When is Enough Work Enough?

I don't normally want to delve into more personal issues here, for obvious privacy concerns. However, my life lately has been something of a wreck, work-life balance-wise, and if this forum allows me to vent a bit, so be it.

From my previous post on the myth of work-life balance, readers can guess where I stand on how important work is. If you actually have a job you love, then I suppose the long hours you devote to it don't seem like work to you. For the rest of us, work is merely something we do so we can get paid, so we can feed our family, so we can have clothes on our back, and so we can have a roof over our heads. In that situation, the fewer hours we spend at work, the better.

And yet, in today's day and age of high speed Internet at home, mobile computing devices like BlackBerries and iPhones, and telecommuting for regular office hours, employer expectations have changed to the point that employees are expected to be accessible and ready for work practically 24/7. Many employers will schedule away meetings on a Monday, so that the inevitable travel hours don't take the employee away during the regular work week. The same is true of an increasing number of industry conferences, which are scheduled for weekends just so the attendess do not miss regular work days. Is compensatory time off ever given to these employees? Not on your life!

Some offices, perhaps, are still good about enforcing the standard 8-5 office hours regimen, and if an employee is hourly, then of course they get monitored closely to make sure they cannot charge overtime, barring an emergency at work. But being a salaried, non-union employee in middle management means I'm expected to work my tail off much more than regular line employees. I'm getting paid more than they are, so in general terms, I'm OK with that. To a point.

Where things crossed the line for me was when I found out my mother had cancer about a month ago. Given my natural state of worrying about things I can't control, that was a doozy for me. But I did the British stiff upper lip thing, kept quiet about my own personal concerns, and continued working my tail off at work. I put on the group calendar my request for personal time off for this week, so I could be there for my Mom when she went in for surgery to remove the cancer.

Prior to this week, I spent one weekend in early November driving back and forth from my home to hers in Dayton, OH, just to be there and provide some emotional support as she went through the roller coaster of emotions that is natural with a cancer diagnosis. We were also all there at Mom's house for Thanksgiving, and that was a really good time spent together with family. She was generally in good spirits, and it gave us the chance to discuss events leading up to her surgery.

In the last week or two, I reminded everyone I work with once again about my request for personal time off, and I also started telling everyone, including my direct boss, why I needed to take three days off in the middle of a week to be there in Dayton. People were generally supportive, and certainly I'm not the only person who has had a close loved one experience a survivorship battle with cancer. I had close friends suggest giving the book The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, to my mother, and she really enjoyed reading such an inspirational tale. (Side note: there is also a website dedicated to The Last Lecture, as well as YouTube videos of the same. Take the time to read the book, watch the lecture, or peruse the website. You'll be happy you did!)

I give you those details so I can then give you these details, and hopefully to not sound like I'm whining.

On Monday, when I once again asserted that I was going to be out of the office for three days this week, my boss* acted like there was nothing more important than getting a report finalized for the customer along with preparing a cost build-up for future work with the same customer. Oh, and that I was the only person who could perform such tasks, and that I needed to be here to make sure they got done even if I delegated them to others. I spent over 10 hours in the office on Monday, staying as long as possible to get as much of the work-breakdown structure (WBS) tasks put together before leaving for Dayton on Tuesday.

* This is the same boss who lately has made me feel guilty for taking an hour away from the office for lunch or to go work out at the gym, all very normal stuff. Just because he feels like food is optional does not mean I can be happy going without lunch every day.

On Tuesday, after driving the four hours over to Dayton, I was inundated with phone calls demanding why the WBS was not finished yet. After seeing my mom for about an hour that evening (and leading up to surgery, I knew that was the best time to see her for the next 36 hours or so) , I then proceeded to get wrapped into a two hour conference call using my personal cell phone minutes. After that finished at 1 a.m., I then worked another four hours on the WBS spreadsheet and associated Word document in which we listed all of the assumptions we used* to build the cost estimates in the WBS.

* Which, oh by the way, we now decided we will NOT provide to the customer in a Word document, instead listing those out in a PowerPoint briefing.

Yes, that's right. I didn't get to bed until after 5 a.m., with Mom's surgery just a couple of hours away. It turns out my step-father also didn't get much sleep that night, just three hours compared to my hour and a half. But it was for very different reasons. On Wednesday morning, the two of us were walking zombies in the waiting room, but we kept each other awake and simply waited for word on how the surgery was progressing.

The good news is that the surgery went well, and they hopefully got it all out of her body. Pathology results next week will tell us whether or not the Oncologist needs to prescribe further treatment regimens of either chemo or radiation, but we're very hopeful they won't need to take that step. Mom looked very tired on Wednesday evening, but that was to be expected. On Thursday morning, she looked much more like her usual self after sleeping and having a liquid breakfast. Her OB/GYN doctor came to see Mom on Thursday, even though that is usually that doctor's day off, which was very nice of her to do. They allowed Mom to have a regular lunch that day, and even allowed her to go home on Thursday evening. All of that was wonderful news! Mom very much wanted to recuperate at home, so she got her wish.

Well, after packing up the car and getting ready to head back from Dayton yesterday, I had another phone call from my boss asking why the WBS assumptions weren't fully documented yet. Fortunately, others in the office really stepped up and did a great deal of the work this week in my absence. When I came in to the office this morning, I found that we were actually in very good shape, with just a few minor modifications needed to finalize everything. After I made those modifications, we had a teleconference with the CEO, who said everything looked good and gave his blessing to proceed with the WBS as written.

But not once did I ever get even the slightest hint of concern for my Mom's well-being from my boss. When he called me yesterday afternoon, the question was not, "How is she doing," rather, his first question was "Enjoying your vacation?!"

Please shoot me if I ever get to the point where getting the mission done trumps all other concerns of my employees. Just because the boss might be a workaholic doesn't mean all the employees have to be, as well.

It just seems that way.