Tag Archives: Life

Boo-friggin-hoo…

Posted on by

The USA Today is the ash heap of American print journalism. Unfortunately, it’s a large ash heap and nearly unavoidable if you spend any time in a hotel. Yesterday’s business section dedicated a good portion of the front page and the entire second page feature to the “plight” of workaholics in the United States. According to the article, “about 60% of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week…” Let’s stop right here and do some quick analysis… I mean, is anyone surprised that those individuals between the ages of 25-34 making more than $75,000/year and those over 35 and up making more than $100,000 per year spend more than 50 hours a week at work? Maybe I’m the only one who noticed the general trend that the more I work, the more I make. That was true when I was flipping burgers at McDonald’s and it’s true now that I have a nice cushy desk job. My point, I suppose, is how the hell can anyone be surprised that income is related to how much someone works? Is this really news to anyone who has spent any time thinking about ways to make more money?

The other aspect of the article that raised my hackles was the “high-earning individuals” complaining that they have had to sacrifice personal time and relationships because of work or that they don’t get enough sleep. Know what? That’s a choice you made in order to become a high-income individual, my friend. No one is making you work 60 billable hours per week. If it’s too much for you to deal with, step off the fast track so you can spend more time at the kid’s soccer games. Bottom line is that you make the choice to work in a high pressure workplace. The trade off is that maybe you will get passed over for that next promotion or maybe you’ll have to adjust your lifestyle to meet your new income. Bitch and complain about long hours all you want, I know I do. But don’t try to pass it off as some big, bad employer tethering you to your desk with wireless chains. Take some responsibility for your own actions and make the change if you don’t think you can hack it with the big boys.

Temporary Duty…

Posted on by

…is the Army’s delicately phrased way of telling you that you’re about to be jerked out of your regular job and put on a plane to go stay in a hotel and do something that may or may not be in any way related to your primary area of expertise. Temporary Duty (TDY) is a strange combination of work and happy hour where the two tend to bleed into one another to the point where it’s 9:00 at night and you’re not sure if you are working or just sitting at the bar having a drink… but in a good way. Even when home, I’m not exactly known for leaving work at the door, but being here on the road, it turns into something more of a compulsion. You talk about work having your morning Starbucks. You talk about work driving to the office. You spend 9 hours actually working. And then you spend 2 hours talking about work over dinner. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly monotonous, but it does beg the question if any of us have lives any more. I’ll step to the forefront, save you all time, and admit that for me, the answer to that question is a resounding no.

For the record, I’m not complaining about it, just making an observation that struck me as interesting; how many of us have put or lives on hold to work on this project over the last 18 months. Up until last week, things were academic, like moving the pieces on a chess board. But now we’re here, with a real building, real offices, and whole lot of real people who are betting their livelihoods that we have it all figured out. It’s a little intimidating to see how much is still left to do, more, probably, than we have put behind us. It occurs to me tonight that it’s time to stop being academic and to figure out how this applies here in the real world.

Here comes the hard part.