More than work
Last week had been the busiest week of my professional career and had it not been without solid support from the team, I was bordering on burnout.
But my colleagues had it worse — they have been going like that for a year.
The pandemic, brought another story to light. Since working from home has become a forced mainstream — and people cannot go out anyway — so might as well do ad hoc works? There is no work and life to be balanced when life is all about work now.
I was dumbfounded. Of course, the circumstances are different this time around. Major changes in political realms during a critical juncture of five-year development plan didn’t help much with how we manage work.
I have my own personal opinion of the plan but that is not what I wanted to touch today, it is about how we did our work. At first I thought, is this normal? To be always on our toes even deep into the night just because a certain people up the hierarchical ladder wants to have a look at it and give opinions? Is that what actually meant by “earning a day’s worth?” I am conflicted — of course we heard anecdotes that in the past, people have been working longer and more but is that the right thing to do? or I am just weak?
New York Times wrote an interesting piece about this and it gives me a lot of points to nod.
This pandemic has thrown the society off their productivity-driven pedestal and makes us rethink. Of course, having no job is bad — but determining our worth by our job, until we lost the meaning of purpose of our lives, I think, is bad too.
There is a price to pay by overwork and burnout. Some would survive them and took it as another challenge they mounted but some would think the cost to their health or family is just too big of a cost. Your life isn’t just your career, it should be more than that.
“The point is to subordinate work to life “ — Jonathan Malesic
Note: I shall revisit this article. I wanted to write more about how the advancement of technology and digitalisation should help us to work less and more efficiently.
