A few thoughts on work/life balance
Maybe if we just stopped talking about how to achieve work/life balance, we might have some time to spend actually doing it. As un-PC as this sounds, I am so tired of hearing complaints about work/life balance and I’m tired of seeing it as a topic of discussion at every conference I go to that’s attended by women. Most other conferences, professional conferences or even topical conferences on subjects that are relevant to both men and women rarely have this session. But attend any women’s conference and lo, hear the outcry if this isn’t addressed.

It’s not that I don’t get it. I do. Believe me, I do. I work at a big corporation that is dominated by men (then again most are), I have two young kids and a husband (which some might think, myself included, that this occasionally means I have three kids), and parents and in-laws (that live with us), a non-profit I chair, and friends all over the world and all the activities that go along with those wonderful things in my life. Trust me, I know about work/life issues.

But when it keeps coming up over and over again, I can’t help but feel like we’re looking at the issue as something we can’t figure out on our own (or don’t want to) so it is yet another thing we are going to make someone else’s responsibility. (You’ll probably figure out over the course of reading this blog that I am BIG on taking personal responsibility. I think the ability of Americans to consistently make everything someone else’s fault or responsibility is really rather shameful and probably a sign of our cultural decline). In other words, are we so afraid to make a decision, to take a stand on what we each think is important that we would rather hand the decision over to our respective work places and ask them to decide what our work/life balance should be? I don’t know about you but frankly, I think I’m a little more qualified than my company to decide how I want to spend, or divide, my time.

I can already hear the clamoring of voices protesting my simple suggestion. I’m hearing voices from around the country saying things like “but I have billable hours I have to meet,” or “You don’t know what it’s like at my company” (or the variation of that “you don’t know what it’s like working with the people I work with). As to the last two, unless we work at the same company, you’re right. I don’t know what it is like working where you work or working with the people you work with. But does that really matter? What I’m trying to say is that we do have a choice, we always have a choice. There’s a billable hours quota at nearly every law firm I have ever heard of. But, that doesn’t mean you actually have to meet that quota. Oh, it does if you want a chance at making partner, but hey, there it is, your choice. If you want to make partner, then you’re right, you do have to make your quota. But if that is what you want, stop complaining about the hours.

I can practically see some engineer sitting at some terminal somewhere in the world saying something like “I have to get this product coded on time, if I don’t I lose my job.” I’m sure you know that this comment can be modified to fit a variety of careers. But whatever way we look at it, it is still a choice – you chose the job. And chances are that when you take a high pressure job, well…the high pressure part really shouldn’t come as a surprise. If it does, it probably means you’re in the wrong job for whole different set of reasons.

I’m not naive, I know jobs have ups and downs and I know they can get stressful and awful at times (that's what friends and wine are for in my opinion). I also know that not everyone has the luxury of knowing that they are generally employable (this is distinctly different than people believing they are employable – the first has to do with market needs, the latter has to do with confidence and/or ability). So I guess what I’m saying is to just suck it up and if you don’t like your work/life balance, take some responsibility and change it. Maybe it means working more, maybe that means working less, maybe it means working differently. But man-up or woman-up and take responsibility for it either way.