There's been talk about work/life balance a lot lately. HR Happy Hour even discussed "work/life blend" a few podcasts ago. I think this is 100% correct. People that get offended about the idea of "work/life blend" still think that work looks like when Ward would come home on Leave it to Beaver, talk breifly about getting the Peterson Account and you would never hear anything more because Eddie Haskel just complemented Ms. Cleaver's rack.. of lamb.
If you don't understand the above reference it is because it came from a TV show from the 1950's when people were expected to leave work at work and home at home and that was that.
Now you are thinking about work at home and home at work. Everyone has an office phone, cell phone, three email accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and the ability to check any one of these things at any time all the time.
Enter the work/life blend.
The bad side of the work/life blend is this story from DeltaHouse...
NotReadyForLife was overwhelmed by work. She had just entered the working world, and the need to meet deadlines, and the requirement of showing up to work got in the way of her social life in a big way. Not to mention that her family was simply happy that she was employed (and occasionally called me in case FireHydrant was a meanie to her).
I think the main reason I blog is because I've been in enough companies where this sort of stuff just doesn't happen, and would NEVER happen, and could never happen. Because I know that a good company (even a mediocre one) runs much, much, MUCH better than DeltaHouse does. Because I know that half of the long-term employees at DeltaHouse would get killed in a job interview because of their personality issue that I "just have to understand" that so-and-so is crazy/racist/sexist/angry/on his meds/off her meds/lonely/horny/cranky/caffeinated/a jackass/dumb/makes poor life decisions/mean/quiet and I have to be flexible around that and just deal with it.
Anyway, I'm walking through the office to talk to LikeableQuietGirl, and I notice that NotReadyForLife is stoically puffy-eyed-and-crying. And being that I've already had to hear about how PrettyFatGirl is mean to her, I really don't want to know what she's crying over. This is sad, I know. This is also the part where you accuse me of being a sh!tty HR person.
But she didn't come to me, she's just sitting there crying. LikeableQuietGirl walks with me back to my office and says that NoyReadyForLife is crying because her parents called her fifteen minutes ago and told her they had to put her dog to sleep!!!!!!!! It is 2:30 in the afternoon. This couldn't wait until she got home? This is critical information that she needed at that moment? This ruined her work for a solid week. It made half of DeltaHouse way uncomfortable, and for what? A piece of non-urgent-yet-important piece of information that could have waited.
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I had someone call me in the middle of a busy waitressing shift to tell me that my friend (she was terminal with ovarian cancer, we knew she was dying) had passed away. I was sad, but damn, it could have waited. I couldn't speak for about an hour because I knew if I opened my mouth I would start crying. I had to write my manager a note to explain what happend!
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