Work/Life, Life/Work Balance

posted by Heath Buckmaster on April 23, 2007

When I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, and just starting to get interested in computers, I remember a few influences in my life that stand out the most. One was my dad, who happened to be the Director of Administrative Computing for North Carolina State University for 30+ years; the other was a friend’s dad who worked at IBM*, in Research Triangle Park, NC.

What I remember primarily was that both of them had to dress up for work every day. And when I say dress up, I really mean it. We’re talking suit and tie and coat, each and every day. There was no such thing as “casual Friday” or “Hawaiian Shirt Day” or even dressing up for Halloween.

When I visited him at work, I didn’t see people walking down the hallway at work wearing shorts and flip-flops with iPod* headphones in their ears (or Sony Walkman* of that era), and if they were listening to music in their office you couldn’t have heard it anyway because their door (yes they had them back then) was closed.

You didn’t see posters about off-site team building events, reminders about the Corporate Games, announcements about the annual Halloween Costume Contest, or flyer’s advertising the latest special event put on by a company employee group. The only employee groups used to be you and the buds going out for suds after work. Life has certainly intruded upon the workplace in the 2000’s.

The male-centric business world of last-millennium was about getting work done. Socializing happened only at lunch breaks and after 5 o’clock, and for the most part, people actually left the office at 5pm or shortly thereafter. My dad was home every morning for breakfast and every night for dinner. I can’t ever remember him missing a meal with the family because he had to work.

These days, we’re lucky to even start cooking dinner until 7 or 8pm, and having breakfast at home has become a thing of the past unless you are telecommuting because of an early morning meeting with your peers in Europe. Television and video games have become the babysitter until parents eventually get home from work and can interact with their kids.

Pagers and mobile phones keep us connected to work around the clock, even when we’re on vacation. I’ve done it, and I know you’ve done it - taken your laptop with you on that weekend trip to Lake Tahoe, just in case something happens and you need to “log in to work and fix something.” Work has certainly intruded upon life in the 2000’s.

So this whole work/life balance thing has become quite jumbled. Is that good? Is that bad? Does it hurt corporate productivity or does it hurt our lives as human beings? The answer is probably different for every one of us who works in this industry.

Some people like to make a clean separation between work and life. They don’t have any photos of their spouses, partners, kids, dogs, cats, or vacations adorning the walls of the cube (remember, doors are from the 80’s, we’ve progress to padded walls now - how very insane asylum of us). They have no personal effects in their office whatsoever, because “Work is Work”, and between the hours of 8 and 5 (if they’re lucky), that is their life. Their offices may only contain a chair, a computer, or in this case just an old telephone!

And then you’ve got the complete opposite. You know these people don’t you? They have pictures of all 8 cats, 3 iguanas, 4 children in various states of outdoor enjoyment, 2 First-Place awards for Scariest Costume, and quite possibly they have wallpapered their cube walls poster-sized prints of Tahiti. (throw in a lava clock for good measure - as long as the plug is grounded)

Life has certainly intruded into work, with the hope that it makes us happier and more productive! If you’re going to spend 8+ hours in your office each day, why not have pleasant surroundings to look at. I much prefer the California coastline to a shade of grey that could only be called “Mind-Numbing Slate.” And I can speak from personal experience that listening to smooth jazz music and glancing at a goofy picture of my three cats while I’m writing an employee’s performance review, definitely puts me in a more positive state of mind, and I think we can all use a little bit of that now and then.

So life intruding onto work is generally pretty good, right? As long as your decorating and singing doesn’t interfere with your, or your neighbors ability to get your job done, I say go for it. Your company expects you to put in a hard day of work, why not make it just a little bit more relaxing.

You might even notice that you’re getting as much done by noon, as some people are getting done by 5pm. Kick up those Greatest Hits of the 80’s and kick up your productivity!

But what will people say about the opposite - work intruding upon life? Some of you may have kids that you rarely see for more than a few hours a day. You wake up and rush them off to school before getting to work and dialing in to that 7am meeting with Europe. You have a 6pm meeting with Asia, so you stay late and the kids have to find their own way home from school, fix their own dinner, and hope that you’ll be home in time for American Idol* at 8pm.

Most of the time though, your meeting runs over and you’re lucky to be in by 9pm when it’s time for them to be finishing homework and getting ready for bed. Lather, Rinse, and Repeat the next day. Can’t we find a way to be highly productive, get our jobs done, but still remain sane?

What happened to making time for ourselves? What happened to chatting about your day over a hot dinner, with every family member present? What happened to working on fun projects in the garden or the garage? What happened to us having time to review our child’s math homework, just to make sure we still remember how to determine the circumference of a circle? What happened is that work got too much in the way of life. We started making too many concessions in our personal growth and development, giving preference to the company and what it wanted to achieve vs. what we wanted to achieve. I know what my company wants, but do they know what I want? Have I even told them?

I want to be able to put in a full 8 hours a day, go above and beyond what my manager expects, make an impact on my customers and partners, deliver them solutions that they need in order to meet their managers expectations, and still get home in time to see if Ron is going to get kicked off the island.

Work expects to intrude a little bit upon your life, so bring a little bit of life with you to work tomorrow. Put on some music, kick out some hearty code or documentation, smile at people as you walk down the hall to your next meeting, and remember that your life is what you make of it…and your job will still be waiting for you the next day, whether you go home at 5pm and spend time with family and friends, or go home at 9pm and miss them completely.

* iPod is a trademark of Apple Inc. Other product names and titles mentioned in this article are the copyrights and trademarks of their respective companies and owners.
Image of Chicago Major June Smith provided by Wikimedia Commons and is in the public domain.

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tagged: productivity, work life balance