A friend who has had a particularly gruelling year at work sent
me a text message the other day that read something like this,
Took a weekday off at last! Sitting in garden with nice
sparkling pinot + good book and it's sunny. Why do I work??
Tough Times
By the end of the year a lot of us feel like this, and
especially after a year like 2011! It's been filled with natural
disaster after disaster and, closely linked, wave after wave of
economic uncertainty... the sort of year to make you appreciate
what and who is really important, while also making you want to
take every opportunity to protect the income and assets you have.
This, of course, is all on top of the normal challenges we face as
professional women, working in and around large, complex
organisations including time-and-billings focused professional
services firms.
Escapist fantasies
While it's no surprise that work can morph into overwork in
current conditions, it's also no surprise that we're all prone to a
little escapist fantasy when we get a momentary respite, like my
friend with her wine in the sun. It's easy to flirt with the
daydream that we should chuck it all in, travel or be with the kids
more, perhaps go freelance, and trade off income for better
work-life integration. And for some professional women that could
well be the right direction for 2012.
But it's really important to disentangle the profoundly positive
things about work from the drag of overwork, and not chuck the
proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
Reasons I work
Even for women like me who are the chief breadwinner for the
family, there are powerful reasons for working that go well beyond
the transactional need to pay the grocery bills. What follows is a
purely personal list. If you have good reasons of your own to add,
please drop a line via the comments box below!
Financial resilience
The statistics on women and poverty in older age are scary. We
typically earn less in our lifetimes due to the gender pay gap and
to the time out to care for dependents, while relationship break
ups leave us
poorer than men. Having your own earning power, and keeping
your skills and networks up to date is, I think, a good insurance
policy for a more comfortable old age. It also feeds neatly
into:
Self worth and confidence
Knowing that I have earning power, my skills are valued, and I
can make a difference in the workplace is hugely important for my
confidence, and being at work proves these facts to me over and
over. For the record, I wish more of us could derive this sense of
confidence and self worth from taking the option to be at home with
our children, but so often I hear, "well, I'm just a
mother". Agghh! Yes, society chiefly values work that commands
money, and inevitably a good chunk of our self worth comes through
performing on socially valued dimensions, but it's still
frustrating.
Role modelling
I'm thinking particularly of my daughter. She takes it as
read she'll work at something engaging and even meaningful, keep
learning as she pursues her interests, and be able to be as
independent as she wishes. Arguably, this role modelling goes
beyond our families into our communities. Every time a professional
woman succeeds in her chosen area, especially if she can do it
largely in her own style, she adds another pebble to the
ever-growing cairn of awareness that women are competent, authentic
and too valuable for organisations to do without.
Mental stimulation and challenge
Speaking only for myself, staying at home with my children all
day was never an option - regardless of me being the main earner. I
believed I'd go stir crazy living within a suddenly restricted
horizon. The best thing about my consulting work and what we do at
Professionelle has always been how they satisfy my curiosity and
learning needs and pose real intellectual challenge. They also open
up lots of new connections:
Comradeship and company
Because even INTPs need friends! Seriously, of course there are
many places to find friends and companionship beyond work. However,
being together with others in the sorts of workplaces described
above delivers a rich variety of face-to-face interactions, often
on topics of mutual interest or responsibility, over many hours.
You're guaranteed company.
Now the overwork…
Overwork is driven by an entirely different set of factors,
which have the power to swamp the empowering reasons for work, at
least in the short term. These factors are what lead many of us to
take on too much, work too long, exercise and sleep too little,
grump at the family, and to lose the savour of what is often
fascinating work. Here's a list of the factors I've come
across personally or through others this year, and again, if you
have more please leave a comment. They include:
- The many times we say "yes" instead of "no". "No" is a real
challenge for women because the norm for our gender is to be
attentive and supportive of the needs of others - and to feel
guilty if we prioritise our own. The irony is that the minute we
start setting boundaries that show we respect ourselves, we begin
to command similar respect from others (try it!)
- Feeling flattered and needed when asked to do unreasonably
demanding work. Once you deliver well, at great cost to yourself,
they learn they can rely on you, and cut ever tighter corners to
put ever greater demands on you… This vicious cycle can also kick
in if you're highly competitive and take the unreasonable request
as an opportunity to test yourself. These are examples of times we
don't even notice that "no" is an option.
- Wanting your report/design/ concept /analysis to be flawless
before you hand it over. This is a double edged sword. Exceeding
expectations with high quality performance is an important element
in successful careers but investing too much time erodes what you
can invest at home and in health, and, indeed, in other
career-critical activities like networking. Andrea Jordan, a
Professionelle contributor, has covered perfectionism
in detail.
- Not delegating for fear of losing control or of being left with
substandard or late output. This is a sister to perfectionism and
is a sure-fire way to grow a disengaged, lazy or resentful team
(micro-management, anyone?)
- Not clarifying job or project deliverables, resources and
arrangements clearly enough in advance and then having to do triple
time to meet expectations
- Believing that amazing work will be duly noticed and
appreciated, and will lead to greater job security and ultimately
promotion, hence the need to put in prodigious hours.
Work or overwork?
So, if you're in the grip of year end dreams of getting out of
the rat race, and you're not sure how much is due to work itself or
to overwork, reflect on the two lists above and ask yourself:
- What good things would I miss most if I were no longer at
work?
- How would things change if I said "no" more often and set more
boundaries?
- Are there ways I can test out what the day dream would be like
in practice without burning bridges? For example, taking a
sabbatical or a period of pay without leave?
Good luck with your thoughts, and here's to a Christmas break
with sun, wine, and good books!