Crazy hours: Stories from the front
In one week, I heard three stories. I've changed the names.Sandra, six months into a new job with a global manufacturing company, was, after a workforce reduction, handed another person's role on top of her own. She works 12-14 hour days. Booked solidly into meetings at work, she brings files home to review in the quiet, until midnight. (Sandra is childless.)
I met her last week and noticed her hollow eyes and gray skin. Her spark has gone.
Betsy, a manager in the Canadian office of a North American firm, told me that her manager, a time zone away, called regularly to discuss business during her maternity leave, and now that she's back, phones as late as 10 pm. on a Sunday evening. He schedules phone meetings for 6 pm., "forgetting" it is one hour later where she is. But it's 7 pm. at her house, prime family time when wrangling a newborn and toddler.
Marcia, a service manager at a huge telecom, gets BlackBerry buzzes at 9 pm. saying, "WHY aren't you there?" Though she scheduled time off between Christmas and New Year's, she came in to work for two days to make sure a deal was completed. No one thanked her.
Is it a coincidence that each of these stories is a woman's?
When men tell me about the erosion of their personal time, they duck their heads as if disclosing a shameful secret. Or they brag. I heard two IT road warriors on a plane boasting about how long it had been since they had been home for a weekend. The winner hadn't seen his family in seven weeks. "What can you do?" he said dismissively.
Two of the three women are looking elsewhere. I've worked with each; they're no wimps, have a top-notch work ethic and understand that emergencies and crunches mean extra hours.
This demand on worker's personal time is increasing. If you are working days, evenings should belong to you, unless you have accepted responsibilities that require extended hours or on-call work. Some hourly workers welcome overtime as a way to make extra income. These women are salaried, and do not want the overtime even if paid.If employees want to give mega-hours to an organization, that's their business. But I know too many people forfeiting their personal time against their will, cowed, resentful, exploited.
When I began working in corporations four decades ago, the hours were long at certain periods, but you could take compensatory time off, and no one expected to see you first thing in the morning after your red-eye flight from London. It was intense but civilized.
Many of you agree, and have commented on the factors that have contributed to the shift. And what can we do about it?
I deplore what the pressure to cede private life to corporate "productivity" is doing to these dedicated, hard-working women.
Comments
I've given up even trying to address the issue at my current workplace - the most common retort from many men in power to the issue of life balance and retention is "well, some people just don't know how to work hard" which is utter BS but makes the man saying it feel big.....
Thank you for posting on this issue - may it help someone, somewhere, to get herself free.
This is also a downside of all the communications devices--people expect to reach us at any time.
Employers know that they can push their workforce more that ever because jobs are not pleniful. I know executive that have been out of work for YEARS and I know people who were laid off in the last month.
The entire situation is dire...except of course for the corporations whose productivity numbers are incereased as numbers of employees are reduced.
I work extended hours because
1. I am building a business from the bottom up and
2. an internet business is intrinsically 24/7.
I'm tired but I don't complain...neither do I brag...I don't get paid enough for that!
It is one thing to be a 25 year old in investment banking or law who is working 60-80 hour weeks and who will eventually make partner. It is another thing to be a young mother (or father) with a family who has to take calls at all hours or work on weekends.
The organization I worked for laid off a quarter of its staff, including myself. All the job listings in my field now look like at least two jobs combined.
After the last few months of having time to listen to my own needs, getting enough sleep, eating at regular hours and seeing my friends (I saw them more in the last two months than I had in the last 5 years), I'm horrified by the realization that if I'm lucky enough to get another job, I'll likely be expected to work most evenings & weekends w/o complaining, w/o any recourse (& w/o any extra compensation). In this drudgery, where do I get a life? And if I don't, what is the point? I don't care about stuff accumulation - I would rather have life balance.
A friend of mine lost his 7-year marriage. His company was taken over by new management who expected him to travel most of every month. He had a newborn daughter at the time - she's 3 now and is being shuttled between two houses as her parents try to get past the fallout & mutual recriminations enough to be good parents.
I don't know what the solution is - but I think we should all be paying a lot of attention to which laws our local politicians support - or don't - and whether their rhetoric about family values actually matches how they vote on legislation that protects employees. It's never in a corporation's best interest to give its employees more time to themselves -they will take as much as they can get until someone puts limits on them & enforces those limits.
Frugal: Fear is the weapon, potent and real.
Belle: Starting a business is a different universe, and yet those people need rest and balance too. Some entreprenuurs I know work crazy hours way beyond the start-up phase, for love of the venture or for other, less healthy reasons.
OdetteO: I have a friend who went into real estate sales for that reason- she loves it and is doing well after 2 yrs. There is no one right answer but I'm glad you see behind the curtain.
re your friend: a recruiter I know calls 50% travel or more for a job "marriage breaking".
Tiffany: Yes, that's another contributing factor. I see young couples "together" in restaurants, both on their Blackberries. Wonder what they will be like in 15-20 years.
I think the most insidious thing about the expectation that people will be on-call all the time, will work late, will travel incessantly, etc., is that it creates a feeling of powerlessness. And feeling powerless is extremely stressful. (Notice that's "feeling powerless" -- not "being powerless.")
While many of us are not in a position to leave a job that is eating us alive, it is possible to change the way we react to situations. If your job is like one of those described, I highly recommend that you find a coach! S/he can help you find ways to reduce stress and to restore balance to your life.
Anon@ 12:55: Saw the Globe article about this; part of the issue is workplace demands but time crunch also caused by "sandwich" caregiving (elders plus children.)
Rubiatonta: Delighted to learn more about you! Re: "many of us are not in a position to leave a job that is eating us alive", yes, you are. Maybe not immediately, but make and carry out an exit plan. And if you do not leave, you could end up out anyway, on disability.
People are not, unlike the days of slavery, kidnapped and forced into the job.
(Right now I am reading a wise manual of Gestalt therapy, which emphasizes awareness, so I am "into" that- how much people piss away their power and responsibility.)
A coach, therapist or even a friend who has made the move herself can be enormously helpful. As far as reducing stress in current job goes, I view it as a temporary fix. That might be fine, if there is an exit plan, but it will not change the culture.
Belva: Sounds like this woman has decided where to give, and where to draw the line. I still see 4 days/45-50 hours as moving the furniture around, not changing a culture. I'm glad she champions flexibility for her team.
Right now, I'm reading "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall Rosenberg, and I can't recommend it more highly. It's a great tool in a stressed-out world.
I'm a 40 year old lawyer who might make partner - but I don't want to (ick, cooties and entrapment) - and it wouldn't make me much more money anyway (I'm not in NYC, DC or LA). I've been plotting how to get out for a few years now, with a coach's help and afterwards, but it has taken a while. Now I have some very good "irons in the fire," one of which I think will come to fruition before the New Year, but I've had to get out of my own way a lot (out of the way of ego, exhaustion, depression and that "who cares?" feeling, etc.) to get some progress.
One key for me is, sad to say for the legal profession, mental disconnection and not really caring about the reward "stuff." I do excellent work and serve clients well, but when I'm not here, I'm not here. I'll never get the midnight Blackberry response award again - fine. I'm not doing face time - fine. I'm not overworking to make myself into a superstar partner candidate - fine. Think I'm a slacker? That's fine too. I'm only a slacker to the insane, and I might not have a heart attack at work - that is good enough for me.
Artful: Wise to catalog the beliefs that are implicit in "success" in most law firms, then see if you share them. (Clearly you do not.) Hope you will tell us more about your path as the year unfolds; I'm going to guess it would inspire many.
Another reason why coaches/therapists are good is b/c friends and family can lack objectivity or fade from asking the hard questions.
My nephew (a lawyer) told me about a colleague who taught a first year law school course. The prof asked what their motivation for practicing was. Every student said "Make money".
What I really miss about working was having the chance to keep my skills current and be able to save for my retirement years. If I ever need to return to the work force my skills are so out of date that I will have to return at about a third of what I was earning full time 11 years ago.
This system really puts women at a disadvantage financially. If I were to advise a young woman about a career choice I would ask her to seriously consider becoming a professional in a career requiring a license. The professions lend themselves to much more autonomy and flexibility than does being a line employee for either a company or a government agency.
If you each made half of the full time position, that seems like a more accurate way to capture what you were earning. Job sharing *can* work, but if mega-hours are expected I have seen both job sharers going way beyond their half.
I've seen stats that a woman loses 5% of salary for every year out of the workforce. Depends on the field, but upgrading on one's own nickel is sometimes possible.
I recently met with a group of women on maternity leave- various occupations- and advised them to read journals, newsletters, ANY publications in their field. None of them were doing that and here in Canada most are out for 12 months.
When they go back they'd have to hit the ground running and that's hard when you haven't picked up a professional journal for a year.
In most of the developed world, we are taught from an early age that good enough is, in fact, not really that good. What we're really supposed to want to be is exceptional, ne plus ultra. Chasing that is what makes us crazy, at work and elsewhere (for example, body image, but that's another conversation).
It made huge impact on me when I learned that "good enough" was perfect for me. No more, no less.