Woman calculates hours to expose how the 'work-life' balance is an illusion in corporate America

We have all heard companies rave about how they value a healthy work-life balance. Most of us don't think too much about it and go with the flow, believing that we get a healthy balance in life. TikTok creator Michelle (@solorevolution), who has dubbed herself a "single entrepreneurial pug mom," shared a video where she did the math to expose corporations in America. The video has become incredibly popular, getting over 2.3 million views on the social media site.

Michelle is seen standing in front of a whiteboard, saying, "Corporate America's concept of work-life balance is a bunch of bulls***." She does not waste any time and explains why it is so. Michelle mentions how there are 8760 hours in a year. The video cuts and viewers get to see a table with three columns on the white board split up into work, human needs and life. She breaks down each of the categories.

Human needs are the basic things that a person needs to do to survive on the Earth. Work qualified as tasks that people had to do to earn money, which was also essential for survival. Finally, life could be considered things that people do to make themselves feel "fulfilled or happy." Michelle begins by calculating the hours needed for the human needs or "neutral needs" which is the middle column.

She puts down sleep, remarking how individuals should ideally have 8 hours, but not everybody got that much. 8 hours every day for an entire year came out to 2920 hours of sleep. She continues by adding hours for going to the bathroom, eating, buying groceries, maintaining personal hygiene, cleaning the house, exercising and finally, miscellaneous things. All of these estimates were done for an individual, but the hours would increase if they were a parent.

Michelle calculates the total from all her estimates and shares that people needed to have 5635 hours just to do basic things to survive on Earth. She moves on to the next column, which is work. She splits up the section into the hours that a person actually worked and the time taken to get to the office. Michelle assumes a 40-hour work week in her video, which means that people worked for 2080 hours in a year on average.

She alters it by clarifying how the average US employee worked 44 hours in a week, pushing the total up to 2288. She assumes that people take an hour and a half every day for commuting. After this, she adds a miscellaneous section for work, accounting for official travel, special projects, or overtime. She adds the total time for work and human needs to get 8573, subtracting from the total hours a year. This left a measly 187 hours for other things that people could do.

Michelle does a few more calculations and concludes that people have a week to do things outside of work or basic survival needs. People found her analysis eye-opening and shared their thoughts in the comments section. @durandbernarr said, " This is why they wanna get rid of this app. We are gettin’ schooled in a way they don’t want us." @mofomakeupco_mj commented, "I’ve always thought this, but seeing it in writing makes it legitimate! I hope someday this changes."