In November’s issue of The Atlantic, Karl Taro Greenfeld asked if the readers could imagine “a profession in which employees spend all day at the office, work four or so hours afterward on homework, and still have work to do over the weekend.”
It is sad, indeed, to see a journalist who is so out of touch with the realities of contemporary workplace. Everybody I know works this way, and I don’t mean only people in academia.
N works at a company that creates medical software. He is required to improve his professional skills by way of obtaining programming certifications in new computer languages. He is also expected to publish his research. All of this has to be done on his own time. So he comes home from work, has dinner, and then works some more because that’s what he needs to do to keep his job.
My sister has her own small business, and this means that she has to work well into the night every day. Even on vacations, she has to be plugged in and working.
I don’t know if there are any white-collar jobs left where people put in their 8 hours a day and do ok more work.
Clarissa's Blog 
My husband has a white collar job in which he works Monday-Friday, 9-5 only and never a minute more. In fact, I am fairly convinced that, outside of those 40 hours a week, he forgets entirely that he is employed. That being said, he has no ambition or interest in professional advancement. I far out earn him, and he has repeatedly stated that he would prefer to look after the domestic side of things (he does 90% of the household work) and support my career progression, rather than aim for a high-powered career for himself. He is very much a mid-level white collar professional and very happy to stay this way until he retires. He is also an incredibly unusual person.
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The problem is that people increasingly need to work extra hours not for advancement but just to stay employed.
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You are right, any professional job these days very nearly requires minimum 50 hours a week, often far more. And being always available, even on vacation.
Certainly true of my job, and any professional job I’ve heard about lately.
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My husband works 8:30-5:00 for his job and makes 33k more per year than I do. He sometimes does freelance work after the kids go to bed because he has nothing to do when I’m working all night. But most of the time he just watches TV, does art work, hangs with his friends, does chores, or reads. He also can work from home if he wants/needs to. So when the kids are sick, he stays home with them. His working life makes my working life possible. I can’t imagine how two academics with kids get by.
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I’m just afraid that this kind of jobs is slowly disappearing. I always like to see the future positively but in this case I’m not amanging to muster much optimism.
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