It has been 6 months since I hit the work wall both literally and metaphorically. The first 3 months of that fall out I faced the cold truth and accepted it was me that was at fault not my company. Which speaks to a comment made on an earlier posting – the company didn’t force me to work all those hours and expend all that energy – I forced myself to do it based on my perception of what the company expected out of me.
Out of this experience I’ve come to believe there are 2 parts to the work life balance riddle. The first is personal accountability, being able to set boundaries and give push back and the other is working in a culture that doesn’t reward unhealthy work behavior like working late night and long weeks.
Personal accountability in this area was really hard for me to accept- given I’m a type A entrepreneurial overachiever. Saying “no” to work is the second hardest thing I’ve done at my job in the 4 years I’ve been at the company. I thought my peers or management might perceive me as incompetent, a slacker or an underperformer. I might be seen as weak if I say no and my own colleagues would compete harder against me for promotion and bonus dollars, and maybe even make a play to get me off the team if I dragged team performance down by saying “no”.
By far hardest thing I’ve done since that hot night in Orlando was leave my office by 5:30pm everyday no matter what project I was working on. That was hard for 2 reasons – the underperformer perception I just mentioned – but more importantly – the fact I had nothing to go home to because I has spent the last 38 months doing nothing but working late at night and on weekends. And truth be told working on a document at 7pm at night is a hell of a lot easier than being faced with an empty condo and no plans. It’s not that I didn’t have friends – I did – it’s that they were all working. Isn’t there a saying somewhere that we surround ourselves with people like ourselves?
And that was exactly what I had done – I had built and entire life around being consumed with and defined by work – my friends were all on the same fast track – the men I dated – were running the same race – which made it really easy for me to escape accountability – when I missed dinners or didn’t talk to my friends for weeks on end – it was ok – because they treated me the same way. And that was the thrid collapse –me alone on my kitchen floor – no paramedics – just me accepting the life I’d constructed.
The first 3 months I accepted my part – changed teams, set boundaries, said no, and begun to create a life outside of work. The last 3 months I’ve been trying to solve the second part of the riddle – the work environment part. I can set all the boundaries I want – say no all the time – and still end up in back to back meetings days on end receiving e-mail from my colleagues at 2am or Sunday afternoon.
Leaving me with the million dollar question – can an individual who accepts accountability for their part in work life balance – live a balance life if the place they work is out of balance? I don’t know the answer – but I know I’m about to find out over the next few months and capture the experience on this blog.
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