There is no work/life balance

There is only work/life events management.

We need to start from one basic consideration, we live in time and time is life. I think we are all on the same page here.

In the past, a very remote one, the priority was to find food to survive and reproduce. If hunting, farming or fighting could have been considered a job, that was also just life at the time.

Evolution brought new tools to better hunt, farm and yes, to kill.

More time available to think about other activities. Litterature, sciences, arts and all you can think about. This until we stopped exchanging goods with goods and introduced currency. Now we have to work to produce money and this is a key point in our history and the foundation of this concept of work/life balance.

We are now trading time for money, and we know that time is life, because we have an expiring date, unfortunately. At this moment we need to agree on this concept to fully understand the implications and the consequences: when you go to the office you are offering a non-tradable good with a measured and tangible good.

What does it mean?

It means that if you give your monthly salary back to your company, they cannot give you back one month of your life.

It is a no refundable transaction, a one-way deal. A full commitment that you repeat every day for most of your life, more over you know the value of the money, but you don't know how long you are going to live, so one hour of your time would have the same value if you knew it was the last hour of your life?

If you need a few minutes to metabolize this, please do.

Now let's look at different kinds of work activities, militaries and athletes, their work is their profession and what they do affects their lifestyle. There is not a clear cut between the working hours and what we consider family time. The way they conduct their life, diet, activities and lifestyle reflect their main activity, what you call the job.

A formula one driver, his passion/profession affects all the 24 hours of his life. Rest, sleeping time, other activities and what he can do and cannot do is related and intrinsically linked to his main life event, his profession.

You may say I am not a soldier or an F1 driver and yet you are subject to certain unwritten rules, sometimes written. You do not go to parties on weekdays because you know it will affect your performance at work. You do not drink at a certain time, your job may demand 12 hours from the last Alcohol assumption, or sleep late because you need to be attentive.

Do you know pianists and violinists do not do certain activities to preserve their hands and fingers? There was a famous performer who was not allowed to cook for the risk to get injured with the cutlery (sometimes working contracts have funny, but very significant, clauses).

Professionals do not bring home problems to work! How many times have you heard this?

I do not remember to have read much literature about professional family members who do not bring work at home.

The truth is, we cannot split work/family into two separate categories because we only have one brain and one heart.

What we can do is work to reduce the imbalance of events. Some are not resolvable like the death of a beloved that will affect both private and professional life, but most of the others are manageable but not in the way you may think, "man-up" (even if today this word has no more sense) is not what I have in mind.

I am talking about social responsibility, community responsibility, company and corporate responsibility.

What happens at home is not your company's problem is a false. It is entirely your company's problem, and it is also your company's responsibility.

As an employee and often as a small industry entrepreneur you have limited authority to implement social changes. But on a bigger scale, all together we have the power and the authority to force events to a certain direction.

If a layer of employees are living check to check, struggling to provide for the basic, this is reflected in their performances. If half of your workforce is subject to a stress due to social changes in morale and legislation, this will greatly impact your deliverables.

Those events need to be managed and not ignored. If fuel price is increased and the members of your organization are struggling to keep up with the increased cost of life, this is a company issue. There is enough financial authority at his level to push for changes.

We are not talking here to grant payrise to compensate, I am talking of social responsibility in terms of active participation in the community decisions.

We have seen the first regulated example of Union in 1768 with the creation of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers, but this was to defend workers from companies misbehaviour. Sometimes those " misbehaviour" were consequences of external pressure on taxation and investors expectation.

At what level should the push back be exercised? Is the guarantor sitting in the chair of power of is working as a consultant only?

Because your day at work does not end at 5PM and you can start your life after. The surgen that lost a patient does not forget after 5PM. The policeman that lost a colleague, does not forget after 5PM. The Project manager that lost 2 points of revenue does not forget after 5PM. The Lawyer that have a court case tomorrow, does not forget after 5PM. You that heard there will be redundancies do not forget after 5PM.

No one can turn off after 5 PM, this is a tale, because we are human and we have feelings. Maybe AI and robots will fill this gap creating the prefer balance between work and life...

Ops, robots do not need a life aftert work!