Well, is there? I have often wondered if life will ever return to what I thought was a much simpler state, or if, like water under a bridge, has passed by and continues on to its next destination.
Over the last several years, things (life!) has become increasingly more centered upon the non recreational events of the day. You know, those things such as sitting in a cube, pouring over the hundreds of emails that have probably taken the sender no more than a few minutes to compose but will undoubtedly require at least several hours of your attention to answer.
Or the endless meetings, that people seem think your contribution would greatly enhance. Ah, Yes, and Voicemail! My goodness where would we be without the tens of short little messages, like, “Hey, Where are you? Your message says you’re in, but you didn’t pick up. Call me back ASAP, I’ve got a burning issue with………..”. You know the ones, they kind of eat up your day the same way that your paycheck DOESN’T fill up your bank account.
Eventually it seems that the workday has become longer. Work goes home. Home becomes a place of work. All of a sudden, there is a T1 connection to your house. There are multiple computers on each floor. You find that you actually have more bandwidth at home than you do at work. (For those DBA folks you know what that means!) Later you find there is a wireless hub at home. You can compute from anywhere, and I do mean ANYWHERE!!! You can go from the work place to home without even shutting off the laptop, only loosing connectivity for the 20 or so minutes during the commute. You carpool, someone else can drive and you can answer a few of those pesky emails while riding. Then when in range of home, bingo, connected again. Emails sent! Dammit, more arrive! More often than not you find yourself sitting at the Dinner table, laptop at your side, plate of food in front of you, Dog at your feet, cell phone vibrating across the table. Your spouse sitting across the table. gives you a look that you can easily interpret to mean, “If you don’t do something about this, I’m sure I can”.
At that very instant you realize, the Children have grown up and moved out. You can’t remember the last time you have seen the sun set (daylight even), or had meaningful conversation that didn’t include words like, schedules, headcount, objectives, Milestones, budgets, and on time delivery. The last time you had a conversation with a friend was………… ………friends?
Oh dear………………. life has really gotten away from you.
The same way the 5:15 metro DOESN”T wait for you to show up at 5:45!
You turn off the computer, give the dog the cell phone to play with, Grab a bottle of wine, and take the spouse for a long moonlit walk.
So, I ask again, is there life after work? Are we doomed to continually spiral out of control until one day it all comes crashing down? How do you prevent work becoming a way of life?
And regarding the cheese, well It seems I’ve run out of time (ACK!), More on that later.
~Giz
Posted by scaper at March 3, 2004 02:25 AMIt's a question I keep coming back to, time and again. Am I working to live, or merely living to work?
All week long, it's the prospect of the upcoming weekend that keeps me going on the professional treadmill, knowing that I'll have those two days to recharge and forget about the job's demands. I come home from work too tired to start any of the projects or household tasks that need my attention, scrounge something to eat, and try to get some minor stuff done on the computer. Eventually, I stumble into bed, where I spend a restless number of hours, percolating under the pressures of the week, before getting up and doing it all over again.
And then finally, Finally, it's the weekend. Saturday dawns, and I'm too tired to get out of bed...except that there are bills to pay and trash to empty and recycling to cart off to the local recycling center and that package for my Dad's birthday (two days ago!) that needs to go to the Post Office and oh yeah I forgot that I'm out of shampoo and bananas and coca-cola so I really better do some shopping but first I have to balance my checkbook so that I know there's money to pay for it, and whoops, now it's bedtime. And then it's Sunday, and Sunday is family day, so I drag myself out of bed, into the shower, get dressed, bug Fred until he realizes that yeah, he really does have to stop squinting crankily at me and at least pretend to wake up, then get in the car and drive the 70 miles to his family's place and have a nice Sunday dinner and visit for a few hours, then get back in the car and drive the 70 miles home, and by then it's evening and I'm tired from the hours on the road, but Fred needs to get some stuff done on the computer so I can't really get to sleep until he shuts the light off around 2 a.m., and then it's time to get up and go to work and I still haven't really done any of the fun stuff my job is supposedly providing the money to pay for.
And that's without kids, pets, a pager, a cellphone, or checking my office email during non-business hours. (It can only be exponentially worse for you, Giz.)
Somewhere along the line, we seem to have lost, culturally, our grasp on the purpose of Work. No matter how much you might love a job (assuming that you like it at all, which is scarcely a given), it's supposed to be a means, not an end. It's so often the center of our lives, when it isn't even remotely near the center of Life.
Posted by: Thinky at March 3, 2004 07:12 PMWork ... well.
For a guy, or at least for this cat, work falls somewhere between the thing I do to make sure my family has a place to live and the fun hobby I can't believe they pay me for (except for the irritation of dealing with people who want me to do their thing instead of the cool thing that I want to do, that pretty much justifies the pay).
I moved quite a distance away from home to keep working. I've put in some pretty serious hours for bonuses, pay raises, and promotion. I voluntarily took on a position where I have to take responsibility not just for my mistakes, but the mistakes of others. Oh yes, and I have to deal with executive pressure from very much on high.
Soooo ... the bottom line is that we've turned into a very competitive environment. There are possibly many reasons why, but right now I'd bet it's a competition with parts of the world that have very different standards than ours.
Posted by: PyeCat at March 5, 2004 02:17 AMI came across this quote at (of all places):
http://www.wilwheaton.net/wish.php
"This is my wishlist for life. Everyone should make one, and check it from time to time, and see if you're living your life, or just existing."
Not a bad idea.
Posted by: Thinky at March 5, 2004 05:35 PM