We previously wrote about the Toyota engineer who allegedly died from overwork. (In Japan, the phenomenon is called karoshi.) A Japanese labor bureau has recently ruled that excessive overtime was indeed the cause of his death and that his family is now eligible to collect benefits from his work insurance. This is still an incredibly sad story, but we’re heartened to learn that the engineer’s case was taken seriously.

We could easily see a case like his not being taken seriously, because in many cultures there is a core assumption about work:

WORK = SUFFERING

If work weren’t suffering . . .

why else would we praise people for their “dedication” and their “sacrifice”?

why else would we complain so loudly (and elaborately) about how many hours we put in?

why else would it be socially acceptable for (some of) our bosses to treat us as less than human?

In other words, we assume that part of our pay is compensation for the misery inflicted by work. Even that word “compensation” suggests loss. The loss of freedom. The loss of time. The loss of autonomy. We’re sorry you had to waste 50 hours of your life in this place this week. We know we can never truly pay you back for your time, but we hope this check provides some compensation for your loss.

We also assume that we’ll get credit for the pain. It’s not whoever does the best job wins, but whoever does a decent job while enduring the most pain.

Is this really the best we can do?

What happens if we didn’t assume that work is suffering? What if work wasn’t something to be endured but something to get done in exchange for money? Would people still die from overwork if there was no nobility in killing yourself over your job?

We liked this piece on the ethics of going in to work sick. We like how sober and reasonable it is. We think that everyone should print it out and give a copy to their boss so he or she can take it to HR and the entire organization can rethink its sick-leave policy.

We’re just kidding about the last part. Don’t give this article to your boss. What are you - crazy?

Rational arguments about an irrational system: this is the problem with most discussions we have about the workplace. If the office were a rational place, then we could have a rational discussion about the ethics of going in to work sick. But the workplace isn’t even remotely rational. It’s a place of fears, false assumptions, strange beliefs, and mistrust.

If you were to forward this article at work, how do you think people would react? Would you worry that people might think you were angling for something, like maybe a few extra “sick days” of your own?

The problem lies in how we’ve defined work: 40 hours, five days a week, in an office.

When time is our master, when time is valued as much as (and sometimes more than) results, then anything that encroaches on time is a threat. It doesn’t matter if you’re sick, or need to pick up your kids early from school, or you overslept, or whatever. Anything that is perceived to take away from “work time” is bad for business.

When work can only happen in a specific place, then anything that happens outside the sanctioned workplace doesn’t count as work. In a traditional workplace, a “sick day” means a day when you’re not in the office, and so the assumption is that nothing will get done. You have to be “at work” to do work.

In a ROWE, there are no assumptions about what work looks like. Work doesn’t have to happen in a specific place at a specific time. In a ROWE, if you’re sick, you don’t go into the office, and it’s not because of some convoluted ethical argument. You don’t go into the office because, well . . . you’re sick.

Depending on how sick you are, you may still get work done. As long as you are getting results, it doesn’t really matter. In fact, your coworkers may not even know that you’re sick. If you continue to drive results from home (cuddled under a blanket with your laptop) they may be none the wiser. In a ROWE, a sick day is a true sick day, when you are genuinely too sick to work…but you don’t need to submit ’sick time’.

We’re back to that idea in our last post. Why play games? Why “call in sick” when you really just need to run some errands or take a break? Why “call in sick” because you’re burned out and need a day to rest your brain? Why “call in sick” when your best friend is in town and you want to see a movie? Why not act like a grownup when it comes to your health?

Don’t get us started on sleep. The National Sleep Foundation just released their annual Sleep in America poll (for a summary check out this AP wire story) and once again it shows that people are tired, tired, tired. According to the story, “[r]oughly one-third of those surveyed said they had fallen asleep or become very sleepy at work in the past month.”

As the story also notes, people are working longer hours and so they stay up later to be with their families. But they also have to get up (on average) at 5:35 a.m., presumably so they can get to work “on time” . . . and finish sleeping.

It seems crazy to even have to say this, but if you’re an adult who is getting your job done, then you should be able to eat and sleep when you need to eat and sleep. In a Results-Only Work Environment, you get to choose when you sleep. As long as the work is getting done, then no one judges how you spend your time.

But setting aside ROWE for a moment, we’d like to explore another aspect of this story. The survey found that people needed another 40 minutes of sleep at night. What would happen if everyone got their missing 40 minutes a day and worked 40 minutes less each day? Do you think business would suffer? What if they worked an hour a half less per day? What about two hours?

If you clicked on that link then you’ve read that we already spend big chunks of the workday not working. We bust ass to get to work “on time” and then we spend part of the day pretending to work. It’s a ridiculous game that everyone at some point in their life has played. Everyone knows it’s a joke.

Here’s the real question: if we’re all grown-ups, why, when it comes to work, do we act like such children? If you really think about all the wasted energy and all the white lies and self-deception, isn’t it kind of embarrassing?