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Experts tracking the cause and effect are coming to see how progress has carried hidden costs. "Technology is increasing the heartbeat," says Manhattan architect James Trunzo, who designs "automated environments." "We are inundated with information. The mind can't handle it all. The pace is so fast now, I sometimes feel like a gunfighter dodging bullets." In business especially, the world financial markets almost never close, so why should the heavy little eyes of an ambitious baby banker? "There is now a new supercomputer that operates at a trillionth of a second," says Robert Schrank, a management consultant in New York City. "What's a trillionth of a second? Time is being eaten up by all these new inventions. Even leisure is done on schedule. Golfing is done on schedule. My son is on the run all the time. I ask him, 'Are you having fun?' He says, 'Hell, I don't know.' "
The pace of change and the explosion of information mean that professionals are swamped with too many new facts to absorb. Meanwhile, the drill-press operator discovers that the drill comes with a computer attached to it. Workers find that it takes all the energy they have just to remain qualified for their jobs, much less have time to acquire new skills that might allow for promotion. "There is no question that the half-life of most job skills is dropping all the time," says Edward Lawler, University of Southern California professor of management. "People are falling by the wayside, just as companies are."
There is an additional irony: all the time-saving devices may actually make people work harder. Sometime in the early '80s, suggests futurist Selwyn Enzer, Americans came to worship career status as a measure of individual worth, and many were willing to sacrifice any amount of leisure time to get ahead. "Social scientists underestimated the sense of self-esteem that came with having a career," he observes. These days, if an entrepreneur has not made his first million by the time he is 30, his commitment to capital accumulation is suspect. And in the transition from an industrial to a global service economy, many of the white-collar "servants" -- lawyers, bankers, accountants -- are pushing harder than ever to meet their clients' inexhaustible needs.
For these hardy souls, there is no longer any escape from the office. Simply to remain competitive, professionals find that their lives are one long, continuous workday, bleeding into the wee hours and squeezing out any leisure time. "My wife and I were sitting on the beach in Anguilla on one of our rare vacations," recalls architect Trunzo, "and even there my staff was able to reach me. There are times when our lives are clearly leading us." There are phones in the car, laptops in the den, and the humming fax machine eliminates that once peaceful lull between completing a document and delivering it. "The fax has destroyed any sense of patience or grace that existed," says Hollywood publicist Josh Baron. "People are so crazy now that they call to tell you your fax line is busy."