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Judging by the title of this alone, you would think I’m a baby boomer pontificating about why today’s generations have it so easy and attempting to justify the metaphorical dumps I take on my overworked and underpaid employees. But you would be wrong. As many readers have hopefully seen by now, Caroline Gould posted two excellent articles elaborating on a problem faced by a majority of our generation: lack of work-life balance. If you haven’t read them, go do it now. After you do, come back and finish listening to me on my soapbox – I’m here to offer a different perspective.
I don’t begrudge anyone wishing they had more time to spend doing things they enjoy instead of spending Friday nights with Microsoft Outlook and a box of Chinese takeout. Seriously, who in their right mind wants to spend more time in the office? But for the love of all that is good and holy (frozen margs and Willie Nelson) quit whining about your lack of work-life balance.
I’ll admit it: I wish I had more time to spend playing golf and sitting on my couch watching The Office. In fact, we would all probably lead healthier lives, both physically and mentally, if we worked around 40 hours a week and had time to spend on our families and hobbies that we care about. Sure, many of our parents had it pretty easy: they fell backwards into a comfortable job back in the eighties, worked forty to fifty hours a week, and are now on the verge of a comfortable retirement. Not so for our generation. Look through Caroline’s articles if you want to see how our current work situation got to where it is and some of the negative effects it has on us.
While this is an unfortunate turn our society has taken, it’s also something we have to live with. I hear friends and family complain constantly that their work demands too much time of them and that they should be able to have a better work-life balance. Sure, I sympathize with that sentiment. But every time this topic comes up, God forbid you suggest the complainer find another option. Here’s how a conversation might go:
Complainer: “My boss rides me so hard, I can’t stand working there. It’s total bullshit.”
Me: “That’s what she said. Also, have you considered looking for another place to work?”
Complainer: “Are you kidding? I’m not going to risk not having a job!”
And so on. It reeks of entitlement. Why do we feel entitled to an easy job with high pay?
Maybe the general aura of entitlement our generation gives off comes as a result of listening to our parents’ experiences and assuming we will have it just as easy. Maybe our parents raised us all as special snowflakes under the illusion that we would graduate college with a six-figure salary and make it into that corner office by 30. Maybe we see the laughably artificial and obscenely misleading social media presence of our friends and acquaintances and jealously wonder why our lives aren’t as exciting or fun-filled. Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t matter. You’re not entitled to a work-life balance. You’re not entitled to a six-figure salary. You’re not entitled to a corner office.
I work in a field where “work-life balance” is either A) a punch line, B) a lie recruiters tell starry-eyed law students at cocktail hours, or C) both of those. My colleagues and I rarely leave the office before 9:00 p.m. Even most of the partners in the office work twelve-hour days, one way or another. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the hours. Like all my colleagues, I knew what I was getting myself into entering this field. And like all my colleagues, I know that if I want a better work-life balance down the road, I will have to make sacrifices for the foreseeable future.
Imagine you are on the committee deciding who is going to be promoted to partner: would you pick the grinder who spends most of his/her time in the office working 90 hours per week or the person with the good work-life balance that works 50 hours a week (assuming that this person hasn’t been canned already)? In other words, you can’t have it all, and if you think you can, you’re full of shit. This is the real world, not a Disney movie.
But this doesn’t mean there isn’t hope. There is a solution to working too many hours: find another job. Or scale back your hours and accept the fact that your future prospects with whatever firm or company you work for will be limited. You can’t assume that you will get paid nearly as much, or that your career advancement prospects will improve, but at least you can have a more ideal work-life balance.
I’m sure some of you will whine and say, “But Winger, we have student loans to pay and it’s not fair that we have to work a hard job to pay them off.” Sure, I believe the student loan system is a racket that rewards universities and screws students, but try telling that to your loan servicer. Life isn’t fair, and we all have to make sacrifices. Tough titties.
This is where (I think) Caroline and I can agree: you are in control of your work-life balance. Sure, your balance right now may not be ideal due to any number of circumstances, but in the end, your place of employment is up to you. Remember: in 2015 corporate America, you’re not entitled to anything; you have to earn the things you want. Just quit the goddamned whining. .
Image via Shutterstock
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People drastically lie about and inflate how much the work as well. I see folks with an easy 36-40 hour job stay at their respective office until 5:30 for a couple weeks in a row, and all of a sudden it’s “Bro, I’ve been having to put in 60-70 hours weeks lately, it’s crazy.”
This comes from the perspective of a lawyer which generally, along with Investment Bankers and Accountants at tax time, means extremely long hours are part of the job. In these particular circumstances yes, it is appropriate to think “deal with it or move on” but in other professions there has become an idea that you have to stay late just for the sake of staying late. If I can get my work done in 8 hours and be a valuable asset in that time I shouldn’t be punished for leaving the office at a reasonable time and shutting it out once gone. If I have to stay on all day I’m just going to start throwing out BS ideas for the sake of having ideas logged with 9PM time stamps and seeming engaged – which is ultimately more counter-productive than anything else.
The problem with those jobs is that they are more worried about the amount of billable hours vs. the quality of billable hours. It’s like each team within the same company are competing with one another to see who works more hours, and each company is competing with one another to see which company’s teams work more hours, and whoever wins gets a cookie.
My friend at PWC ended up working from 8am-3am for the month of April just because his senior was doing the same, and he sure as hell wasn’t leaving before his senior. Instead of the Sunday Scaries, he has the January Scaries, and it starts on the Autumn Equinox. Then again his job from May-December is an absolute cakewalk and he gets a winter break before tax season, but he might not live to see summer.
I am not sure if you are trolling or being serious. You yourself said how our parents had it in the 70s/80s yet now you endorse a system that supports employer greed and cuts many of the same opportunities our parents had. I’m sorry Winger, but I have to strongly and respectfully disagree with your ideas.
Lmao yes!
1) Great article
2) Great name
The unfortunate reality is that work life balance is a thing of the past. Today it’s more about work life integration. Emails, meetings, clients, etc. are just a millisecond away with our smartphones, laptops, and tablets. So, find a job that you don’t hate and stop checking your email on vacation.
You may have created the buzz-phrase of the decade. Run quickly and trademark it…so you never have to work again!
As someone who’s done multiple deployments overseas, nothing burns more than hearing people complain about their “work-life balance”.
First off, thank you for your service! But secondly, wasn’t that your choice? (totally trying to not come off as a dick).
Kels, thank you for your support. Reading a “thank you” from this community goes a long way.
To your question, to an entent, yes. But many jobs in the combat zone require 12-15 hour work days for entire duration of the deployment. I would wager a guess that, anyone who is currently in or recently separated from service(and on this site), joined after 9/11. We all watched the invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 and the bombing of Baghdad in March 2003. Yet, we all put our name on the dotted line and said we are willing to do whatever it takes to keep America free, including giving our lives. Now, all that being said, some Commanders demand an OPTEMPO that can cause extreme mental fatigue, physical and emotional stress, and even suicide. If someone isn’t mentally prepared to work Wall Street hours, it can do more harm than good.
I completely get where you’re coming from. My brother joined the Navy after 9/11 and served for 6 years to do his part in serving our country. I know I could probably never do what you guys do, so I’m sure my opinion doesn’t really hold much value. But everyone’s jobs on this site are different and just because they’re not on the same level as yours, doesn’t mean their complaints aren’t valid. Kind of like my opinion on teachers (my mom is one and I love them to death), but just because you deal with little kids every day, doesn’t mean your job is harder or worse than other people out there. They decided to be teachers and stick with it. Granted, you’ve signed your life away for however many years, so it’d be harder for you to change your career path, but if you don’t like it, do something about it.
You’re absolutely correct. I hope I didn’t come across as assuming my career path is better or yours is sub-par. I only wished to express a supporting argument.
In fact, your opinion DOES hold value. I know there are people who work more hours in a week than I do and vice versa. I enjoy that others can offer opposite thoughts and opinions than what I may hold.
This article of perfect! Lets go with the law example you can go with being a DA and start out around 40 for about 50 hours a week or a major firm starting around 90 but working 90 hours a week. It is your choice!
And probably still end up working more than 50 hours a week as an ADA, simply because you want to stand out among your peers. And thus the cycle continues, working more hours just to work more hours!
Eh maybe, if you only consider big cities. Being a small town ada in everything that I’ve seen and heard is the Mecca if work life balance for attorneys. The salary is set by statute, at least in my state, so I’ll be just as happy working a county over from the major city as in it.
This is true, I’m from Long Island so the ADA’s are either former NYC ADA’s or young try-hards who couldn’t make biglaw. The salaries are shit unless you play the game and become an administrator, where you end up not even practicing law and end up politicking.
I’m in Tennessee and ADAs get a roughly $2600 raise every year so it gets livable and as long as you do well enough to stay on you get the same raise. I’m not saying ADAs slack off since it really is a job people go to because they feel called to do the work.
I like this.
I do agree with you, we do have our destiny in our hands. If our soul is crushed to the point where we’ve lost a significant portion of our lives and who we are– it is time (or hopefully before that), for health and safety (if anything else) to look elsewhere for that paycheck. Hence, my offering of a comprehensive way to do so. (I also really like PeptoBismal’s points below, dagoofjohn is also dead on re networking). In addition, in my work I see many people in “victim mode” who are like a mouse in a maze, and just want to shut every door out closed–because–as weird as it sounds, that mode can create a safeness that’s comforting and can be addictive–as it prevents us from having to make that bold move.
But…being triggered by being bombarded during your wedding weekend, while you’re in labor, newly bereaved, hospitalized (or equivalent) and of course the “staying for the sake of staying” –that’s not whining. That’s drawing a very reasonable boundary. I feel in the work world we have an imbalance of power that has spun massively out of control where a major shift needs to be made– and thinking so isn’t a quixotic Disney Movie mindset. I saw Anne Marie Slaughter speak last week, and she mentioned the key to her success was vacation. She continued, “Although we have the data, we do not use it.” For whatever reason, the US has the unique perspective on piling on and on more hours without breaks, though, as continually proven– it does not have an upside of any kind
In several industries you “sign on” for these hours as part of the job. I think it comes down to mutual management of expectations and making well-being a priority. When you lose your ability to maintain a hold on the latter–you will eventually find yourself slipping in every other area.
I am glad you found the time to break and right this (I mean that completely non-snarkily). Hope to see you again.
Just to be clear, I definitely do not think what you detailed in your previous articles constitutes whining. That’s a nightmare. But thank you for the kind words and the response!
I have strayed away from posting this kind of stuff, but it is totally possible to work a 40 hour week and have a decent paycheck. The question really is what skill sets are you working on that make you marketable? For about a year and a half if I had any downtime at work (including my lunch breaks) I was consuming articles on Business Insider and other like sites. I was mostly looking for articles about how to interview, what are the current trends in resumes, and what skills are hot right now for the line of work that I have been working since graduating. I have a BS in International Business (from a D-3 school) and I work in Healthcare IT as a Business Analyst for a firm that is growing like crazy. Hands down one of the strongest skills that you can still have is knowing how to use excel like a boss. I was always checking out YouTube videos and teaching myself new tricks. It is totally doable to learn this stuff by yourself.
I won’t give my exact number, but according to Fusion.net (http://fusion.net/story/41833/wealth-gap-calculator-are-you-in-the-millennial-one-percent/) I am in the top 3-4% of millennials. I am 28 and I haven’t worked more than 40 hours a week in a long time.
Making moves like this took some time, but I kept in mind the following:
1. Generally speaking, the company you work for is not looking out for your best interest. Once you accept your job offer with them, they have you pegged to a number that they know they really don’t have to go above to pay you.
2. This isn’t the job market that our parents went through. If you want to move up in the world and make more money, you have to be willing to make job changes every so often. Having your resume and linked in ready to go at all times is basic level stuff.
3. There is so much free material online that you can use to increase your marketable skill sets. You just have to sit down and apply yourself.
4. Be willing to move to an area that has higher paying jobs, usually major cities (Baltimore for me)
5. Network the shit out of people. Look up Gary Vaynerchuk’s speeches on YouTube
Get motivated. My motivation was that I have about $65k in debt and I want to own a house in the next year. Financially, I am on my own right now so I had to buckle down and work to get on track to reaching my goal.
Being comfortable with job-hopping (and having the network to do it well) is the only real way to get around these days. And since we’re no longer the early pioneers of this tactic, HR has had to realize that the current trend is that most people will only stay at a job for 3 years tops and they can’t penalize someone’s resume for doing that anymore.
The real path seems to be hop around gaining experience (and getting the requisite pay bump with each new company), bust your ass doing those hours, and when you’re at a salary you want, then you can start trying to find that “balance.”
Great advice. Job-changing is where you see the significant deltas in salary. I agree, the higher up you get, (and more so when THEY come to YOU) you are more empowered to talk schedule and boundaries up front.
Congrats on getting there.
I am entirely 100% behind this, though I will say between travel and particular deadlines I can easily hit 60-70+ a week. Those weeks are also countered by the fact I can work from home 3x a week and there have been entire months where my to-do list was “implement two optional features on this internal site” and it’s not held against me with respect to utilization.
It only take $106,500 to break into the 1%, still poor by today’s standards.
Awesome suggestions. Cannot agree more on networking and changing jobs. Those are the two MOST uncomfortable work activities for many people. Lean into your edge or you’ll never grow.
Uh… This is kind of psycho. Nowhere in the desire for work life balance is there the demand for an excessively easy job and excessively high pay. It’s literally the desire for balance. Working a fair amount of hours and being compensated accordingly.
You are entitled to human decency at work. You are entitled to a life outside of your office. The American work ethic is truly bizarre where people think hard work and long hours are synonymous and that without both you don’t deserve success or happiness. If you can’t manage to get your job done in 6-8 hours then something is amiss at your workplace or in your productivity. Countries that have more balanced and healthy economies believe that workers need balance.