My boss and I always work through lunch and end up working after-hours.
We got a new, young person right out of college in the office, and my boss and I have been very clear that she is not expected to work extra or skip lunch, and not to use us as examples. And if other employees mention that she doesn’t work as much as we do, we correct them and explain that she’s the one doing things right and not us.
We want the next generation to be better than us when it comes to work-life balance.
It’s good what you’re doing, but I believe that if you want people to do better in work-life balance, the change will have to start with you. If it doesn’t, I’m fairly certain that young people will start to emulate your work habits either out of shame, guilt or a misguided image of what the path to success looks like.
Edit: We’ve also been getting the City to hire us new people to help with that. We’re posting for my assistant this month, so I won’t be so bogged down in administrative paperwork stuff and can focus more on technical analysis, meetings, and using my vacation and comp time instead of letting it remain an unfunded liability for the city if I decide to quit.
The mayor realized how overworked we were when he finally got Council to let us hire the new person in January and we were still super busy all day. We explained that instead of working 60 hours a week we were now working like 50. So he’s getting us more people.
My boss and I always work through lunch and end up working after-hours.
We got a new, young person right out of college in the office, and my boss and I have been very clear that she is not expected to work extra or skip lunch, and not to use us as examples. And if other employees mention that she doesn’t work as much as we do, we correct them and explain that she’s the one doing things right and not us.
We want the next generation to be better than us when it comes to work-life balance.
It’s good what you’re doing, but I believe that if you want people to do better in work-life balance, the change will have to start with you. If it doesn’t, I’m fairly certain that young people will start to emulate your work habits either out of shame, guilt or a misguided image of what the path to success looks like.
Nobody is gonna see mee and think “sucess”, lol.
Edit: We’ve also been getting the City to hire us new people to help with that. We’re posting for my assistant this month, so I won’t be so bogged down in administrative paperwork stuff and can focus more on technical analysis, meetings, and using my vacation and comp time instead of letting it remain an unfunded liability for the city if I decide to quit.
The mayor realized how overworked we were when he finally got Council to let us hire the new person in January and we were still super busy all day. We explained that instead of working 60 hours a week we were now working like 50. So he’s getting us more people.
Be the team leader you wish you had. Hell yes.
Had a boss with the same attitude. He loved his vacation ski trips and would make us stay “off the clock” and not work when off.
I carry the same attitude, I’ll figure it out of necessary if someone is off unless it’s a true emergency (almost never is).