This is my first attempt at blogging. I was inspired by the blogs of Sun Microsystems, specially I spend a lot of time on the blogs of Jonathan Schwartz and John Clingan. My intention for this blog is not necessarily Sun or Solaris related, thus I decided to use rather use Blogger.
My first entries will be about how much am I supposed to allow my work to interfere with my personal live. For now I just want to start the discussion and later I'll start posting more stuff. Firstly I must add that different jobs, different countries, etc. may affect this topic in different ways.
I'll mention a few observations. Firstly let me say that I am now a self employed consultant in the IT industry in South Africa. I have seen jobs where the boundaries are very clearly defined, where people work exactly on an per hour basis. They still "clock in" and "clock out", and the amount of hours they should work is very clearly defined.
I have also seen some countries where people just don't work overtime unnecessarily, firstly because work is available in abundance, thus almost everybody just work the required hours.
What I have however seen in a lot of IT (and other professional jobs) in South Africa, is that many people work long hours overtime without extra payment. They do this because the boss wants them to do it and they thing it is right. The work somehow has the right to make you work overtime without the overtime pay.
Some may provide the overtime pay, but you don't really have the freedom to decide yourself if you want to do this or not.
I suspect this mostly happens because South Africa does not have a "dole" system, which basically means that if you don't have a job, you die of hunger. This is very different in most European and other countries. Furthermore, it is not always easy to find a job, specifically a job that pays well. Thus people in South Africa tends to tolerate a lot more from their job than they're supposed to.
The reason I posted this blog entry, is because of some personal experiences, observations and some books I read. One of the best books on boundaries, is one by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.
So if you happen to stumble on this blog, let me know what you think. In due time I'll add bits and pieces that I have time to post.
3 comments:
Danie, excellent first entry. I know where you are coming from. Many of us at Sun see the work day as being fluid, but almost always over the "standard" 8 hours in the US :) Of course, many at Sun try to stay to the 8 hour norm.
Gonzo and I were up until after midnight last night working on some JXTA servers. For me, there is a grey area between work and hobby. I think the same is true for Gonzo. Putting in lots of hours will pay itself off over time if done wisely as return on the investment is knowledge. But it is definitely a trade-off with the personal life.
John Clingan
http://blogs.sun.com/jclingan
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