Home and Home Is Work

¶ … Home and Home is Work

The author describes the "Spotted Deer Childcare Center" (where parent drop off their children for day care) as part of his introduction to a book about the difficulties families have balancing work and home. The author conducts myriad interviews at Amerco.

The research continues: Hochschild studies Amerco's strategies used in order to be both a global contender and to developing a "strong company culture" (17). The many "values" Amerco expects and the surveys workers to fill out make Amerco a "moral world" (21).

Amerco's "family-flexible" policies were not always used and workers with children put in more hours than needed because they can't afford to pass up the earnings. Also middle managers may not always be willing to grant requests for flex time that Amerco offers.

Stress occurs when dad works the early shift (mom taking care of baby) and mom works the night shift (dad taking care of baby) but mom comes home to a stack of dishes, a baby that should have been put to bed, and a teenage daughter who needs her attention. Problems like this at home "upset women more deeply than problems at work" (41).

Chapter 5: Time is the salient issue in this chapter: executives at Amerco got where they are by putting in enormously long hours, and they continue to do so. Bill Denton, a senior manager, is a better "father" to his underlings at Amerco than to his own children at home (63).

Chapter 6: Vicky King is a manager at Amerco and known for being flexible with people's hours, but she puts in outrageous number of hours and as a parent, she measured her effectiveness on how well her kids were doing, not on how much time she spent with them (75).

Chapter 7: In this chapter Hochschild points to the photos of family that workers at Amerco place beside their computers; the higher up the employee, the fewer the family photos. The point being -- one's colleagues (and the workforce in general) are one's family at Amerco.

Chapter 8: Denise deals with male resentment toward women at Amerco and at home she wishes that her husband Daniel would be as committed to work at home as it is at his work.

Chapter 9: An African-American male worker takes paternity leave after the baby is born and is ribbed at work; mostly women care about family time.

Chapter 10: "Support staff" have a tougher time getting flextime off for their families.

Chapter 11: Becky (single mother) has her mother caring for her children but Becky, an attractive younger woman, deals with jealous stares from female co-workers; problems multiply. Sue, another single mother, with no family as back up, is still close friends with her ex, who has re-married and is happy. Sue wants her girls to stay single; Becky wants her kids to marry.

Chapter 12: Vivian's live-in lover and her children don't get along and while Vivian was at work a lot of the time so the live-in boyfriend (Emmanuel) had an affair. Again, as in many instances in this book, work is having a negative impact on personal lives.

Chapter 13: This chapter is about overtime and there are numerous interviews with workers as to why they work so many hours overtime; the money, of course is the main reason, but families and relationships inevitably suffer.