Personal life and work balance question

[CountDeMoney]

I voted #1, mainly just to drop a big moist soft-serve shit right on Marti's face.

[Richard Hakluyt]

For some reason this thread has reminded me of H. H. Asquith, Liberal Prime Minister of the UK 1908-1916, back in the days when Britain counted for something in the world, yet he appeared to have masses of free time to get up to all sorts of activities. This book review from The Spectator illustrates the point well :

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/7763798/life-and-letters-a-pms-summer-reading.thtml

Cameron should take a leaf out of his book, pro rata to Britain's diminished importance I would imagine 3 or 4 hours a week would be the appropriate workload.

When faced with a difficult decision MacMillan used to take the afternoon off to read an Austen novel and consider.

I saw a blog post recently which I think has something to it.  The pressures of office are increasing but at the same time we're always choosing younger leaders often with young children.  Perhaps we should go grey again.  I'd vote for Alastair Darling.

It is a mystery how exactly it works.  I reading a story speculating about how Roosevelt and the Pentagon could wage a war with an military about 12 times the size of our current one on opposite ends of the earth with a tiny percentage of their current staffs.

Less information, far smaller media pressure.

Yes, I remember the furore when Darling was the first UK politician to recognise the scale of the problem and what might be required to sort the problem out. I would have quite liked this period of austerity to have been led by Darling and Labour; if you look at the track record, rather than rhetoric, nobody can cut like the Labour party. Partly, of course, because people know they love to spend so believe them when they preach economies; whereas the Tories only preach economies because they are all rich bastards 

I would also prefer older people, with a variety of experiences and backgrounds, to be on the frontbenches of the Commons. Britain has been in economic crisis since 1873 after all, some of the silly young people in charge don't seem to realise that as they are swayed too much by minor fluctuations 

[Ideologue]

Is that the rule?  Oh, this changes everything.

Anyway, my roommate says I'm being spoiled by the flexibility of the hours on this project.  He goes in at eight thirty because "that's when people are supposed to go into work."  Besides seeming a very archaic attitude more applicable to an agricultural society, he leaves at five when I leave at midnight, so there's some evidence that he's lazy one.

The smart choice is to go in whenever your managers and other senior people whose views are valued are there. So if they're in late and stay late, you're the smart one. If they're in early and leave early, then your roomie's the smart one. If the managers are there the whole time then it doesn't matter, and if they're barely there just be there early enough that you're in before them and out after.

My immediate boss loves me, as far as I can tell.  He did once make me come in at 8 just to see if I could (I did), but since then he's been pretty cool with it.

They care more about the amount and quality of work you do, not what time of day you do it, since it's completely interchangeable short of missing a production deadline (there is no client contact, obviously, and the law firm has someone there pretty much eight to midnight since things got stepped up; salient points from meetings can be summarized by someone who was actually there or by memo; if they need me for a special project because I'm great, they leave a post-it on my keyboard; and so forth).

That said, they could demand more rigid hours--hell, they could probably cut our pay by 40% and most people would still show up; I mean, I'd have to--so it's not that I don't appreciate it.  It's actually a way cool working environment, especially for what it is, and a little surprising given the doc review horror stories I've heard (locking people in, no air conditioning, impounding phones, paralegals being total assholes, etc., factors which are almost entirely absent here).

P.S.: is it wrong to hide the Diet Cokes behind less popular sodas in the fridge?  Or just smart?

[Ideologue]

Not that I personally would call him that.

Nor I.

[Syt]

Of course. But then a good manager would assign adequate resources to the task at hand. If that's not the case, it's bad management and frankly shouldn't be the problem of the employee as he has no way to assign adequate resources.
Of course, companies being flexible means they can expect employees being flexible too. So if the deadline really, really has to be on a public holiday, it's fair to expect the employees to show up and do their work, no matter their private situation. Year-end closing in accounting is one such case. I am in IT and obviously you have to do system upgrades on weekends and sometimes in the week between Christmas and New Years' Eve and no one can seriously complain about that.

Oh, no doubt about certain lines of work (accounting etc.) that have fixed deadlines.

However, in project work it was usually a case of trying to make do with as few resources as possible, because the client would only pay for so many man-hours.

[Eddie Teach]

P.S.: is it wrong to hide the Diet Cokes behind less popular sodas in the fridge?  Or just smart?

Diet Coke?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Stop it guys, otherwise someone will post the map !!!!

[Martinus]

Of course. But then a good manager would assign adequate resources to the task at hand. If that's not the case, it's bad management and frankly shouldn't be the problem of the employee as he has no way to assign adequate resources.
Of course, companies being flexible means they can expect employees being flexible too. So if the deadline really, really has to be on a public holiday, it's fair to expect the employees to show up and do their work, no matter their private situation. Year-end closing in accounting is one such case. I am in IT and obviously you have to do system upgrades on weekends and sometimes in the week between Christmas and New Years' Eve and no one can seriously complain about that.

Oh, no doubt about certain lines of work (accounting etc.) that have fixed deadlines.

However, in project work it was usually a case of trying to make do with as few resources as possible, because the client would only pay for so many man-hours.

This. Plus in service work you can't really predict work fluctuations and you can't hire enough people to be fully manned for times of work overload - because then you would have too many people most of the time when there just isn't enough work.

For example, in our department, we had hardly any work in March and suddenly more projects than we could possible service (including weekends and holidays) in April/May - and in this line of business you can't just tell the clients to wait or come back later since most projects' schedules are decided by external factors (e.g. process letters in M&A transactions). Not to mention, the way it usually works, you accept an instruction to represent the clients in, say, 10 private equity M&A deals... then on average one third of this gets delayed, one third gets cancelled and one third goes ahead as planned. So you have to plan around this statisics... and obviously if suddenly you get all of them go ahead as planned, you are screwed, and no "prudent manager planning" could save you.

When I read some of the comments here, a lot of people seem to work in really cozy/sheltered work environments. I have friends like this too. Of course they get paid 25 times less than I do.

Which is why I get pissed off at people who get paid the same as I do and insist of having cozy/flexible working hours and accomodating bosses.

[Ideologue]

P.S.: is it wrong to hide the Diet Cokes behind less popular sodas in the fridge?  Or just smart?

Diet Coke?

It's good and good for you.

We run out a lot though so lately I've just been bringing my own in, to supplement the meager few cans I can squirrel away.

[Martinus]

Is that the rule?  Oh, this changes everything.

Anyway, my roommate says I'm being spoiled by the flexibility of the hours on this project.  He goes in at eight thirty because "that's when people are supposed to go into work."  Besides seeming a very archaic attitude more applicable to an agricultural society, he leaves at five when I leave at midnight, so there's some evidence that he's lazy one.

The smart choice is to go in whenever your managers and other senior people whose views are valued are there. So if they're in late and stay late, you're the smart one. If they're in early and leave early, then your roomie's the smart one. If the managers are there the whole time then it doesn't matter, and if they're barely there just be there early enough that you're in before them and out after.

My immediate boss loves me, as far as I can tell.  He did once make me come in at 8 just to see if I could (I did), but since then he's been pretty cool with it.

They care more about the amount and quality of work you do, not what time of day you do it, since it's completely interchangeable short of missing a production deadline (there is no client contact, obviously, and the law firm has someone there pretty much eight to midnight since things got stepped up; salient points from meetings can be summarized by someone who was actually there or by memo; if they need me for a special project because I'm great, they leave a post-it on my keyboard; and so forth).

That said, they could demand more rigid hours--hell, they could probably cut our pay by 40% and most people would still show up; I mean, I'd have to--so it's not that I don't appreciate it.  It's actually a way cool working environment, especially for what it is, and a little surprising given the doc review horror stories I've heard (locking people in, no air conditioning, impounding phones, paralegals being total assholes, etc., factors which are almost entirely absent here).

P.S.: is it wrong to hide the Diet Cokes behind less popular sodas in the fridge?  Or just smart?

Focusing on having your immediate boss love you is a mistake. You need his boss to love you - and if you don't think your immediate boss is a great guy, you will have an easier time pushing him down the staircase when the right moment comes to take his spot. 

[Martinus]

As to the chance of your wish being granted, I may most likely live to very old age thank you, the disease is non lethal.

Seriously? We had to put up with so much whining about it and it's not even lethal? Jesus.

[CountDeMoney]

Focusing on having your immediate boss love you is a mistake. You need his boss to love you - and if you don't think your immediate boss is a great guy, you will have an easier time pushing him down the staircase when the right moment comes to take his spot. 

Marti actually makes a bona fide point, for a change.

Fuck your immediate boss.  May be the guy that impacts you on a daily basis the most, but he's also the first body you're going to need to walk over.  He's also going to be the first guy that drowns you.

[Martinus]

Marti actually makes a bona fide point, for a change.

I usually make good points here. It's just that I usually make unpopular/un-PC points which makes bleeding heart pony-tail shits to hate it, and you and Neil just pile on it for the fun of yanking my chain.

[CountDeMoney]

Marti actually makes a bona fide point, for a change.

I usually make good points here. It's just that I usually make unpopular/un-PC points which makes bleeding heart pony-tail shits to hate it, and you and Neil just pile on it for the fun of yanking my chain.

No, actually you don't.  You're a pissy little bitch, with pissy little bitch points.

[Gups]

Marti actually makes a bona fide point, for a change.

I usually make good points here. It's just that I usually make unpopular/un-PC points which makes bleeding heart pony-tail shits to hate it, and you and Neil just pile on it for the fun of yanking my chain.

No, actually you don't.  You're a pissy little bitch, with pissy little bitch points.

That's unfair.

I've met Marty. He is average height from recollection.