Posts tagged “work”

It’s not easy to “check out” but you should do it anyway

Julie at Boelter + Lincoln writes:

Here I am on vacation in the Northwoods writing this blog. I will be on vacation all week and will check my email every day – several times. I will log in to check on client campaigns and meet deadlines that could probably wait a few days. I am not an on-call rescue person, I work in advertising. But we have been conditioned to be connected all the time. What if I miss something?

– Can you “check out”?

My rule is very simple: if I’m not in the office, I’m not working. Obvious exceptions apply: those days when I’m just sick enough to stay home rather than infecting everyone else but not sick enough to be bedridden, days when last night’s blizzard buried my car in three feet of snow, and so on. But otherwise: no office, no work.

When I leave at the end of the day, my work laptop gets turned off and put in its bag. I don’t have a corporate-issue cellphone, so there’s nothing to persistently ding with each incoming email. The laptop doesn’t come out of its bag until the next workday morning. Once I’m across the front lobby threshold and into the parking lot, it’s me time.

However… I recognize that there will occasionally be instances where something needs to get done outside of business hours. If that happens, someone has to contact me directly. There needs to be a phone call, or a text message, or – depending on who’s asking – a Twitter mention or message. It needs to be initiated by someone from work; I won’t be actively looking for something.

It’s simple, but actually quite effective. My boss is well aware of this policy – it was made quite clear my first day on the job. If you really need me to do something, no problem, but it’s not happening unless you get in touch directly. I’m checked out otherwise.

Five Things I Wish People Knew About Me

Amber Naslund had a great post a little while back, “What I Wish More People Knew About Me” in which she lists a handful of things about herself that maybe weren’t that well known to others, but should be.

Social media can create really superficial vantage points. We can see a few tweets or a blog post or a Facebook status from someone and think we’ve got them all figured out. So much nuance can be lost in the midst of snippets of electronic and fleeting communication.

Absolutely true. We live with a stream of constant tweets, check-ins and status updates, and yet how much about these “friends” do we really truly know? And how much about ourselves do they know? My guess? Not much. And so Amber lists a handful of things about herself that help us get a better sense of who she is, then in true internet fashion issues a call for the rest of us to share alike.

So, doing my best to avoid sounding narcissistic, here are a handful of things I wish people knew about me. Warning: candid revelations below.

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I have no use for your office.

I recently had the good fortune (</sarcasm>) to come down with a fairly horrible head cold. Aside from contributing significantly to the financial well-being of the makers of the “Congested Stuffy Head, Sore Throat, Cough, Aching, Try-To-Get-Through-The-Day” medicine, I learned something about work.

(Besides the fact that I don’t particularly like the requirement of having to wake up every day to do it.)

My current role is essentially a front-end web developer with some other project-management-y responsibilities. I like it; it suits me. It’s challenging but not to the point where my sanity is in grave danger (at least no more so than it otherwise would be), it satisfies my inner need for problem-solving, and it lets me be online all day long. And I can work from anywhere.

That last part is the kicker. I’ve spent the last five days in self-imposed quarantine (because clearly I value my coworkers’ health more than my own), but only one of those days was spent entirely wallowing in self-pity a cold-induced delirium. The rest were spent working.

After a week of working entirely from home, I realized: I have no need for an office. Sure, it’s handy to be in proximity to some of my coworkers, but let’s face it. We all have phones. We all have email. We all have company-issue laptops. As long as there’s an active internet connection available, we’re connected to the corporate network. What’s the point of going to the office besides having that dedicated “this is where you work” space?

Accounting for the effects of being sick and not having the clearest head, my work was just as solid as any other day in the office. I actually worked even longer and harder this week than most normal days, if for no other reason than to prove to those still in the office that I was in fact working. So why is it that we’re still required to go into “the office” on such a regular basis?

Obviously this only applies to people with jobs that can be done remotely – the burger flipper at McDonalds can’t really work from home, and someone who regularly meets with clients likely doesn’t want them coming to their home.

However, I’m neither of those things, and thus: I have no use for your office. (But I’ll still go since I don’t yet write my own checks.)

Assuming someone knows what they’re doing

How do I figure out my value?

Link: How do I figure out my value?

Value is determined by the scarcity of the merchandise; the more you have something to offer that no one else can provide, the more you’ll get paid.

When anyone asks me, “How do I figure out my value?” I say that value is the greatest amount that someone is willing to pay. It’s incredibly elastic, so it’s crucial that we continually put ourselves in a position to figure out how that value is shifting.

Great article by Whitney Hess on figuring out the difference between your value and your worth. Go check it out.