The Corporate Machine – Part 1

Hey Everyone –

Today’s post will be a little different. I’ve been working a lot the past few weeks & the only reason that didn’t result in a quiet blog is because I had a few posts almost done and ready to go – but I’m all out of drafts 🙂 so it might be quiet for a bit. But first, there’s some thing I want to talk about.

Today I want to talk about the American attitude that work should rule our lives & identify us. When we travel and meet people from other countries “what do you do?” isn’t a question they ask as one of the first questions when meeting someone new. In the US what we do defines who we are & it shouldn’t. What you do for money doesn’t define who you are as a person. Working a lot & being “busy” isn’t glorified in other countries (nor expected) like it is in the US. And are we really more productive for it? Nope. Everything suffers: the quality of work, ourselves, our families – there’s no winner here and that includes the shareholders. Happy, healthy people produce more work and work of better quality.

Your life needs balance for you to be the best version of yourself. That doesn’t just apply to a work-life balance. You need balance in all parts of your life to be healthy. Eat an entire pizza by yourself for dinner?  No problem, have a salad the next day. Sit around all day today? Great, go for a run tomorrow. It’s fine to indulge in everything as long as there’s a counter balance to bring you back to center. Corporate America is seriously out of balance right now.

I work to live not the other way around. For the past 3 years I managed a software team in a large insurance company – a company of over 55,000 employees. My team of 30 was just a tiny bubble floating on a very large sea but as the manager of that team I was able to run it the way I wanted to, with my values – within limits of course. Obviously people up the chain from me had the power to disrupt my bubble but it didn’t happen often. I worked hard to protect my team from the ever present “work more at all costs” attitude. My team was challenged, productive, happy & healthy. Together we built some of the best software in the company & without putting in crazy hours. I truly cared about every person on my team and looked out for their best interests. I don’t have to tell you that this isn’t the norm in corporate America today.

I recently left that position for one with no direct reports for two main reasons:

1. I wanted to work remotely and there are few management positions that allow that. That’s what my life needs right now. I don’t want to spend any more of my life in a cubicle within a field of cubicles.
2. I’m very introverted & the amount of people interaction management required completely exhausted me. I’d come home completely zapped. If you’re an introvert too, you know what I mean. I knew the job was doing it to me but I didn’t realize the extent until I left the position.

Now that I’m working for someone else in the same company my little bubble is gone. After two months in my new position I was pulled into a project that’s a huge mess & very far behind to help out along with a bunch of other people. The date for the project is aggressive and looking at the tasks & timeline anyone with basic math skills can see it’s not possible to achieve. Part of the team is under mandatory overtime including weekends – working 60-70 hours a week. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen my generally cheerful co-workers turn into exhausted, grouchy zombies – and who can blame them? I’ve seen people miss time with their kids & weekends with their spouses. Everyone has gotten sick, including me. The exhaustion & stress weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to something you might normally fight off. And all of this for what you ask? A completely political deadline. Not to mention people are clearly not doing their best work in this state. The work we do is extremely detailed and complex and exhausted people don’t do well with detailed work.

I was on a call with the project’s senior leadership on Thursday that really disgusted me. It’s what motivated this post. Team members weren’t supposed to be on the call but two of us were for our expertise in certain areas including me. It was obvious that they’d already decided to delay the project’s completion date and one of the senior leaders said “the new date can’t get out, we don’t want people to think twice about the extra hours and not put them in because the date has changed.” Wow, it took all of my power not to take my phone off mute and respectfully bring up what everyone was sacrificing for this purely political deadline. It was clear to me that to them we are nameless, faceless pawns in a game. But it’s not a game – it’s real life. Maybe instead of looking at little squares on an org chart they should replace them with pictures of the people in those positions – pictures with their partners, pets & kids. Maybe then they’d think twice before doing & saying something like this. I’d like to think they would but I doubt it. They drank the kool-aid and it will take something major to shift these people back to what’s important. The only thing you can do is recognize it and build your own bubble to protect yourself and your family from these misguided priorities.

I’m not sure how the corporate American culture has gotten so off track or what will bring it back to balance but I do know that I’ll always fight for balance for myself. My life and my time are too precious to operate any other way. Life isn’t work. You don’t want to look back and realize you spent the best of it in a little box staring at a screen. Do what you can to take back your time. Set boundaries. As someone once said “life isn’t a dress rehearsal” – this is the real thing, make it count. I love the quote below too – every hour you give to something is an exchange of part of your life. That really brings perspective to how we spend our time.

I’ll leave you with one last quote before I go that I’m sure you’ve seen before but it’s a good reminder:

“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future, that he does not enjoy the present moment. As a result, he does not live in the present or the future, he lives as if he is never going to die, and then he dies having never truly lived.” —The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprises him the most.

Don’t let the Corporate Machine gobble you up!

Until next time ….

Warm thoughts to all!