If getting a tug from work on the electonic umbilical cord is the worst thing that ever happens to these snowflakes, they should count themselves fortunate that they don’t know the real meaning of stress.
That is a serious case of get a life... my time off work is sanskrit, but then I work 70 hours not 30.
I work for myself and am thus responsible to pay all the bills and keep the lights on - so I am available literally 24/7, and I don’t mind. Its very rare that I have to field calls or emails on a Sunday anyway.
but I also choose who I work with and on what terms. So if there are emails or calls I don’t want to receive, that dissonance is simply a sign that I, or my organization, has made a mistake, either in some process, or our choice of customers or suppliers.
I know its different in the corporate world, where people feel they have zero choice. That’s not absolutely true - you have a choice of your work, your chosen career, and also, the terms on which people deal with you.
Oh give me a !@#$ing break. This is the real difference between entry, mid, senior, lead and executive.
If you want to be a top contributor and/or make money, you have to go over and above - rather than sit on your couch and btch that you never have anything. Welcome to the real world.
Early in my working life I saw a couple of workaholics suffer very serious health problems which effected both their careers and personal lives. Hard work can be productive and satisfying, but like anything else it can also be destructive when done to excess.
Its hard finding the right work-life balance, but its a necessary thing to strive for.
I’ve never been told that I’m expected to check or respond to emails on personal time. Occasionally I do if I deem it important.
I just got home from vacation. On my out of office message, I wrote that I would be in an area that had no cell coverage, which was true. At best I went from one bar to No Service for an entire week.
I ran a summer camp for about 100 kids. The camp office had Wi-Fi but I was far too busy to worry about my personal e-mails.
I’m wiped out. I think it’s time for another nap.
William Becker, an associate professor of management in the Pamplin College of Business — always on top of the latest developments, the Assoc. Prof. is. We were chained to our devices and expected to be available at all hours 20 years ago. He should change his name to Rip van Becker.
When I was managing a staff, I had no expectation that they'd be "on call" outside work hours unless they were working on a project that required it. Even without this expectation, I found many of my staff sending e-mails even after I had gone to bed.
I forbade my staff from sending me text messages, and I removed the instant messaging feature from my own computer. In a professional setting, these are two of the dumbest forms of communication ever invented.
What used to bug me was my employer asking me to give her my personal cell number. I didn’t do it. If the expectation was for me to be available on personal time, my expectation was a company-provided phone. That was before unlimited talk and text, so every contact cost ME money.
The biggest crime I have seen in decades is people going straight to college from high school without ever having worked a job (all on mommy and daddy's dime or back breaking student loans)and then when they do enter the job market they whine, bitch and moan that it's so hard and they are so tired because they never knew what it was like to work.
Many still don't know what real work is, I've changed my opinion over the years after seeing a new generation or two and believe it would do both our children and nation good for them to have to work at government chosen jobs for two years, at least one of those years physical work unless medically unable. Maybe then we snuff out the snowflake syndrome.
You do what needs to be done, but when the project lead starts sending email at 3 AM it is time to call HR. Sure sign that somebody is wound too tight and ready to pop.
I once had a program manager ask me to take my pager with me when I went on vacation. I told him I would be located in a remote location about 10,000 feet above sea level. Bring a good helicopter.
When I am old and grey in the old engineers home, will any of my former managers come and visit me? Not likely, but my family will. It is the employee’s responsibility to decide what is important to them and act accordingly, not the government. Man up folks.
I post and read FR less and less as a result of my job, using whatever “free” time I can get with my family. I’ve been on call 24/7 for 14yrs, responding in person at all hours, in two different parts of the city I live in. I’ve been called while on vacation overseas, and answered email the whole time I was there.
People simply say “Don’t do that”. If I took their advise we’d have suffered millions in law suits, lost business and property damage before anyone else would have taken action. I just can’t look the other way while the company that employees me gets rolled, when I could’ve stopped it.
I mind it, but only because of the reason for it. Too many people don’t care bout their work, and don’t care to learn how to solve problems. I’m not saying I’m surrounded by incompetence, because some are really trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, those people are not accountable for the outcome, and are not in positions of authority.
I just got off a 20 minute phone call about dual elevator malfunctions on a day we’re having an event. I’ll be tracking the progress all day, and will likely end up at one site or the other for some “crisis”. The phone never stops.
In running a business, my ‘anxiety’ was 24/7, with the line between home and work vanishing. I never burdened employees with at=home expectations and was pissed when I had, in another job, to wear a beeper. Being on salary means never having to say, “Leave me alone.”
I work for Virginia Tech and I certainly do it.