Fifty-two per cent said, “I do the best I can, even if it interferes with my life.” There was, not surprisingly, a marked difference here between professional/managerial people, who gave a 72 per cent positive response, and the unskilled, who gave only a 43 per cent positive answer though even that seems high if you are only pushing a broom or saying “Have a nice a day.” Women’s commitment to their job is even higher than men’s, even though they are mainly in duller jobs.So there is an inbuilt tendency among most of us to try to do our best, to work ourselves hard. However, a declining number of people, only 26 per cent, think their workplace is very well managed. So all those tough managerial initiatives of the past decade have failed to impress the workforce. But, none the less, people are more committed than ever to their work.Is that through fear? Or is it because we are watching a growing epidemic of addiction to work, especially in the upper echelons? With no noticeable economic benefit to the country, we are working like maniacs, harder than our successful European rivals, and it is taking over our lives. Since the turn of the century, the story of working hours has been one of a steady and decent reduction. This stopped in the early Seventies, and, during the Eighties, the managerial/ professional group, who now form a third of the workforce, actually added two more hours to their working week in unpaid overtime.The effect of this has been unemployment.

If working hours had continued to decline after 1975 at the same steady rate as they did during the rest of the century, then the average week would now be between 34 and 36 hours. Taking account of various other changes, especially in technology, that would mean the creation of an extra one million full-time jobs. It would mean, of course, that those in work would have to accept less pay. But job sharing in this way might be regarded as just another more satisfactory form of income tax, with gains all round.Those who work hardest, those in the top brackets, are keenest to cut their working hours. Most of those working more than 45 hours actually work well over 50.

Why? Because the culture of the high-achieving workplace demands it. As you move up the ladder you have to justify your position and delegation seems dangerous. In the thin air at the top, people become light-headed and they start to believe in their own divine indispensability.The EC is trying to bring in a 48-hour maximum working week for all The Government is resisting it fiercely. Ministers, after all, work much longer hours, and where would we be if they didn’t? (Where indeed?) But since most people working these preposterous hours are not paid for the extra time, or are self-employed, it would be difficult to regulate. How do you stop the barrister studying his brief, the journalist writing an article, or the window cleaner doing his tax returns?However, like much legislation, it would act as a beacon indicating that overwork is undesirable and might help to break this vicious upward spiral of workomania. After all, what is it all for? What is work, politics and the whole economy for if not to try to make more people happier? Money isn’t the ultimate object, contentment is.

Somewhere in the past 20 years, we have lost the balance between the getting of money and the spending of timeProfesseur sans frontieresMeryl Davies is 39. She is one of the deputy heads of a large grant-maintained comprehensive secondary school in south London. She lives in southeast London with her partner, Andy, and their three-year-old son, Hugh She is eight months pregnant. Salary: pounds 32,000I get up before everyone else and leave the house at 7.15, so Andy gets Hugh up and gives him his breakfast It takes me an hour to drive to the school I’m at work until 6pm most days That is if I don’t have a meeting. I have regular meetings about twice a week, which might last until about 10pm. I’d like to be able to leave earlier, but there is so much admin that I have to try and clear my desk every night, or I get snowed under.