I have absolutely had it. I am tired of being part of an alphabet-ending generation of women who refuses to come to terms with who we are and how we have to start running our lives.
We run the market-place, we run our homes with the efficiency of Sun Tsu marshalling his armies into camps on the dawn of Monday mornings to take on The Battle of the Week –and win; and most of the single 20-something gen-Xers I know are struggling with the fact that even the men they’re trying to date know that they already run the relationship. So why can’t we run our working lives with the same efficacy?
We have an exceptionally strong work ethic but we want balance –a satisfying work and personal life. Having grown up in an economic transition which forced many families to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of a new South Africa as opened-armed as they possibly could have, watching our mothers run home finances, and then being thrust into our own recession 10 years later, our parents still succeeded in developing in us the biggest generational ego, a great self-confidence, and a real desire to have an impact. We are high-performing, highly civic-minded, highly motivated –we’re just not high maintenance enough for our employers to take notice of.
If we actually accept that we want to manage our professional lives very differently from the way our parents did and we take a look around our places of work we should see three things: 1: Talented men and women of our age who understand that they want to work, differently; 2: A generation younger than us who are driving us crazy – no, we’re not just verging on 30 and this is not just us getting older. They’re in demand and they won’t be tied down; people listen to these 20-somethings and not to us and that’s why we don’t like them. And 3: A looming talent shortage in the next 10 years.
Add to this the realisation that our world today demands a flexible working environment that means more than your boss calling you in and proudly announcing that you’re allowed to employ “flexi-time”, and arrive at work a whole two hours early if you’d like to leave at 4pm on a Friday, as if he’s offering to carry your two years from now planned twins to full term and pop them out his rear –and enjoy it. The Man’s primary fear is that we want to work less. When really, empowering employees to do their work on a schedule that works for them is recognizing a need for flexibility which will allow us to run our careers and our lives –and when has a woman ever run something unproductively?
What I’m saying is that women in particular need to make sure that the companies they are working for make creative, hard-line self-management possible. And it’s happening:
• A well known accounting firm offers its staff work-compressed workweeks, flexible hours, telecommuting, job sharing, or even reduced workloads. And workaholics beware: The firm has implemented wellness scorecards to find out whether someone is working too hard or missing vacation. If so, supervisors get in touch to urge a slowdown. Oh, and how about eight weeks fully paid maternity leave, even for adoptive parents? And two-thirds pay if you need more time.
•A midsize law firm in Chicago, started a two-tier pay scale. Hard-chargers who bill 2,000 hours a year are paid top dollar. For those who prefer to slow down and see their families and friends, they can bill 1,800 hours and earn less. More than half chose the reduced schedule.
Families and Work Institute of America, Award Winners 2009
We have known for a long time that the one size fits all work-place does not work; it never has spoken to our generation – and it’s time we speak up. We have lived with a notion that working full-time year in and year out on a single, linear career trajectory was vanishing beneath our parents’ feet leaving us treading water and we haven’t known who to tell or what to do about it. What to do is to tell your boss that you need and you want to work in a different way.
More than ever before women I know are killing themselves trying manufacture more Time and fighting for Control over the time they do have; it’s time to redefine our working lives. Money has always come in a close second to having the choice to make less of it –if doing that is actually going to give you the time you want to do what you need. How many of us would trade money for a day off? Not a week, not a month, not a sabbatical –a day. A couple of hours. A couple of hundred rands –less. A couple of moments where you look after who you are and enjoy having made a choice that keeps you, you –more.
-Soba
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