Category: overwhelmed

Don’t Disobey the Dictionary!

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bal·ance  [bal-uhns] noun, verb, -anced, -anc·ing.

1. a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.

2. something used to produce equilibrium; counterpoise. Source: Dictionary.com

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and

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Work–life balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between “work” (career and ambition) on the one hand and “life” (Health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development) on the other. Source: Wikipedia

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So if balance means equal distribution, then work-life balance would imply that the two, work and life were equally distributed in my life.

Like so:




If I read our HR website correctly, for every hour I toil in Cubelandia, I get one hour of frolicking.

Work eight hours on one side. Play eight hours on the other. Sleep eight more. There’s a nice day. Right?

However.

As companies compete harder in the market place and my own employer is viciously cutting costs, and since people are, by far, the highest expense on any company’s financials, our employee numbers are shrinking. We are now called a “lean” staff. Or “right sized”. Or “efficient”.

Then work-life balance looks a lot more like this:




Rude.

So, who wants to volunteer to go tell my executive team? I see all their (luxury) cars in the lot, so they’re here today. C’mon!

Let’s march up to the boob painting floor and let them know they are directly in conflict with the generally accepted definition of the word balance!

C’mon, ye mighty defenders of the lexicon!

C’mon you slayers of sintax and abohorrers of “corporate speak”!

Come with me now!

Follow me!

Here I go!

Anyone?

Hello? Bueller?

*sigh*

Back to work.



Today’s Theme Thursday is: balance

Graphics by Stephen Stacey and used royalty free from stock.xchng.


…And you can too

Oh what a Monday morning. Woke with a migraine. Today’s headache is not as severe as the one I had Thursday.

You know…just five days ago?

And here we go again.

Hooray.

I came into work while it was still dark outside to have an early morning call with an important Director in Ireland. He’s taking ownership of my team and while it was a good call, at two hours, with a migraine, trying to understand his brogue, and answering questions in rapid fire succession, I was a little…done.

When I hung up the phone, I sighed.

Wanting a little break, I went to my personal email box. There I found a rejection note from a literary magazine. This is to be expected, of course, when going through rounds of submissions. Generally not a problem. But at that moment, not what I needed.

Then I went to Google to look up something work related, and my broken brain forgot what I needed to look up.

I sighed.

Then, in the grand tradition of many people who use Google as a divination tool, I typed the words “can you make your own lucky star?” into the search field.

Hell, I could use a little luck today.

Turns out I can make my own lucky star.

And you can too.

Star light. Star bright. First star I see tonight. I wish I may. I wish I might.

Have this wish, I wish tonight.


A little office paper. A few folds. A little homemade luck.


“To hell with luck. I’ll bring the luck with me.” ― from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway



Something to Aspire To

Let’s stay on our theme of managers and management, shall we?

My story from yesterday had me thinking about the kind of manager I’d like to be one day.

Which reminded me of a post I did a few years ago.

Presented for your review, a (rather effective) management style that you won’t find in any college textbooks.


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Management…hamburger style

Currently, at the building across the way, there are some gentlemen hard at work putting a new roof on the two-story structure.

Roofing has got to be some grueling, backbreaking work, and they’ve been toiling at this for a few days now.

About an hour ago, all work went quiet over there. I thought maybe they were on a break. They weren’t on a break.

It appears they were having a little conference. Seems there was a problem and they were having what they’d call in the corporate world, a “root cause analysis” discussion.

I suspect they discovered what, or rather, whom was at the center of the mistake, because I could then hear the supervisor of this project having a one-on-one mentoring conversation, loudly, with his employee.

Let’s keep this a family friendly post…for all the instances of the eff word, I will substitute a more appropriate word.

Oh let’s have fun with it, let’s use the word “hamburger.”

Here we go, a faithful recounting of this clearly very hands on and empathetic manager as he guides his employee through a big error.

Remember: hamburger = eff word

“You hamburgered up. You hamburgered this whole thing up. I didn’t hamburger up. All the rest of these hamburgering guys didn’t hamburger this thing up. What in the hamburgering hell were you thinking? You weren’t thinking and you hamburgered this hamburgering thing all to hell. What the hamburger, man?! What the hamburger happened?”

: sound of employee mumbling, trying to explain his reason for hamburgering everything up :

“You what? You what? Who the hamburger told you to do that? I sure as hell didn’t hamburgering tell you to do that! Now this whole hamburgering project is running behind and that costs hamburgering money? Do you get that? Do get that you’ve cost every hamburgering one of us some hamburgering time and some hamburgering money?”

: more mumbling :

“Aw man, what the hamburger. Get back to work!”

And with that, all the machines started up, the smell of tar once again filled the air, and the team of folks got back to roofing.

There you have it. Management by hamburgering around.






Management 101

In November, I got to thinking about the end of the calendar year and how hard my own work team has been pulling to keep our program going, supporting end users, and picking up the slack when others have left the group.

They are a resilient little team (I mean little in numbers) and I’m proud of them.

I asked the Boss of my Boss if we had some sort of recognition program. He said, “oh yes, we do spot bonuses. Talk to so-in-so and they can provide you with some gift cards to hand your employees.”

I was pretty stoked. I figured these gift cards might be $100. Or maybe, you know, $50. Not much, but enough to make a difference.

So I contacted so-in-so and wrote up my justification and was handed some gift cards.

They are $25 each.

Ugh.

Ok, I know $25 is still better than a kick in the shins, but I worried that handing out $25 would be less of a thank you and more of a “why bother”? Given how hard this crew has been working and the success they saw last year, would a $25 gift card be an insult?

Unfortunately for me, it turned out to be all I could do for my employees under “official” program at of my very cheap frugal cost-conscious company.

This week, with everyone back in the office after the holiday break, I decided to hand out the gift cards along with a hearty thank you.

I went to each person on my team and I talked to them about how hard they worked and said “I’d like to give you this. I’m sorry it’s not very much, but it’s the best I can do under the official auspices.”

Every member of my team was incredibly grateful and dare I say excited to get an “official” bit of recognition for a job well done.

As one woman leapt from her chair to hug me and thank me over and over, I was stunned.

How could she be so thrilled over a puny $25 gift card?

I puzzled over it and thought about it and pondered.

Today, on my afternoon walk around the lake, I figured it out.

These wonderful, hardworking, amazing people are simply happy to be recognized.

This is the power of saying (and meaning) the words Thank You.

I knew this mattered, I really did. I try very hard as a manager to remember to say thank you and mean it. But even I forget.

My very humble team gave me a good lesson. They took me back to Management 101, and for that I’m filled with gratitude.

(Should I remind my own manager that I also tend to work harder with a few “thank yous” along the way?)







Image via Abstruse Goose.



Day Two

And so the new year starts. As The Good Man and I waved adieu to a year filled with both highlights and lowlights, it seemed most all we could think of was lowlights. As new years eve began to wane, The Good Man and I held hands tightly and tried to summon up some optimism for the new year ahead.

Maybe things would be better in 2012. Or at least different in a positive way.

We agreed that moving house was a first step toward that positive kind of change.

In a rare bit of daydreaming, we allowed ourselves to imagine what might lie ahead, and talked of plans.

Then we stood up, dusted the beach sand off our butts, and went and had lunch. We talked of politics and authors and how damn good the French press coffee is at The Ritz.

We came home feeling a little calmer. A little happier. A little more optimistic.

The first day of the new year came rolling through, and it seemed like we were going to be ok.

Then last night The Good Man got some very bad news. Someone very important in his life has passed away. It was quite unexpected and a bit shocking.

Today I find this puts a bit of a tint to our lives in the new year.

Grief has a funny way of overcoming a weakly positive outlook.

And so another medal of honor from this battle called life is awarded to the heart. Not pretty ribbons but scar tissue. Countable, like rings in a tree.

In the timeless lyrics of Isaac Hayes and David Porter, “When something is wrong with my baby, something is wrong with me.”

Tomorrow means I go back to work. The rhythm of our lives begins again.

What news is riding on the waves of tomorrow, I wonder? I hope there’s cake. Or at least a good cup of coffee.





Photo Copyright 2007, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page.