In the movie It's a Wonderful Life this conversation goes on between Mr. Potter of the Building and Loan and George Bailey.
Potter: Peter Bailey was not a business man. That's what killed him. Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to him, God rest his soul. He was a man of high ideals, so called, but ideals without common sense can ruin this town. Now, you take this loan here to Ernie Bishop...You know, that fellow that sits around all day on his brains in his taxi. You know...I happen to know the bank turned down this loan, but he comes here and we're building him a house worth five thousand dollars. Why?
George: Well, I handled that, Mr. Potter. You have all the papers there. His salary, insurance. I can personally vouch for his character.
Potter: A friend of yours?
George: Yes, sir.
Potter: You see, if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. What does that get us? A discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty, working class. And all because a few starry-eyed dreamers like Peter Bailey stir them up and fill their heads with a lot of impossible ideas. Now, I say...
You will notice the sentence that is underlined said by Mr. Potter. People complain that Americans have become lazy workers. I know one man who quotes the line I underlined all the time about American workers, but he claims, “All they want to do is sit behind a computer, move a mouse and make $100K.”
This type of skeptism may appear true to some but it is not the whole story. As companies fill employees' plates of work to that of an overfilled plate and push for more results and more time from their employee for less, the employees begin to fight back. In truth sometimes, employees need time to relax in order to be more productive.
According to an article called American workers: Lazy or creative? That although it appears as if the employee is goofing off, that is just not true. Surfing the web and talking to fellow employees can boost creativity. Depending on what the employee does, they may also need human interaction if all they do is sit behind a computer.
According to an article on Fox News, they state the exact opposite; Americans Are World's Most Productive Workers, U.N. Report Finds. Workers in western industrial countries are much more productive. Americans on top of that work more hours.
Jon Searles wrote an article called Minimum Wage and the Lazy American Worker. In his article he talks about companies such as Walmart have not paid their employees as they should and they pay them less then their value. Walmart became rich on the backs of the American workers.
Even if Americans are more productive and more efficient because they have tools to help them with what they do, that by no means makes them lazy. With all the efficiencies that have been created to help the American worker, instead of being asked to do less, they instead are being asked to do more. Perhaps if employees are laid off, or are let go, or leave on their own, instead of replacing the person, they divide the work among employees already working there and fill their plates that much more. American workers on the whole are not lazy, they may just be overworked.
