 From New America and Slate, I'm Bridget Schulte, and this is Better Life Lab. Life is full of hazards. Crazy drivers. Faulty wiring. Falling ladders. Stray fireworks. Angry warthogs. And this. We estimated about a 120,000 excess deaths in the United States annually from exposure to harmful workplace conditions. And so, yes, the workplace is hazardous to our health. That's Jeff Pfeffer. He's a professor in the business school at Stanford and a columnist for Fortune magazine. He's written 14 books. Number 15 has the title, Dying for a Paycheck. Our podcast looks at the art and science of living a full life. When we started talking about who we wanted to hear from, Pfeffer was near the top of the list. His research is impeccable and provocative. And the guy's got a salty sense of humor. Pfeffer joins us now from a studio in California in the heart of Silicon Valley, famous for its overwork culture. We started talking about a new paper by Jeff and some of his colleagues. They reviewed data from a number of prior studies measuring the effects of workplace practices, and they found some real surprises. Well, the thing that's most striking, I think, to me and my colleagues was after we had done these meta-analyses looking at the effect of 10 workplace practices on health, my colleague said, we need something to kind of as a baseline measure. And so we brainstormed for a while and we figured out one possible baseline measure would be second-hand smoke, which is a known carcinogen and heavily regulated. And it turns out almost all of the workplace practices we looked at, economic insecurity, absence of health insurance, long work hours, shift work, absence of job control, had health effects as large as second-hand smoke. And that struck us as quite striking and quite surprising. So how is it that we haven't done much about it then? I think we haven't done much about it in large measure because the costs have not always been well-quantified. But also, unlike the case of perhaps polar bears or penguins or other forms of endangered species, the assumption is that human beings can take care of themselves. There is a very market-based ethos in the world which says, you know, employers offer work, people accept the terms and conditions of that work. And if they don't like it or if they feel sick or if they feel unduly stressed, they should go find themselves another job. Well, how is that working for us, though? We have these massive effects that so many people are working long hours or in these insecure conditions or are really just getting sick from the way that we work. Well, I think part of it is that many people in today's economy don't really necessarily feel that they have an alternative to where they're currently working. And also, nobody comes in and on the first day they go home with headaches and migraines and all kinds of other stuff. So these are effects that kind of build up over time. And nobody says, you know, Bridget, you're going to go to work for a place where you'll have relatively little job control. Your boss will abuse you and we're not going to give you sufficient time off. I don't think many people would take that kind of job. But you go to work and then you learn that what you were promised is not necessarily what you're getting, but you're kind of there and you you're kind of committed to see it through and people don't like to quit. Nobody wants to think of themselves as a quitter. And so people really are willing to put up with quite a bit because they say, well, I'm going to power through it. I'm going to muscle through it. It's not so bad. I'm young. I'll only do it for a while until I make sufficient money to save up to look for a better job. And so there are lots of ways in which we rationalize staying in unhealthy situations. I think what strikes me here is that you're not talking about one particular industry or one particular age, you know, if we're young, we think we can put up with it because then something better is going to happen. What you're talking about is pretty, pretty widespread. It sounds like it's everywhere and everyone. Well, obviously not every workplace is hideously bad, but certainly. But I didn't mean to overgeneralize quite that badly. No, no, I mean, not every workplace is equally bad. But in terms of are there differences by industry, not particularly. You can find harmful work practices in the high tech industry. You can find it, I think, in virtually every industry. And certainly it affects people of all age groups. Now, it does affect people differentially by their education level. More educated people are generally able to get jobs that would have, for instance, health insurance that would have jobs that would provide them more job control, higher educated people are less likely, though they're not completely unlikely to work on shifts. And the higher level of education would probably also protect people at least to some extent against economic insecurity. So, so certainly the exposure to these harmful workplace practices varies by education of the individual, but not by industry and certainly not by age. Well, you know, one of the things that strikes me when you look at the workforce and you're so you're looking broadly. So, you know, you've got the people with more education and they tend to be in those more kind of professional jobs. And then what the research shows is that the hours have been climbing, putting in longer and longer hours, extreme hours, you know, the OECD. Their measure is that the United States works among the most extreme hours of any advanced economy. And then on the other end, you know, you've got low wage or hourly workers. It's chaotic. They may not have enough hours. They don't know when they're going to work. And like you say, they don't have that same sense of control or predictability. I guess the question is, why are we doing this? If the workplace is making us that sick, that's got to be a huge cost to business. And isn't the point of business due to make money? And to do well, wouldn't you want healthy employees? Well, I would think that you would want healthy employees. There has certainly been a lot of research that suggests, not surprisingly, that your employee health is related to productivity. But the question of why we put up with this is because I think we are concerned much more about the dollars and cents than we are about people's well-being and their health, which I think is a mistake. And I'm not sure businesses necessarily see the productivity loss of ill health, in part because they're able to externalize those costs. So if I take you, Bridget, and I work you to death, or I work you until you're a state where you're no longer very productive, in the United States with at-will employment and not much protection from unions anymore, I'll just get rid of you. And you're now become somebody else's problem, maybe society's problem. So I think companies do not necessarily confront the consequences of their actions, and so they don't see the cost. They don't experience the cost, and therefore they don't care very much about the cost. You can think about it, you know, this is probably a horrible analogy, but it's probably actually correct that you think about a horse. You know, in the olden days, you know, horses pulled carriages and wagons. If you overworked the horse, the horse was sick or lame. You got yourself a different horse. And that's pretty much where we are. I'm afraid with respect to many workplaces and how they think about their employees. Wow. OK. So so that's from the perspective of the employer. So they're switching out horses as they get sick and tired. But what about the horse? Why is the horse staying in there? There are many reasons why I think people stay on unhealthy workplaces. One is because their colleagues are no one wants to admit that I'm the weakest person or I can't take what my friends are putting up with. I think that's one. I think number two, people buy into this idea that they're tough and they feel like the feel of themselves as competent, well educated, successful people on this trajectory to hire and better things. And the idea that you can't handle something, even the workplace, it goes against our self image and our desire to think well of ourselves. And so I think we convince ourselves that it's not so bad or that it's not going to last so long and that everybody else is doing it. And also, I think we have defined normality as, you know, the abnormal has now become normal. So many years ago, everybody worked 40 hours a week, that was normal. If everybody is now working 60 and 70 hours a week, how can you complain about, you know, working the same as everybody else? If everybody, you know, refuses to disconnect from their work so they're always on with their electronic devices, etc. That becomes normal. Right. Well, listen, what I wanted to do is we've been talking to a number of different people hearing the stories about how they work, how they work and live, and sometimes just work and don't live. And we wanted to get your thoughts on how this fits into what you're seeing in your research and what's what the impact is. So the first one, this is Patrick Curtis and he used to work on Wall Street. Sure. So I mean, I was at Rothschild in New York and it was basically you'd be on a few deal teams at a time. Sometimes there was what they'd call a live deal, which means that it was actually you had an engagement with a client and you were kind of at their beck and call to do analysis. So, you know, I would be getting in somewhere between 7.30 8 a.m. and then I'd be some nights I'd be out at midnight. If, you know, it was decent. Other times I'd be out at 2 or 3 a.m. And then sometimes I wouldn't leave. So the nights that you spent in your office, did you actually ever sleep or did you just keep working through the night? Most times I would try to at least get, you know, half hour, hour, you know, I had to pull up my desk and I would wait. We had a pillow at your desk. Did you keep it in your bottom drawer or something? We had these cubicles, you know, I just had a pillow on the side. People know. I mean, people understand. Wow. So when you slept like put your head down on your desk or did you lay down on the floor or what? Sometimes I'd put my head down on my desk or I'd go into the, you know, one of the offices and some of them had a couch. I mean, there were certain days. I did like a 41 hour day, several 30 plus hour days where I didn't leave the office for two all-nighters in a row. Wow. It sounded like all you were doing was sleeping if you had a chance on the weekends and working. Was there anything else going on in your life at the time? I did have a girlfriend, but that ended. Did that shock you? It did not. No, it did not. I think it's important to remember that analysts, you know, it's really their first job out of undergraduate. It's right. These kids are really young. They're 20, you know what, 22, 24. It's kind of a rude way to eat. They're kind of thrown to the sharks. You know, but you've described a boot camp kind of atmosphere and that if you make it through this boot camp, then you kind of have this almost like this badge of honor. It's very, very difficult to have tell interns to go home not because you necessarily need them there, but because if you think about it and that's in banks, they hired the majority of their full-time analysts through the internship program and the interns know this. So when they get onto into the firm, they are just ready to do whatever it takes to get that offer. Right. And so that often means even if they're not busy, just staying in the office to make sure that if anyone needs anything, they're there. There's countless stories. I mean, people are doing this on a weekly basis. They're probably doing it right now. There's probably someone that's been in the office for over 30 hours right now on Wall Street. So here you've got Patrick, who just described pretty much a life where all he did was work. What do you make of that? There have been two notable case examples. People in the finance industry who are relatively young individuals who have died from exactly the situation that we have just heard described. This is obviously extremely unhealthy. There is extensive research on the importance of sleep and the interrelationship between the amount of sleep you get and the operation of your immune system. Also, it's hard for me to believe that anyone with that work schedule could do work that would not be at some point not very productive and filled with errors because as you get more exhausted, your productivity goes down. Your ability to find and see mistakes goes way down. This is one of the reasons why we don't permit doctors, truck drivers, airline pilots to have the schedule that was just described by Patrick. It does seem sort of crazy then, right? So if what you really want is people there doing really great work and yet you've created an environment where it's almost impossible to do work because it's almost like what you're putting on a show for how hard you work. It actually ends up making you do worse work. Please explain the logic there. I can't. My I cannot explain the logic at all. My friend Jim Goodnight, who is the founder and co-founder and CEO of SAS Institute, the largest privately owned software company in the world, been very financially successful, been on the best place to work list for years, would say, you know, one of the reasons why we have fewer checkers to check the software and one of the reasons why our software code has fewer bugs in it is because we don't work people when they're exhausted and when they're much more likely to make mistakes. When I had back surgery, I made sure that my surgeon operated on me on July the 7th at 7 30 in the morning. And that came off to July 4th weekend. I wanted to be the first person he saw in the morning after the weekend. And that, of course, makes complete sense. So I have no idea why companies are doing this. I mean, the Wall Street thing, part of it is, of course, that the people who are now imposing these policies have gone through this themselves. And so it becomes, you know, I did it, you can do it. It's a badge of honor. It's a right. It's an initiation right. It's like their version of a fraternity or sorority hazing. It's part of the right of passage. But it makes no sense and it is extremely unhealthy. And the idea that somehow it's, you know, you're young, it's going to be OK is wrong. As I said, there are two instances of people one at Merrill Lynch as I think he was an intern who died. And they talk about this stuff going back to your apartment, just shaving and showering and then going back to work and never sleeping at all. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, even as you go up the ladder, I'm sure you're making more money in Wall Street, but you're still working pretty crazy hours. It's not like people at the top have work-life balance, if you will. Yes. And Patrick also made a comment, which is very important. It goes to this very fundamental issue of the absence of job of control over your job, which has been found since the 1970s to be a predictor of cardiovascular illness and death. And he talked about he used the phrase, we were at the beck and call. That phrase, we're at the beck and call. Client wanted something. We had to do an analysis. We had to do it. It didn't matter how long we had worked. It didn't matter what time it was. It didn't matter anything else. And part of this also, frankly, if you think about it, is an issue of staffing levels. So I can have people on 24-7, but they don't have to be the same people. Well, I'd like to listen next to a bit of a conversation I had with Kenette Howard. She's an environmental lawyer who drove herself very, very hard for years. She worked long hours without many regrets until in her early 40s, she realized the stress of overwork was physically preventing her from having a child and she made some big changes. I feel a little bit like a recovering alcoholic, you know, where I am careful not to go to the bar, you know. I have to watch myself a lot. I mean, really, quite seriously, I think there is a little bit of an addiction to work that had happened for me. And I don't feel like I have that right now, but I have to say I keep a watchful eye on myself. So when Kenette was telling us her story, she at one point worked for a kind of a white shoe law firm and put in those crazy law firm hours, buying her groceries on Sunday night and bringing them right to the office because she knew she was going to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner there. And then went into more social justice, environmental, non-profit law and was just incredibly passionate about what she did. But for her, the only way to change was to actually quit that job. And she stepped back, she's still working, but in a very different capacity. And I guess that's, you know, is that really the answer? Is the only answer to kind of drop out and quit or is it something internal that we're going to take with us wherever we go? I think it's a combination in terms of, you know, why people work the hours the way they do. A lot of this is around ego. People believe that they're indispensable, that they're irreplaceable, that if they don't do it, no one else can. And so I think we need to get over ourselves a little bit if we want to live healthier lives. I think the other part of this is that you ought to find a workplace where you're surrounded by people who have lives, who have some balance. It will be easier for you to have a life and have balance. If your colleagues are not working all these ridiculous hours, you're less likely to also. Because you don't think it's normative. You don't think you need to do it. You don't think it's part of what you have to do in order to be successful and get promoted. So I do believe the single best thing human beings can do to take care of themselves in addition to all the other things they're supposed to do is to try to go into a workplace where they have some chance of having a healthy lifestyle. The idea that I'm going to go into a toxic workplace and I'm going to somehow surmount the social pressures, the norms, what my boss is telling me to do, etc. I think is just insane. I mean, we are influenced by the environments we're in. And so if you want to have a healthy life, find the healthy work environment. Yeah. Well, Jeff, I'd like to listen together to one last story. It's Dan Carter, who has worked for years on campus safety initiatives. He calls himself a happy workaholic, even though it's gotten in the way of his personal relationships. There was a friend of mine who she and I would go on adventures for like 11 years. And like when she was getting ready, I would be. Checking my email and then I would still be checking the email when she got ready and be like, Time to go. And I'm like, I have one last email. And, you know, that was always tough, because I was like, I was going to fill that time getting something done. And while those adventures did certainly make me tremendously happy and I miss them, my mind was still on. Oh, how can I help this person? How can I advance this thing? I'm a problem solver in order for me to be fulfilled. I need to be working on those problems. And I mean, there's no question. I live to work. I don't work to live. I live to work the thought of, you know, not working. It's like worse than death to me. And a large part of it's the people I get to work with. It's not just doing the work. That's important. But I get to work with some of the most fascinating and interesting people. I've gotten to help a tremendous number of crime victims over the years who I've helped turn their lives around. And years later, they come back and thank me for them being able to have the normal life, particularly if they're a college student, sexual assault survivor. And, you know, then they're married to kids, career. You know, having been a part of help them get through that, you know, means everything. Can you talk a little bit more about that for, you know, when you look at happiness research, it all says that the, you know, the basis of human happiness is connection with other humans, that that's what makes us happy. And yet you chose not to have that or family. Or actually, I would disagree because for those people who just say if they work, knows to the grindstone, knows in a laptop, I would agree that would be a problem. The thing that I enjoy most about my work is the human interaction. It's the people I get to work with. I have met and worked with and spent a good deal of my life with some of the most interesting, fascinating people. You know, some of them are easier to work with than others, but they're always fascinating. They're always interesting. And it's that human connection. And it's like I would say, you know, people say you're, you know, when you're on your deathbed, you're going to regret the time not spent with family, not with the people, not at work. And maybe they're not working with the people I am. I helped establish a National Center for Campus Public Safety, which was a vision that a lot of people had had for a decade. Right, you know, helped pass the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act. I mean, did some amazing things. Right. And I've written about your work and you've been you've done amazing work. There's no doubt about it. But I guess what I'm struck by is here you're telling me that you're, you know, you'll be lying on your deathbed, right? And really, there'll be no regrets that you spent so much of your time and your life and your energy at work. No, none. And and I think that's because for me, it is a calling, you know, for people who work to live. I think there would be regrets. But for me, I'm never happier than to the meeting I was at this morning, supposed to be a half hour meeting with some congressional staff turned into an hour and a half long meeting discussing campus sexual violence issues. It's like a high for me to experience something like that. And so no, I have no regrets. So Dan has no regrets. He lives to work and can't can't imagine living any other way. What do you think? People are different, you know, people have different cases, people have different desires, people have different preferences. And certainly if you want to work 24 seven or if you want to forego much of a personal life, if you want to, you know, be in the middle of Yosemite or the Great Smoky Mountains and, you know, looking at your iPhone, that is certainly something that you should have the right to do. And and if that's what makes you happy, good for you and, you know, go do it. But that is not necessarily typical of every human being. I think I think we should have a place for the people who want to live that way. But we should also have a way of accommodating the people who want to live a more balanced life, where there is some combination of obviously meaningful work with interesting people. But they also understand the importance of taking time off and and exposing themselves to other aspects of life. His work is obviously both substantively and public policy important and also meaningful to him. But on the other hand, so is, you know, watching a waterfall or a rainbow. Right. You're working on a book project you were telling me about. Can you talk a little bit about what you're writing about? So I am working on a book which I hope to finish very soon. The working time of the book is dying for a paycheck because many people are. And the premise of the book is actually simple, that that many of the things that we have talked about, the absence of job control and therefore discretion, the long work hours, the economic insecurity that comes from layoffs are not only harmful to individuals, but they are not very beneficial to the economic well-being of the companies for whom these people are working. So that we really have put ourselves in a lose, lose situation. The companies don't benefit from the layoffs. The companies aren't benefiting from the long work hours where people are, you know, not very productive and working themselves into making too many mistakes. So we have created a situation in which the companies really aren't benefiting, though many of them probably think they are, and the people aren't benefiting either. My bottom line is that we ought to be as concerned about human beings as we are about polar bears, that we ought to be concerned about human sustainability. And part of the issue of sustainability is our people in situations where they can do what they are doing over long periods of time and renew themselves and be in situations which are well-being and health enhancing rather than well-being and health destroying. All right. So arm ourselves with pitchforks and off to work we go. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Jeff Pfeffer, he's a professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate Business School at Stanford University. His books include Leadership BS, Fixing Workplaces and Careers, One Truth at a Time. For more resources on working healthier, visit us online at newamerica.org. Click on the link for Better Life Lab. Better Life Lab is produced by New America in partnership with Slate. Thanks so much for joining me for our podcast about the art and science of living a full life. Our project is a collaboration with Ideas 42, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Our producer is David Schulman. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd be delighted if you take a moment to review us on Apple podcasts. It makes a difference in getting the word out. From New America's Better Life Lab, I'm Bridget Schulte.