to managerial demands and more women working full time rather than people just wanting to be at work.

The Time Bind was interesting in that it stops us long enough to examine the endless pressures that we believe are immutable. Ms Hochschild raises questions of how much pressure we may create for ourselves, how that is reinforced by the workplace and the economic, social, political climate that fosters it and the painful consequence of reduced quality of life. In attempting to raise our consciousness on this matter and to ask about our priorities we are invited to step briefly outside the current paradigm to consider saner possibilities. Since so many people seem so very dissatisfied, this can only be a good thing.

Initially I approached this book thinking that it told the familiar (and not particularly interesting) tale of how the endless demands of the workplace are slowly eating way at the little time that we have to spend with our families or just ourselves. Well, this is NOT that tale. Rather, Professor Hochschild explores and succinctly describes how the workplace has become the dynamic community in our lives, to the exclusion of all else and at a price. The reasons have little to do with "work becoming unmanageable;" rather, it is "work becoming community." I find her ideas provocative, eye-opening and remarkably non- ideological, as it is simply reporting what is happening in our Country and to some extent throughout the world. Anyone who runs around 24/7 with a cell phone, beeper, blackberry, etc. knows what I am talking about. Highly recommended.

This was a required book for a sociology class I took in college. Before I started the book I looked at it like any other text book, boring... BUT once I read it I really enjoyed it. Maybe because of my social work/sociology path in life that I honestly enjoyed it, but I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who want's a look at dynamics between working parents (particularly women) and their children.

The book is written well, and get the point across in an anecdotal kind of way, by exploring the life and work psyche of workers and managers from "Amerco".
Very thought provoking about concepts such as family, money, and why the hell we work so hard...

I received the book I needed in a timely matter. The book came as it was described. I would buy from this seller again.

I ordered the and in a short time the book was delivered in great shape.
I want to thank Amazon for customer service and effiency.