When most people say that they work themselves to death, they are just using an expression meaning that they work too hard. True, work related stress can cause health problems, and if you ever see a picture of the president before he goes into office, and then after he leaves office, you will see what I mean. Wherever you work, there are going to be times of intense stress, but this just means you want to do well. Who bears the blame though if someone works so hard that they literally kill themselves at work?

The first thing that anyone has to undI erstand is that when you agree to join a company, you have done so by choice. No one forced you to work there, and you are the one who shows up for work everyday, and you are the one who puts in the hours that you do. Whether you need to put those hours in to be good is irrelevant, you have to be willing to take the good with the bad. Every employee has the choice to find a new job.

However, should companies be doing more to make sure that employees are safe at work? Some people are just simply workaholics who have nothing better to do than work. While it isn't a the fault of the company that an employee might have no social life, or simply enjoys work too much, do they not have an obligation to make sure that an employee does not die at work? Wouldn't it make more sense to keep them safe to get more productivity out of them? A dead man does not produce anything.

Workers might feel as if the work they do defines them. Some might believe that they owe it to their employers to put in as much time as possible to get the job done. Some might not feel like they have any choice. They might be running a component that has to be up and running all the time, and they might have to be on call. Whether it is pride, or circumstance, some workers may feel as if they are compelled to put in all the time that they can.

Some employers might feel as if the workers should be working at all hours. The more they do, the more profit a company can make, and the better off the stockholders will be. If your boss only cares about profits, and bottom-line numbers, you might find yourself working yourself to death. However, the question still is whether the employer is there to make a profit from your work, or if the employer needs to worry about the employee. Should the profit driven employer be demonized?

At the end of the day the case really depends on the facts. Was the employer promoting a workplace where employees needed to always be working, or was a life-work balance promoted? That is the only way you can really determine who is at fault is by looking at each case, and figuring out what the factors were that contributed to the death of a worker on the job.

Learn more about this author, Cody Hodge.
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