The Badge of Honor
All of the articles were very closely related this week and they all struck a nerve or two. The article I get paid to do nothing could have been a short essay on my life while working at one of my most recent employers. I was an employee for a fortune 50 company who was "lucky enough" to work from home and "hug my dogs". I had the same feelings as the woman in the article, but just thought that I was either not doing enough or I was doing something wrong. As a result, I found myself working 80 hour weeks and yet not really getting anything more done.
Then about three years ago, I remember walking up the stairs and my legs began burning like I had just completed a major workout. Soon, my arms started getting tired from brushing my hair. I had mentioned these things to my doctor who told me that it was odd but we would just wait it out and see if it went away on its own. When my jaw started getting too tired during a meal for me to eat, I knew it was time to seek other assistance - nothing stands between me and my food. I went to many doctors and specialists and finally found one who was willing to help. About a year after my first symptom, I was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, a pretty rare autoimmune disease. This disease targets the receptors in the muscles that receive signals from the brain and in turn allow the muscle to contract.
My condition progressed until I couldn't swallow my food without choking and some days I literally couldn't get out of bed. This didn't stop me from doing my duty and working just like I always had. I even purchased an adjustable desk that would allow me to lay flat and still type on my keyboard. My manager knew of my troubles, but didn't seem to think anything of it since I was still getting the work done. It was when I went to her with ideas to make my day more efficient and shorten my time spent working that she showed concern. This work "needed" to be done. A reduction of hours was not able to be accommodated and others would be willing to do what she was asking, if not me.
After trying to continue with the work, I finally gave up my job with the thought that I may never work again. After about a month at home, my symptoms started to lift. I was by no means back to normal, but I was feeling better. The doctor simply said, "Stress does weird things to the body." Today I am still fighting through occasional symptoms, but my life is full and pretty much back to normal.
I tell that extremely long winded story (believe me, it could have been worse 😊), to tell this story.
While on a summer vacation with my husband's family, I sat at the dining table and listened to my two sisters-in-law talk about how much time they were spending on work. One saying that she hardly had time to get groceries for her kids this past week and the other saying that work was keeping her up at night so she would just give up and begin work at 3am when she couldn't fall asleep. They were even saying that they shouldn't be on vacation right now since there would be so much for them to get caught up on when they return to work.
This conversation made me uneasy. It wasn't the topic that had me concerned (I had worked the same way for many years as I highlighted above), but the way they were talking. They were not complaining or angry. They were joking and jovial. They were bragging. Then I thought to myself, why do they wear this torture like a badge of honor? Something to be proud about instead of ashamed of. It is, I believe, as is highlighted by Lisa Evans in her article Why You Need to Stop Bragging About How Busy You Are, "logging in long hours and complaining about not having any time in the day is considered a status symbol and a sign of success." (Evans, 2014) This is something that we have as a society come to define as "professional". We have taken the focus off of our family, friends, and health and have become "hopelessly workaholic - not raging against the emptiness of life, but actively emptying it, and filling the whole with more work dressed up as life." (Cook, 2015)
Work-life balance seems to be a catch phrase that is thrown around organizations casually and used as a hook to grab new employees or keep people motivated in their current roles. Do we really know what that looks like? Is corporate america really trying to change the workplace culture to reflect "an attitude of work...where performance rather than time, and a life outside of work rather than a life consisting of work is the norm?" (Evans, 2014) Is there truly a way to remove the "Badge of Honor" mentality from our workforce and help them to work smarter and not longer?
Reference:
Cook, J. (2015, March 3). In Defense of Meaningful Work. Retrieved
from https://medium.com/@JonathanCCook/in-defense-of-meaningful-work-4db1650bc0e1
Evans, L. (2014, April 21). Why you need to stop bragging about how busy you are. Retrieved
from http://www.fastcompany.com/3029294/work-smart/why-you-need-to-stop-bragging-about-
how-busy-you-are
Tennis, C. (2012, March 9). I get paid to do nothing. Retrieved from
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/09/i_get_paid_to_do_nothing/
Then about three years ago, I remember walking up the stairs and my legs began burning like I had just completed a major workout. Soon, my arms started getting tired from brushing my hair. I had mentioned these things to my doctor who told me that it was odd but we would just wait it out and see if it went away on its own. When my jaw started getting too tired during a meal for me to eat, I knew it was time to seek other assistance - nothing stands between me and my food. I went to many doctors and specialists and finally found one who was willing to help. About a year after my first symptom, I was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, a pretty rare autoimmune disease. This disease targets the receptors in the muscles that receive signals from the brain and in turn allow the muscle to contract.
My condition progressed until I couldn't swallow my food without choking and some days I literally couldn't get out of bed. This didn't stop me from doing my duty and working just like I always had. I even purchased an adjustable desk that would allow me to lay flat and still type on my keyboard. My manager knew of my troubles, but didn't seem to think anything of it since I was still getting the work done. It was when I went to her with ideas to make my day more efficient and shorten my time spent working that she showed concern. This work "needed" to be done. A reduction of hours was not able to be accommodated and others would be willing to do what she was asking, if not me.
After trying to continue with the work, I finally gave up my job with the thought that I may never work again. After about a month at home, my symptoms started to lift. I was by no means back to normal, but I was feeling better. The doctor simply said, "Stress does weird things to the body." Today I am still fighting through occasional symptoms, but my life is full and pretty much back to normal.
I tell that extremely long winded story (believe me, it could have been worse 😊), to tell this story.
While on a summer vacation with my husband's family, I sat at the dining table and listened to my two sisters-in-law talk about how much time they were spending on work. One saying that she hardly had time to get groceries for her kids this past week and the other saying that work was keeping her up at night so she would just give up and begin work at 3am when she couldn't fall asleep. They were even saying that they shouldn't be on vacation right now since there would be so much for them to get caught up on when they return to work.
This conversation made me uneasy. It wasn't the topic that had me concerned (I had worked the same way for many years as I highlighted above), but the way they were talking. They were not complaining or angry. They were joking and jovial. They were bragging. Then I thought to myself, why do they wear this torture like a badge of honor? Something to be proud about instead of ashamed of. It is, I believe, as is highlighted by Lisa Evans in her article Why You Need to Stop Bragging About How Busy You Are, "logging in long hours and complaining about not having any time in the day is considered a status symbol and a sign of success." (Evans, 2014) This is something that we have as a society come to define as "professional". We have taken the focus off of our family, friends, and health and have become "hopelessly workaholic - not raging against the emptiness of life, but actively emptying it, and filling the whole with more work dressed up as life." (Cook, 2015)
Work-life balance seems to be a catch phrase that is thrown around organizations casually and used as a hook to grab new employees or keep people motivated in their current roles. Do we really know what that looks like? Is corporate america really trying to change the workplace culture to reflect "an attitude of work...where performance rather than time, and a life outside of work rather than a life consisting of work is the norm?" (Evans, 2014) Is there truly a way to remove the "Badge of Honor" mentality from our workforce and help them to work smarter and not longer?
Reference:
Cook, J. (2015, March 3). In Defense of Meaningful Work. Retrieved
from https://medium.com/@JonathanCCook/in-defense-of-meaningful-work-4db1650bc0e1
Evans, L. (2014, April 21). Why you need to stop bragging about how busy you are. Retrieved
from http://www.fastcompany.com/3029294/work-smart/why-you-need-to-stop-bragging-about-
how-busy-you-are
Tennis, C. (2012, March 9). I get paid to do nothing. Retrieved from
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/09/i_get_paid_to_do_nothing/
Epic. Your writing and introspection is really top notch and creeping into solid "A" level (discussion plus evidence; it's understood that it takes time for us to get to this understanding of what I'm after in the course).
ReplyDeleteI cannot emphasize enough how much your story resonated with me; I see this type of phenomenon everywhere in "Knowledge Work." I think it's a real problem (as clearly many others do as well). In the absence of a "thing" to point to, we all tend to get very stressed. The cognitive dissonance of all this is absolutely debilitating.
If you and I were to start a consulting firm, could we market this as a problem in which our KM and other tools could help solve? : D ...talk about a problem worth addressing, right?