Reading 03: Work, Life Balance
From my experience and from the readings, work life balance is attainable, though maybe not for every career or job position. Certain positions require that work be the center of one’s life, such as careers in politics, as Ann-Marie Slaughter testifies. Having a job that requires you to live to work will make it hard to achieve work life balance. From the reading on the culture at Amazon, this company appears to be one of those places, where success within the company depends on how highly you value your work. If you prioritize family over work, then it will be difficult to advance. However, many places do not expect that their employees be a slave to their work. There are many places where your work day begins when you arrive at the office, and ends when you leave, allowing you to have a life in between. For a man or woman seeking to balance work and life, it is more important to look for a company that is understanding or even encouraging of work life balance, than to expect to be able to balance work and life at a position that inherently prevents work life balance. Another option for someone seeking such balance is starting your own company. While the initial years may be long hours and lots of work, if you get the company up and running comfortably, you are your own boss. If you want to leave work early to go see your kid’s soccer game, you can. If you want to take a spur of the moment long weekend to spend time with your family, you can.
A lot of a person’s ability to achieve work life balance depends on the philosophy of their company. Companies can really help people to achieve this balance by giving reasonable vacation time, not instilling a requirement for overtime work, and by not discriminating with promotions based on a person’s family life. While I believe that companies should make sure that their employees can succeed within the ranks while still having a life outside of work, I do not believe that they are ethically obligated to. If a company such as Amazon wants to promote and propagate a company environment where work eclipses all else, then they are free to do so. If this style of life is not for you then don’t work there.
Personally, this balance between work and life is very important. I have yet to find anything that I enjoy doing enough that I would want to do it all day every day until I retire. I like variety and I like being able to leave work and go do other things, without having to worry about constantly answering emails or phone calls about work related things. This is one of the things I really enjoyed about the place I interned last summer and which I am going back to work at next year. While there was the option to work overtime should you need or want to, it was in no way expected. Many of my co-workers came and went at regular times and I enjoyed having that division between work and life.