78% of American workers say they are burnt out. In other news, 22% of American workers are drinking or lying

According to a recent poll, about 78 percent of American workers say they feel burned out. Gee, why ever would American workers feel burned out? Could it be the constant threat of layoffs as organizations seem to restructure every year while sending your job overseas (white and blue collar)? The unwillingness of companies to keep up with inflation with stingy raises for those who actually do the work that make a company succeed with the expectation that workers will completely surrender their life to work? Upper management making millions in compensation while only giving the rank and file 2 to 3 weeks of vacation and increasing their work load (thank you sir, may I have another [smack])? And until workers are ready to say yes we can and get serious about the need to change tracks and demand workers get more benefits at the expense of the stock market (which many workers are invested in via their 401k), work life will only get worse.

Though I definitely fall into the underpaid, overworked crowd, I do have one great benefit. My job has very flexible hours, the work week is generally under 40 hours, lets me telecommute 3 days a weeks and allows me to take time off pretty much whenever. More importantly, with small children, I'm home with them a lot more than I would be otherwise. It was very nice the other day to email my boss and say I was taking my comp time (our official week is 35 hours, I haven't worked that little in years) & headed to the shore with my son. Life is too short to be miserable.

I have a job that pays me much less than what I should be earning via my education and the amount of work I do. I'm juggling more plates than I can count these days. I constantly work on special projects that make the company significant money and my only reward is getting a 3.1% raise over a 2.9% raise at the end of the year with no chance of promotion thanks to a flat structure. If I chose, I could probably find an organization with much better career opportunities. So why do I stay? Simple, it's due to flexibility. Nothing like taking the sting out of Monday morning than the knowledge that I don't have to battle rush hour.

Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of Sundays I wake up and thing "ugh, tomorrow is Monday." My job sucks at time, and I'm definitely feeling burnt out, but then I have to remind myself that there is more to life than work. You either live to work or work to live. I choose the later. This may bite me later, when I'll be wishing I had more money, but for now it is ok. Life is a tradeoff. Those who keep believing that if they just work hard for their employer that things will get better for them are doomed. I know of one long time worker in my office who, when asked why she was leaving, simply replied, this place finally wore me down. I'm pretty sure that will be me one day.

Hard work and determination. That's the ticket! Just buckle down and get the job done.And it would be excellent advice if I was my own boss of my own company. However most of us are not. We work for somebody else and are subject to the whims of our employers. Most of us just have to take it and grin. Complain and the results may not be what you'd like. As one director in my company said when an employee was complaining about something, "there are no locks on the exit door."

So until then, ignore the man behind the director's door making much more than you, getting two or three times as much vacation time as you, shows up later, leaves earlier, does half as much actual work, and knows about as much about your field as you've forgotten. Keep working hard, you have nowhere to go in your organization but up. *snickers*