when words lose their meaning (3.5)

work/life balance

a snazzy catch phrase used by corporations to indicate that their employees are expected to work a lot. if the standard hours were 9 to 5, there would be no need to mention "work/life balance"

work - a word often confused with 'career'. work means exerting effort to accomplish something. but what? people talk about wanting to "accomplish something in their lives", to look back at their careers and note their milestones and achievements. but what do we accomplish in work? aside from using it as a means to an ends (a comfortable lifestyle, lining our nests and earning us prestige). aside from a game where money and goods get shifted around from one white glove to another. aside from perpetuating a system that sustains our status in the current hierarchy of privilege. (we're organization kids. we don't question authority).

life - in new york, life means some mindless form of consumption. an endless proliferation of restaurants, clubs, shows and events (accompanied by the frequent complaint of things not being good enough). it also means taking cabs to where you need to go. nice apartment. life means the frequent gathering of a diverse group of people, meaning an ethnically diverse group of upper middle class young professionals. life means taking a dance class, or picking up a hobby, such as a cooking (oddly enough, wasn't it once a neccessity?). maybe life means getting married and having kids and moving to the suburbs. what does it mean to live well?

a slash divides work from life - as though life begins when work ends. as though work can never be considered integrally as part of our lives. as though work is something we discard and leave behind us as soon as we leave the office. as though we're free not to question what we do at work, and the rest of our values, because work is something separate, divided, forever locked in a compartment away from life. (and yet we still seek fulfillment in work? instead of life? is achievement confined only to the sphere of career?)

balance - this firm has good work/life balance - you wake up at 5am to catch a 6:30am flight. you groggily walk into client site at 8:30am and continue working, eating lunch at your desk, until 8:30pm where you then catch a cab to some ritzy hotel where you then may order overpriced room service and eat like a queen while you watch images flash on a flatscreen tv. thus your week continues with a similar pattern, perhaps interspersed with dinner at a fancy restaurant then thursday rolls around and you fly out on a 5:30pm or 6:30pm flight on Thursday to arrive home at 8pm or 9pm. if you're lucky, it's earlier than when you'd arrive at the hotel normally. then on fridays you work in the office so you get to see all your colleagues who have been packed off to the four corners of the world, and by the end of the day if your work is done, you head over to happy hour. and yes, because you went to happy hour, you are happy. though you work like a donkey during the week, the alcohol makes you forget all about it. good work/life balance. is it not all relative? what does work/life balance mean?

*Note: This entry is not meant to be a bitter, personal lash-out against my experience at my firm. Compared to what is expected at the firm and what hours are like at other investment banks or consulting firms, my hours have been very good, and my job managers and colleagues have treated me well. The last part of this entry comes as an expression of disillusionment with the general industry expectation that a 55 hour work week + travel is normal and acceptable and allows for plenty of time to engage in other "life" activities (and that in some cases, it's okay to make your employees work 100 hour weeks). It is the general "spirit" of the industry, not the individuals (though individuals inevitably subscribe to and participate in this spirit) that I have found difficult. That and my persistent idealist confused questioning of "what does this all amount to?"

**Some say that by creating new products to meet customer needs, or by freeing up money in capital marketes, we're allowing for increased standard of living. But are we assuming that people are simple-minded consumers, that will be happier and more fulfilled the more they buy? Others say that increased business and competition will mean better prices and products for consumers. Do we just say these things to make ourselves feel better? I don't know. If you have real answers, please find me.