当今高管史上最卖力？

    怀特引述一位高管的抱怨说：“坦白来说，当我身边没有人时，我可以在1小时内完成很多工作，就跟我在这一天余下时间所完成的工作一样多。”

    怀特将这一切统计在内，他称一周工作时间“总而言之，大约在57-60小时之间。而这显然是最低限度，如果算上会议、出差、公司紧急情况，那么一周工作时间可以轻而易举地增加到70或80小时。”

    换句话说，公司高管们总是在抱怨极端的工作。“接受《财富》提问的公司高管一致表示，他们的上级主管高度认同每周工作55小时，如果能达到60小时就更好了，”怀特如是写道。

    当然，跟当代职员一样，我们有理由相信，以往那些公司高管夸大了自己的工作时间。从上世纪60年代开始，美国每隔10年左右都会举行一次大规模的美国人时间支配情况调查（Americans' Use of Time Project），作为该项目的一部分，研究人员会对人们的时间日志和他们估计的一周工作时间进行比较。1965年时，那些认为自己每周工作65-74小时的人实际工作时间只有57.6小时，那些认为自己每周工作55-59小时（怀特认为这是正常的一周工作时间）的人实际工作时间只有42.5小时。来自马里兰大学（University of Maryland）的约翰•罗宾逊是上述调查项目的负责人，他提供了2006-2007年的数据，结果显示那些认为自己每周工作50-59小时的人实际工作时间只有47.3小时，那些声称自己每周工作70小时以上的人实际工作时间只有58.8小时。

    高估自己每周的工作时间可谓一个历史悠久的传统。

    为什么人们这么执着于夸大自己的工作时间呢？这里面的原因可能跟怀特用来解释公司高管们为什么辛苦工作的原因是一致的：雄心抱负、从众心理、以及寻求从工作中塑造人格。1954年的一些人相信，世事必将改变，人们不可能永远这样辛苦工作。怀特较为乐观：“公司高管们口头上还会继续说，要变得更加感性些、抽出时间去读读那些书、少加点不可理喻的夜间——但实际上他们还是会一切照旧，”怀特写道，毕竟，“要干的活太多了。”

    译者：王灿均

    Whyte quotes one executive complaining that "Honestly, in one hour when nobody's around I can get as much work done, real work, as I can during the rest of the day."

    Whyte tallied all this up and declared the workweek to be "all in all, some fifty-seven to sixty hours. And this evidently is a minimum; come convention time, a trip, a company emergency, and the week can easily go to seventy or eighty hours."

    In other words, up and comers have always complained about extreme jobs. "Executives questioned by FORTUNE were unanimous that their superiors approved highly of the fifty-five hour week and liked the sixty-hour week even better," Whyte wrote.

    Of course, just as with modern workers, there's reason to believe that executives from prior generations were overestimating their workweeks. Starting in the 1960s, every 10 years or so, as part of a massive survey known as the Americans' Use of Time Project, researchers compared time diaries subjects kept to their estimated workweeks. In 1965, people who believed they were working 65-74 hours per week turned out to be working 57.6 hours; people who believed they were working 55-59 hours (which Whyte pegged as a normal week) were in fact working 42.5 hours. The University of Maryland's John Robinson, who directed the Americans' Use of Time project, provided numbers for 2006-2007, which found that people who estimated their workweeks at 50-59 hours were actually working 47.3 hours. People who claimed to be working 70-plus hours were working 58.8.

    Overestimating workweeks is a time-honored tradition.

    Why such an obsession with proclaiming long hours? Probably for the same reasons that Whyte listed to explain why his executives worked so hard: ambition, conformity, and drawing one's personal identity from work. Some people in 1954 were convinced things had to change; people couldn't possibly work this hard forever. Whyte was more sanguine: "Executives still will talk of being more sensible, of getting around to those books, of cutting out this ridiculous night work -- and they will keep on doing just what they have been doing," he wrote. After all, "There is too much work to be done."