RE: Work-Life Fallacy

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aussieninja in Reflections • 8 months ago

I understand what you're saying, but I think ultimately the phrase 'work-life balance' is just shorthand for "I'm spending too much time at work and its disrupting the other parts of my life that are also important to me but that I've been neglecting".

If I tell people that my work-life balance in my current role is good, they instantly understand that I'm able to spend time on a range of things that are important to me (friends, family, hobbies, sleep, etc) but if I tell people that a previous role had a terrible work-life balance, they instantly understand I wasn't happy with the hours I was spending on work.

You can totally argue that both of those scenarios are just good-life and bad-life, but the phrase 'work-life balance' is efficient for these descriptions and doesn't require additional explanation.

8 months ago in Reflections by aussieninja

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tarazkp 8 months ago

I understand what you're saying, but I think ultimately the phrase 'work-life balance' is just shorthand for "I'm spending too much time at work and its disrupting the other parts of my life that are also important to me but that I've been neglecting".

This is what I disagree with, because I think people use it that way when they speak, but their behaviours say something else. They are blaming their workplace as the problem, but that is rarely even close to the full story. As fucked as so many workplaces might be, the problem isn't in the workplace for the most part, because they are working on a known algorithm of profit maximisation. Any employee can jump ship - but the vast majority do not. If all the unhappy employees jumped though, burnout wouldn't happen, nor would that company survive.

The collective understanding is irrelevant. It is similar to everyone thinking the earth is flat 500 years ago (and millions of people now too weirdly).

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aussieninja 8 months ago (edited)

Honestly, I think you're trying to oversimplify...

There's lots of reasons why the workplace is the actual issue:

One team can have a good work-life balance while another team doing the same job does not... based on the management style.
Work-life balance can be a temporary issue because of issues or projects.
It can change due to culture-shifts in the organization.
It can change due to unforeseen increased demand.
I'm sure there are a million reasons.

There's also lots of reasons why it can be really hard to jump ship:

A person has company-specific or industry-specific skills.
In the US, benefits (ie, health insurance) are tied to the job, so other jobs may not provide the benefits you need.
Location of the company might suit your lifestyle.
If you've had a job for a while, why should you leave just because a new manager or new management has changed the culture, they might be gone soon...
Again, there are unlimited reasons why jumping ship might be difficult.

Sure profit-maximization is known... but within that algorithm there are endless variations of how to achieve that goal, and some variations have a good work-life balance and some don't.

I'm not sure if it's helpful to tell workers that if they feel overworked they can just leave... it is honestly genuinely a full-time job to look for work sometimes. I think the better approach is to train companies to look after their most important resource in a sustainable way.

There is so much that companies can, and should, do to prevent the burn out of their employees:
Managing workload and expectations, providing clear career progression opportunities, providing support, reducing bureaucratic hurdles, etc... and then there is a bunch of other lifestyle supportive things they can do; provide childcare centers, provide educational opportunities, provide physical & mental health services, arrange deals in housing, provide transportation, etc. Of course companies are not obliged to provide these things, but there is a reason why lots of companies have, and that's because it all helps entice employees to join and retains employees by reducing burnout.

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tarazkp 8 months ago

Honestly, I think you're trying to oversimplify...

I think that this is where it gets interesting, because the oversimplification I see is in the heuristic of blaming the workplace. The complication comes in when people are changing all of the time.

I have a pretty unique view of this where I changed (mentally, physically, emotionally) in an instant. The job didn't change, I did - and it became magnitudes harder. While I still liked my job and what I did, I had to work for the money with far less certainty, worry about my family, my own health - blah blah. The workplace became for more stressful.

What people don't factor in is how they change over time, because it is like the proverbial frog in slowly boiling water. The changes not only change us physically, but also our opinions and beliefs about our experience. And this affects how we feel about our experiences, our workplaces, our relationships, ourselves and all the other aspects.

These days, very few workplaces in the western world are overly abusive, because they just won't be able to operate. However, people are increasingly demanding about what they expect from the workplace, as if the workplace should provide a full life experience. The irony is that the more the workplace provides, the more people rely on it and at some point, I can see it turning into a Brave New World kind of dystopia, where everyone is completely reliant on the workplace for all aspects of their life..

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aussieninja 8 months ago

I disagree with that totally.

I think your overall view is that people are weak, stupid and selfish - younger generations especially - and this informs your views and opinions on so much that you write about.

People definitely don't want their workplace to be a full life experience. The provision of government services don't turn people into useless blobs.

People just want to live. They want to spend time with their family and friends, have quality relationships and connections, and spend their time doing worthwhile things.

Unfortunately, we've still got a society where the minority takes an outsized share of resources, and so the rest of us have to work harder and longer than we really need to.

People don't want their workplace to be a full life experience, I don't know anyone who thinks that. People just want to earn money to survive and look after their family.

Since people are working more hours per year than historic averages, we're facing burnout at higher levels. We need more education and research on it to help people realize, but it's also up to companies to manage burnout in their employees too - if they want to reduce staff turnover.

OH!

I just figured out why you keep pushing this idea that burnout is the fault of the individual and companies bear no responsibility whatsoever..... you want high turnover so companies have to increase training costs and employ you to do it.

Very clever. Carry on.

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