Speed is king over all else in most industries today. Some may argue that quality is the most sought after characteristic, but meeting production quotas seem to be the number one evaluation device in most jobs. This can range from how many water meters you fixed, to how many customers you served during a shift. These quotas can become cumbersome to manage in the allotted time given during normal work hours, so people end up taking work home with them. This is an unhealthy practice, but one I am definitely guilty of. Meeting expected quotas becomes so important to the advancement of one's career that as a result, personal sacrifices are often made. There are two reasons why people should avoid compulsively taking work home to make deadlines that they feel are more important than perhaps their own sanity. Indecision at work and stressed home relations are two obvious byproducts of the pressure-filled, career-centered culture we exist in today.
Compulsively bringing work home to finish it after hours promotes indecisiveness in key moments in the work space. If one has built themselves into an unhealthy routine of unnecessarily triple checking every piece of work they complete for errors, then when work must be accomplished on time by the end of the day, one will struggle with confidence. I am a strong believer in working as hard as I can for the time I am paid for and living with the results I am able to produce. My overseers will have an accurate idea of what my actual capabilities are so their expectations are not outrageous. I want them to trust that I will work hard while at work to meet their production standards. I am not against going above and beyond and I like to think I do that often while on the clock, but doing work at home for free on a consistent basis does not fare well in the grand scheme of things for workers in relation to the owners of the businesses they work for.
The second, more emotional cost of working extra at home is lost time with family. Unless the job requires one to be on call 24/7, then just like separation of religion and state, the separation of work and home fosters positive relationships in both venues. When your significant other can count on you being all theirs when they get home, it improves their mood. Work is not a forbidden topic at home and a certain amount of reflection on complex issues can be very beneficial to solving them. However, eating oneself alive over the one task that is coming up does not benefit anyone. If stressing over work is avoided at home, then workers come to shifts feeling more refreshed and thus more productive as well. There is real value to time off in this sense. The night between eight-hour shifts or the weekend can go a long way to refreshing one to take on the challenges the next day present. An appreciation for the needed separation between career and home goes a long way to improving the quality of both.
