I'll never be a C-level executive, at least not in any large company. I guess I might end up the CSO for my wife's horse business. That's Chief Scooping Officer for those of you not familiar with rural corporate structure.
I saw this article last week about Microsoft's purchase of TellMe, a speech software company. Apparently Steve Ballmer missed the Super Bowl to negotiate a deal.
As much as I'm a professional and I understand there's a time to work, I also believe there's a time not to work. I don't think I'd miss the Super Bowl to negotiate a deal. It's an event and the deal would still be there in 4 hours. Just like not every crisis is a crisis and needs you to drop everything and go.
I wouldn't miss a birthday, anniversary, or any important family event unless something was really critically broken. And most of the times I've been called or paged, it wasn't for something that required immediate attention. Unlike lots of ambitious people I've worked with.
I have worked above and beyond when it's needed. However I've also refused more than my share of times because things were not critical.
I wouldn't tell anyone not to work if they feel they should. I just hope that most of you learn how to tell the difference between when you're really needed and when it can wait.
Steve Jones
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I worked in military electronics for 20 years and most times everything was an emergency, especially on ships. But, in my 9 years working IT for a mid-size not for profit I've learned to slow down and respect family time. It seems though we become more relient on email, phones, etc. and some people can't work if their device is not working.
I'm not sure if the computers serve us or vice-versa!
I agree that there are times to "not work". Personally, the Super Bowl would be one of those times. Not that the Super Bowl is necessarily important in itself, but it only happens once a year and is the last pro football game of the season. For someone like myself who enjoys watching the NFL, I can't imagine too many work related items that would come before the big game.
Regards,
Scott
I agree with Steve. I've been in the industry for 14 years and rarely do I miss personal events in order to work. In the few occasions that I've made an exeception, I've missed minor events and I've made certain that it was worth my while financially to miss the events in question. I can't count the number of managers that I've worked for that have made promised incentives that they didn't deliver.
In no case would I consider selling out my family just to make an extra buck.
It depends on company expectation. I worked for a company, even the CEO thought that I was doing a good job. However I had to pick up my son from daycare at 5:00pm everyday. The manager used this excuse not to promote me even he admitted I did a much better job than the person he promoted. But he said the other person could stay after 5 was a very important factor !!! What a BS!!!!!
I joined another company (a bank top 10 in US) for eight month. The review was based on fiscal year. By the fiscal year came, I was with the company for eight month. During the eight months, I worked average 50 to 60 hours to get the project into production. In my review session, my manager said he would like to give me 'Exceed expectation' or 'Above average', but the company 'policy' said if the employee was with the company less than a year, the highest grade they could get was 'Average'. I was so upset. I told him he should tell me eight months ago about this policy so I would work 40 hours a week instead working liked crazy.
Even you have ambitioin, you need 'luck' to get where you want to be.
