Unbalanced Libra
What’s my sign?
I’m a Libra which according to every astrologist I’ve encountered means I should be concerned with balance. Good thing I don’t believe in woo-woo stuff like astrology or else I’d be worried that there is something wrong with me. Hell, there’s a lot wrong with me, but maybe it has very little to do with the scales.
Actually, I enjoy the idea of balance. I’m always striving to save more but spend when it will benefit our family, eat healthy but allow for an occasional treat, drink plenty of water but save room for the occasional bourbon, show my children affection but also give them responsibility and balance work and family life. In theory, balance is great. In practice, I struggle.
Just this evening I showed up 45 minutes early to basketball uniform try-ons, did three of my boys chores because I just didn’t feel like waiting their slow pace, wrote a check to the school cafeteria to pay Ollie’s $17 balance before he gets his knees cracked by the lunch ladies and ate half a bag of Lay’s potato chips. If only Harry and I had swung by the Alexandria Brewing Company instead of going home for 30 minutes before turning around to go back to the gymnasium, I would have screwed the pooch on that front too.
As of late, the most improved area of my life has been work/life balance. Actually, I really hate that term because it insulates that you’re a different person at work and at home—two sides of the scale. While I know a lot of people who try to pull that off, ultimately you’re the same person and we’d all be a little healthier if we showed our genuine selves more readily. And what happens at home affects work and vice versa, but the idea is that the ultimate arrangement would allow time to cover both work and family responsibilities.
This work/life balance concept becomes more and more of a challenge in a world where employees, especially white collar, exempt employees, are expected to be plugged into their email and phones 24/7. What I’ve experienced over the last 4-6 years is that employers have pushed a slow creep of work into hours beyond 5pm. I suppose that would be okay, if they weren’t also expecting butts behind desks from 8am-5pm every day too.
I realized over the last few years that the quick email response at 9:00pm or 30 minute phone screen to accommodate a candidate at 6:30pm meant that I was working longer and longer hours, but not being compensated differently than if I were doing my job solely during office hours. Then there was the ridiculous notion that if I worked 2-3 hours after my boys went to bed, I’d get caught up on reading the 350 unopened emails that accumulated over the two day period I was out of the office at a career fair. Thing is, no matter how much I did, there was always more piling up. It’s impossible to “catch up” on work in the Information Age.
So work/life balance is impossible to achieve when you’re connected 24/7. Eventually, the scales tipped far in favor of work pushing family priorities into hard-to-reach territory. Part of this was my failure to draw stricter lines, but the larger issue was the expectation from my employer to give more and more of my time both in and out of the office. In order to stay in good favor and remain relevant in most companies, this type of connectivity is expected.
This overworking strategy actually backfires. As I’ve discussed before, the expectation of being constantly on call meant that I’d sneak in breaks throughout the day. Ultimately, I probably worked less than if I had been targeting only 40 hours. My productivity plummeted, partially because I was fatigued from feeling as if I never got to step away and partially because I was a petulant child trying to take back my time.
The current HR buzzword is work/life integration. I suppose integration more accurately describes my current work circumstances. Nearly every day I take my boys to school, hit up the gym or yoga class, write or read for 30-45 minutes before showering and heading to the office by 10-10:30. I’m able to be at a cross country meet that starts at 4:30, chaperone field trips and unless I have a deadline or want to attend a networking event I’m home by 5:00 every evening. I do end up working from 9-midnight at least 4 nights a week and several hours over the weekend, but I don’t feel like I’m constantly tied to a never-ending stream of emails that are mostly just cc’s from people covering their asses.
While this is working well for me, a freelance storyteller, I do have concerns that employers will find ways to turn the work/life integration concept into an exploitative disaster. And while this type of arrangement won’t work for blue collar and service workers—Jason can’t exactly dig trenches at midnight—I can see no reason most exempt office workers couldn’t have similar arrangements. I also won’t hold my breath that this will be the new norm any time soon.
Either way, I’m enjoying the flexibility and productivity my current arrangements afford me. Maybe I’m living up to my astrological sign after all. Should I check out my horoscope and buy a lotto ticket with my lucky numbers? Who knows, maybe then I’ll be able to balance my checkbook.
