6 — Sunday, January 4, 1998 — North Shore News

north shere news

VIEWPOINT

Paineful memories

T was vour favorite
thing about Paine
Hardware?

The rolling ladders? The patii-
worn wooden floor boards? The fact
that you could buy just one of any
kind of screw, bolt, washer, nail, clasp
and fastener imaginable? The creative
window displays?

The New Year’s Eve fire that gut-
ted the venerable Lower Lonsdale
retail institution was the number one
topic of conversation in coffee shops,
barbershops, beauty salons and
kitchens the past few days. With the
talk come the memories.

Blending the utilitarian with the
romantic, Paine Hardware left an
impression on everyone who ever
pushed open the glass-pane door. It
was liking stepping into the past.

Such sentiments are what motivate

the anti-“big box” voices in West
Vancouver. If a Home Depot were to
burn down, the only ones shedding a
tear would be the owners and the
employees.

Big box stores leave an impression,
alright, but <ather than _ instill
thoughts of simpler times, the all-
things-under-one-roof stores are no
more than big boxes filled with stuff.
Where’s the soul?

Lower Lonsdale fost a little bit of
its soul on New Year’s Eve.

The Lower Lonsdale Pianning
Study recently entered Phase 2. A
number of public consultation mect-
ings are planned for the near future.

North Vancouver City councillors
would do well to eavesdrop on some
of the conversations their neighbors
are having.

The message? More soul.

mailbox

More skills, less
management

Dear Editor:

There has been wide
coverage on TV news the
last: couple of days on.the
crisis in health care deliv-
ery at Lions. Gate
Hospital.

he facr that the pow-
ers that be have to cut 30
or so beds by a certain
date flies in the face of
common sense.

The fact that schools
are out for the holidays,
ski hills are opening up,
the roads are becomin
icy and days. shorter all
would indicate a need for
more preparedness in the
emergency ward.

Mid-management in
their zeal to make their
mark in this field have

. found funds to needlessly

renovate, amalgamate o7
- Move existing wards, pay
~ off officers of the hospital
with outlandish buyouts
and cut the people that
deliver health care to the
public.

A year or so ago the
Vancouver General
Hospital spcat $75,000
to change its name only to

f north shore

the

change its mind recently
and change it back to the
original when all ignored
the _ change, another
$10,000 or so.
Management might
rationalize its moves by
saying “it’s in che budget

_far this purpose.”

But they forget that all
funds come from the same
source, the taxpayer, and

athe taxpayer wants his

funds to go to delivery of
health care by experi-
enced medical profession-
als, not to employ people
with management
degrees, carrying clip-
boards and running
things to the bencfit of
ottom line and not
the taxpaying public.

Lions Gate, as all hos-
pitals, has beds coming
out its ears, but the real
problem ‘is that it is
employing the . wrong
skills.

It needs more skilled
medical people and less
management.

Ron Espin
North Vancouver
nvron@sympatico.ca

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cathe ges ate! Phi ograpty M
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The North Shore News is } published by North Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver, B.C.,

SO WHAT WATH
THE BIRD Fil so Much
IN THE NEWS AND

NO CURE ANP ALL...
WELL, WE Just CAN'T
AFFORD To TAKE
ANY RISKS... .

SORRY
BiG Guy, BUT
WE'RE GONNA
HAFTA LET

How to avoid dying of overwork

SCIENTIFIC proof that over-
working damages health, ruins
relationships and ultimately even
shortchanges victims’ employers
comes in a defini-
tive new study from
Britain.

Alas, it offers few
solutions — unless you

own the business or are
truly in love with your

job.

The work of Cary
Cooper, professor of
erganizational psycholo-
gy ar Manchester
University’s Institute for
Science and Technology, and colleague
Kate Sparks, it brings together for the
first time some 30 to 40 independent
studies on the effect of hours of work on
health.

In all of them the findings are essen-
tially the same.

Exhaustion, depression, anxiety, mood
changes, failed relationships, insomnia,
work accidents are statistically more com-
mon with people who work longer hours.
And — even more seriously — they suffer
more heart disease and more fatal coro-
naries.

Typical of the mass of data analyzed
was a U.S. study of 21,000 workers.

It found that working more than 48
hours a week doubled the risk of heart
disease.

Another study found shiftworkers on
the job more than 48 hours a weck were
more neurotic and suffered more anxiety,
digestive upset and heart attacks than

Classified Manager

26-2137 (160) 986-6222 (202)

Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved.

those with shorter hours.

Yer another established that the aver-
age person can work 12 hours a day for
only two days running before experienc-
ing mental fatigue.

Britain itself, with a
1995 average working
week of 44.7 hours,
works harder than some
of its economic peers,
the Cooper-Sparks
review revealed. The
corresponding 1995
figures for Germany
were 36 hours, for Italy
36-39 hours and for
Belgium 38 hours. By
comparison, Canadians
were almost idle slobs
— with a 1995 average working week of
only 33.6 hours!

But these averages don’t record the
“unofficial” working hours. For example,
a recent study for the U.K. Institute of
Management found 40% of British man-
agers worked on weekends, 67% worked
in the evenings and 80% overall worked
more than their contractual hours.

One of the most telling testimonies to
the effect of prolonged overwork,
Cooper says, is that death from that cause
in Japan — where yearly working hours
are anywhere from 200 to 500 more than
in the West — is recognized as a major
social problem.

What to do about it without risking
— in this high unemployment periad —
becoming first in line for a redundancy
notice is something else again.

But another of Cooper's and Sparks’
findings points to one possible escape
route. They noted that those who feel in

and yon

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control and stimulated are less likely to.
perceive long hours as stressful and may:"“*
well suffer fewer work-related symptoms. :'

In other words, be your own boss —.” :
or at least go for a job you love and are.’
on top of. And according to the
Maclean’s/CBC News year-end poll:
Canadians are already getting that mes-
sage.

In separate questions, 91% wanted a
job giving personal fulfillment and happi
ness compared to only 67% hooked on
making lots of moncy.

Already, 40% of Canadians own their -
own business or work for one with 50 or.
fewer employees. 2

Meanwhile, 63% of respondents would :
like to work for themselves, and among; :
those happy to work for someone else, ©
72% preter a company with under. 100
employees (a whopping 41% named a:
business with no more than 10 employees:
as their ideal). 4
The fe suggests most Canadians .. :
(especially the 18-39 age group) recog-
nize that the day of the lite elong job with .:
the big corporation is past and gone for:
ever. :
So their watchwords today are “small: °
is beautiful — and independent is even
better.” Ee
Not least because that approach could °.,-
also be their best safeguard against dying .
from overwork! ”

ees

A 100-CANDLE salute Monday, Jan. 5, too:

Cedarview’s Nan McLean on her centen-

nial birthday.

eee !
WRIGHT OR WRONG: Life is what’.
happens to you when you're busy making
other plans.

ie o WET CIRERC HAUS

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