Working 24/7

Lesley Stahl On Why Americans Are Working Longer

(CBS) 
The BlackBerry is practically attached to Mike's body — even on his days off, when he’s the house-husband in the kitchen and in the laundry room.

The company pays them 75 percent of full-time pay, because, as it’s turned out, they each end up working about 40 hours a week.

"That's a full-time job," Stahl remarked.

"It's not many people's full-time job though," Mike replied.

"But it's what we used to think of as a full-time job," Stahl said.

"Absolutely," Jeff agreed.

With so many Americans working more than 40 hours a week, it may surprise you to learn that when it comes to productivity, the U.S. is not No. 1. In fact, workers in four European countries, including France, are more productive per hour of work than Americans — that’s the key: "per hour of work" — even though the Europeans work less and take more vacation.

Joe Hurd thinks all these gadgets and technology are helping him be more productive. "If you want to measure productivity by, for me, for example, keeping the e-mails flowing, you know, multiple conversations going, then yes, the technology does facilitate that."

"The downside, however, is that oftentimes we really don't have substantive conversations when we come home. We will be sitting on our couch, each doing work," his wife says.

It turns out Joe and Christina e-mail and instant-message each other, even if they are at home.

"But what about your relationship? I’m not trying to get too personal here...," Stahl asked.

"Well, that’s what I mean, that's the downside. It would be nice to have a conversation even once a week and not be, I mean, really be concentrating and listening to each other. But we've got one eye on our computers," Christina replied.

Christina says she does tune out everything once she gets home from work, to play with their 8-month old daughter Amina. She even turns her cell phones off.

But when Amina gets fussy, they both reach for her favorite toy: the BlackBerry.

"I can have her on the bed with a bunch of toys," Christina says. But her daughter will always pick the BlackBerry.

Which means when Amina grows up, she may have a house like Greg Shenkman's.

Shenkman is such a workaholic that he has wired his house with Internet, telephone and television in every single room. As CEO of the global high-tech firm Exigen in San Francisco, he feels he has to be available to his customers at all hours.

"Well, you lose something. You lose some days of your kids' lives. You lose — some of those tender moments with the family," Shenkman says.

When he stops working, he says he aches.

"If you go on vacation, sometimes, in order to sort of relax, it takes a little bit of an effort," Shenkman says. But he always stays connected.

He's so obsessed, he has wired his shower. When Greg soaps up, he doesn't daydream — he watches the business news, checks his e-mail, and answers the phone.

60 Minutes arranged for the producer to call Shenkman, with his shower running. When the speaker phone picked up, the water was turned off automatically, and Stahl and Shenkman could talk to the producer from the shower.

The electronics are waterproof — but not foolproof.

"Whoa, what happened!" Stahl said, laughing, as she got a little wet.

"We forgot to turn it off," Shenkman said.

"Well, I usually don't have Lesley Stahl in the shower with me. That would be an unusual occurrence for me," Shenkman added, laughing.

For the record, Stahl says it was her first interview in a shower — and her last.