Men ignore their wives and spend all their time at work... isn't that a common sentiment nowadays? Men are being shamed into working less and spending more time with their family in public, while in private, men are shamed into earning more so that the fat wife can get even fatter.
Just can't win, can you.
I was reading a blog about technology and here's what it says about the work/life balance.
All of silicon.com's 12-strong CIO Jury IT user panel agreed BlackBerrys and smart phones have improved their productivity but warned it can have a negative impact on work/life balance without judicious use of the off-switch.
I personally have my device setup for push email during the week between 7am and 6pm. In the evenings/weekends I manually synchronise when I feel appropriate or necessary. When I'm on vacation I still take my Windows Mobile device but switch synchronisation off completely. If I continue to work on vacation - how is it a vacation?
Now there are always critical situations that require me to work outside of those core hours but I can choose to change how/when I access email and other systems.
The overwhelming majority of people who choose to accept tethers into their personal time are men. So basically, according to the rules of disparate impact, you are talking about men when you say that these devices tilt the work/life balance.
The man's needs are never thought about - he works and earns money for his family, and he comes home to spend time with his family. He is naught but a sacrificial goat, sacrificed for the betterment of his wife and kids.
In other news, women are equal to men, and men must allow their wives to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. If they don't, they are weak and must be discarded.
Anyway, the implication is that the man is a fool and not worthy of pussy and a female's company if he doesn't give her his full attention and lick her boots when they are together - whether on a date in the beginning, or years after marriage and kids.
"I think it just takes a little common sense to use these tools outside the office. If you are constantly distracted from your "significant other" checking email and taking phone calls, then you need to learn to set proper priorities."
"You just have to know when to put the toys away and focus on your life away from the office. And most importantly, learn to ignore the "inbox" alarm when she's talking to you!"
"Exactly it's all about balance and learning to detach yourself away from."
"Its all about choices.
If you choose to work during off hours/weekends then its your own fault and not of the device(s) you carry."
This is insane!
Here are my comments...
People are not accepting the flip side of this coin.
This is work we are talking about, not an idle pursuit or a mistress. Work is what pays the bills, and if I need to be on-call when I'm out with my wife, she should be able to accept it since if I was out of a job I wouldn't even need the cellphone.
Some of us earn our salary by being on-call, some of us want to be there when the company needs us so we can get promoted faster and earn more.
Hardly anybody is a workaholic just for the sake of being a workaholic.
It would be like calling a mother evil for attending to the kids when they want attention. You wouldn't do that would you? You would rightly chastise the man for wanting his wife's attention when the kids need it.
The same goes for the job that puts the food on the table.
