Where's "My Life"?

One evening, I sat down thinking how long I have come, what "I was" and what "I am" and stopped at the question --- "Am I doing what -- I -- want to do?", the answer was "not everything I do is what I want to do", which led me to another question, "Where's -- My -- Life?". To seek the answer, I started out evaluating my life 5 years at a time, starting from the day I was born. Here's the train of my thoughts...

Age 0 to 5 -  For the first 5 years of my life I slept when I wanted to, ate when I wanted, played when I wanted. My home was my world. Everyone I knew, my parents, my grand parents were all special, the person I was with, was the most important at that moment in time. I tore up news papers, broke my toys, learned to stand and walk, learned to talk, learned that I can attract attention by throwing a tantrum, realized that I can melt mom, but dad was tougher. I learned to use my mother's lap as my bed, learned to make a mess, I learned that I can pinch my younger brother to make him cry and I could quickly run to the other room and run back in looking all concerned as my little darling brother was crying . There was nothing I cared about, and I was not expected to, I did what my heart said, I guess, my brain was only helping me with instant non sense.

Age 5 to 10 - I went to school, don't know what was happening, teacher said "A for Apple" and "Two Times Three is Six", and I believed it. Learnt to make friends, learned to complain, learnt that there is a variety of food beyond what my mother cooked. I learnt to use a fork to eat noodles. My teacher helped me discover the world, various continents, cities and it's peoples. When I came home to tell my dad that we live in a continent called Asia, he said he already knew about it!.

Age 10 to 15 - Learnt that I had stage fear, realized the friends can be enemies too, dad said "work hard and be competitive, you got to top the exams", I liked literature, I liked art, dad said "no way, there is no money in it, how are you going to feed your family", teachers told my parents that I was a good student, but I must work harder, dad said, "10th standard is the most important milestone and you get only one chance at it, so don't waste time". I wanted to learn to play the guitar, my dad wanted me to get trained on vocals, issue is unresolved to this date!. This was my initiation into Peer Pressure and the Rat Race.

Age 15 to 20 - "What are you going to do now? Engineering? Medicine? you must take up Science and prepare for the Entrance Tests", I told dad, I want to be a mechanic as I love automobiles, dad completed my admission formalities to study Electrical & Electronics Engineering in an Engineering College. New life, new friends, new freedom, professors are not bothered if I am present or absent in their class, they were there to do their job, i.e., deliver their lecture and get going. It is here I learnt that "teachers were working for money too", the picture of a teacher, a Guru who was preparing us to change the world was shattered. Staying in a college hostel, I realized, I have to live on a budget, bills had to be paid in time. I learned how to make five hundred rupees last for a month.

Age 20 to 25 - "Hey, you know this great IT company, they pay a big salary, they depute you around the world to work, you get to earn in Dollars, we should get IT jobs", another line of thought, "who cares for a job anyway, let's get done with Engineering first and then think what next", get a CV ready, do a software course and be ready when Companies come to the Campus, got a job, realized that it takes 10 days of work to earn Rs.1,000 and I have pay 10% of my earnings to the Government as Tax, but in college, all it would take is a phone call to dad, a cheque would arrive in 3 days. Learned that there is something called "Job Satisfaction" and I also learned that I was not satisfied!, learned to switch jobs, learned that interviews are just meetings where my interviewer is telling me that I am unfit for the job and I am trying to convince him otherwise!.

Age 25 to 30 - Have to earn more money, have to buy that cool red bike, just like my friend's, need a bigger room to stay, need a computer so I can browse the net when I get home. Have to try out swanky restaurants, watch movies, "Friday Dressing" sounds cool, I need a new wardrobe, hey you checked the new mobile phone? need that as well. How do I fund all this, it's easy, switch jobs. I wanted to make a statement that I had arrived and I needed a lifestyle to prove it. "Dad, I earn more than you!", I said, dad smiled.

Age 30 to 35 - Got married, disposable income got multiplied by 2. Need an apartment now, buy one, get a promotion, buy a car, daughter is born, watch her grow. Wife is busy taking pictures, making albums and shopping for the kid, while I tagged along figuring out what it would take to keep up with the expenses. As new parents we are trying to teach the kid to walk, to talk, to behave and what not, I now realize what my dad did for me. It's time to settle down, my outlook changed from a "Job" to a "Career", I am looking for stability, I am looking for work-life balance.

Age 35 to 40 - Which school is she going to go? Planning for my daughter's education, buy insurance polices, save for her education, plan for our retirement, "spread the risk", said the investment consultant, he said I should invest in stocks now, wife wants to buy jewelry because prices of Gold dropped by Rs.20 per gram, "what the hell? you want me to spend over Rs.100,000 to save Rs.800!, it's ridiculous", man will this ever end? Where's "my life"?

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

I don't know what life has in store for me. For once I have concluded that I won't have "my life" again, at least not in the next 3 decades or so, that is if I live that long!. The only time I did what I wanted to do was when I was less than 5 years old, I was living "My Life", but I didn't know it then!, after that it was predominantly doing what my parents wanted, what my teachers wanted, what my friends wanted, what my boss wanted. what my wife wanted, now it is what my daughter wants...

Now that I realize that "My Life" is my family, my friends and my work, then why complain? I should try to be happy to live for others in my life...

Work Life Balance

I see a lot of people talking of work life balance. About 10 years ago, I would hear this from people who "have been there and done that". Today I hear it from people who have started working less than a year ago. Honestly, I have started to think of it after around 15 long and hard years of working, am I late? I don't know.

What does "Work Life Balance" mean?

To me it means, how you balance your work and your personal life. All work and no play makes you a "workaholic", all play and no work makes you "unemployed".

I have always been a strong believer of "work hard and play hard". So, during the week days, I am all about work, and during the weekends, I am all about time with my family and recreation. There are occasions when I am required to take a break in the middle of the week, to attend a family function, to attend a wedding of a friend or to socialize. I ensure that work does not suffer and organize for things to be taken care of when I am gone, and take this break happily.

Young people today, generally complain about long work hours and no work-life balance and are constantly complaining. Come on, if you don't slog it out now, will you do it at age 50? and who will pay you a salary if work does not get done? I tell them, if you want a work life balance, you better be highly efficient, when your manager assigns 8 hours for a task, do it in 8 hours or less, get the work reviewed, get your manager to sign off on the work, and walk out of office at 6 PM, who will stop you?

In my opinion, people work additional hours due to the following reasons.

1. New on the job, learning the ropes
2. They know what to do but are lazy
3. They are low on skill and inefficient
4. They are assigned more work than they can get done in the day
5. Circumstances in the team, cause them to be overloaded

New on the job, learning the ropes

These are people who have just joined and are learning the ropes, they will surely need more time to complete a task. This is the time to spend long hours and get efficient. If they get efficient now, they can take it easy in time to come and of course, they grow too. These people don't have the right to complain, they have to be patient and go through the grind. If they want to continue to complain they must get out or sent out of the system immediately because they do not deserve to be in the system.

Know what to do but Lazy...

These are the people who come in to work at 10 AM, have a coffee between 10 and 10.30 AM, email all friends between 10.30 AM and 11.30 AM, browse the net between 11.30 AM and 12.30 PM, discuss with colleagues where they will go for lunch between 12.30 PM and 1 PM, come back to their desks at 2.30 PM after lunch and then think about their assigned tasks. If this guy starts at 2.30 PM, he can get an 8 hour task done only by 10.30 PM. Now, does this person have a right to complain of work-life balance? No he cannot, but he does!

Now, if the person is super efficient, he/she can get an 8 hour task done in 4 hours and this person can still get out of work at 6.30 PM.

Low on skill and inefficient
These are people who have never tried hard enough in life, they could have spent enough time studying in the initial days and could have mastered all that it takes to deliver, but did not. They chose to enjoy and take it easy at that time.

It's like this, Jack and John joined a company as programmers. John worked for 12 hours each day while Jack spent only 6 hours each day taking advantage of the flexible working at this company, had a great time with friends and partied hard. In 1000 days time, John has 12000 hours of experience while Jack could manage only 6000 hours. Theoretically, Jack could do only 50% of John could do. When compared to John, Jack was lower on skill and was inefficient. During appraisal, John was seen as someone who had twice the experience that Jack had and gets a better deal. Jack is in no position to complain because he just did not put in the effort.

Assigned to more than 8 hours of work
This is a special case, the Manager is allocating more than 8 hours of work per day, this may be due to the following reasons...

• The manager knows that you are super efficient and can get an 8 hour assignment done in 6 hours, so try and see if he can get more out of you. If this is the case, explain to your manager, and negotiate when you need time off.
  
• The Manager has over-committed on the project deadline and pushing his team to get it done by working additional hours. Is everyone else in the project also working as hard as you, if yes, then continue to work hard, because if you revolt, you are more likely to feel guilty if the project fails. If no, the following point would answer the question. 
• The manager does not like you, and he is hell bent on working you to death, so he is trying his best to ensure that you fail. However, this is a rare possibility. You should discuss this matter with your manager and explain that you are overworked and negotiate a possibility.
• It may just be that the situation is tight, the customer is pushing your organization to deliver faster than committed dates, or your company expects this deal to close ahead of time and is trying to wrap up the project quicker. Now, don't expect your manager to come and give you all the details and be sorry for you, but you can always ask your manager why you are being overworked and the effect it is having on you.

Each of the above is a special case and one must carefully consider before escalating, if you choose to escalate, try and understand the situation and give benefit of doubt to your organization and try and help your company when required, after all, they have created an opportunity for employment for you.

If you think your Manager or organization is lying to you, be patient, believe me, they don't stand a chance trying to fool a large team for a long time, they will pay for it.

Circumstances in the team, cause them to be overloaded
There is a high possibility that some of your team members are low performers and are delivering less than what is expected. The manager may be giving you additional work, just to get by and maintain the overall team productivity under check.

Try and analyze the situation see if any of the above points make sense, but do not conclude. Discuss this with your Manager and allow him/her to conclude. Highlight the fact that you need some time off, or that you are tired, I'm sure he/she will understand. If you help the Manager when he/she needs it, the Manager too will respond on the same coin.

To end...
Be the best, work as hard as you can, while you can. This will enable you to have a better work-life balance, a better chance to spend time with your family, with your friends, or just be with yourself and relax.

YOU!, have to make that beginning.