When life gets in the way of work
Ebbs and flows and broken bones | 3 min read
I write to you quite unexpectedly from the suburbs of South Jersey, where I was summoned by what we call, in work-talk, a “family emergency.”
My father, an avid (many say fanatical) cyclist of 35 years, had a bike accident on his Saturday morning group ride that landed him in a hospital. The adventure included a helicopter ride (that he doesn’t remember), a fractured pelvis (that he will remember for a while), and a sizeable battalion of healthcare professionals.
My initial shock at the news was swiftly and thankfully replaced with relief; there were no internal injuries, no head trauma, no need for surgery, and a full recovery was expected. And so he heals, bandaged and propped up on a mountain of pillows in a state-of-the-art facility, making jokes with a phenomenal team of nurses, and enjoying what is, honestly, not bad hospital food.
For the past week, I’ve found myself repeating over and over, “we are so lucky.”
I felt lucky that he was alive, that his injuries weren’t worse, that he received quick and excellent care. I felt lucky that he had health insurance. I felt lucky that he’d just retired and wouldn’t have to deal with taking time off work or facing lost income. I felt lucky that I work for myself and could drop everything to come support the family, blocking out my calendar and devoting the hours needed to spend on the phone chasing everyone from the hospital finance department to the insurance companies (as an aside: the world needs better hold music).
Far too many Americans aren’t so lucky.
The Squeeze
When my mother called me to tell me about the accident, I was in the middle of reading Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America. It’s a book about the untenable economic pressures on American families, but it’s also the story of how so many of us are trapped in jobs that that leave little room for tragedy, trauma, or – as I wrote about in the last newsletter – time off.
Alissa Quart, the author, writes about the increasing costs of daily life, from raising children to staying healthy to owning a home. Most striking, she talks of the rising cost (and diminishing returns) of higher education, sharing heartbreaking tales of families working tirelessly, heavily credentialed but struggling to stay financially afloat. She argues that today, financial security is more a matter of who you’re born to (in other words, luck) than hard work.
In the book, Quart focuses on lower and middle-income families – those who are trapped in low-wage jobs and face the greatest financial pressures. But when I think about the many high-earners I worked with in my commercial real estate days, I also see a squeeze; I see an entire class of workers who, though well-paid, feel trapped in positions where they’re expected to deliver at all costs (and times of day). They’re expected to be “always on”, concealing any semblance of weakness, distress, or – gasp – emotion.
They may have money, but they don’t seem very lucky to me.
What we need
At all rungs of the wage ladder, our work systems are structured to squeeze – be it the hourly-wage worker with three jobs who can’t afford to take time off for an emergency, or the absurdly-paid executive expected to be always-on and sentiment-free.
But it’s breaking us and our organizations.
We need work systems that allow for the ebbs and flows of life – a lesson we learned (but also heavily resisted) through the pandemic.
We need better leave policies not just for parents, but anyone who might need to step out of the office to care for a loved one.
We need not just remote work, but flexible hours that allow us to meet the demands of work and life in ways that don’t deplete us.
We need more reasonable (aka better managed) workloads that mean an entire team won’t crumble if one person needs to step away unexpectedly.
We need company cultures that recognize there is a whole life outside of work that is, for most of us, much more important.
A question of leadership
As rare as these benefits may seem, they are easy to implement and, in many countries, standard practice; from parental leave policies, to guaranteed vacation time to banning your boss from texting you outside working hours, many other nations codify work-life balance into law.
But even in the absence of government policies, our organizations have tremendous power to set new standards for how we work. It’s a question of leadership and, as I preach time and time again, doing things differently.
Below are some resources for leaders and employees alike to reframe the new “normal” we need in the post-pandemic workplace.
For the curious…
Workers Care More About Flexible Hours Than Remote Work | Wall Street Journal
Emotions at Work | TEDx Toulon | 18 mins
It’s Time to Rethink Corporate Bereavement Policies | Harvard Business Review
For the struggling middle class, Alissa Quart has a message: you're not alone | The Guardian
