I work for a generally benign employer that overall treats its employees well. This year, however, has seen the introduction of an insidious new tool that all employees are required to use that I find highly offensive: Time Tracker.
Time Tracker is an online tool to track employees' time off, i.e., time away from work. As of this year, I am required to enter a "request" for not only my vacation days, but for holidays as well, measured down to the hour. A few moments after I enter my "request," I receive an email graciously informing that my request for time off has been approved. Thanks, benevolent employer! (To be fair, my company also provides two paid days off per year to every employee for community service activities, which is admirable.)
The mandatory use of Time Tracker bothers me in several ways. First, the implication is that all my time belongs to my employer, and they graciously will allow me to have a set number of hours a year to myself, subject to advance approval. This is a slave mentality more suited to nineteenth-century farm workers than to twenty-first century knowledge workers. In my mind, Time Tracker should be reversed: all my time belongs to me, and I am willing to grant some of it to my employer, subject to my prior approval.
Second, I am a knowledge worker, whose output cannot be measured in hourly increments like a factory worker and who therefore is not paid by the hour. I have agreed to perform certain responsibilities in return for a set salary. There is no meaningful way to measure my output in any given hour, and my work can be done in or out of an office. Consider: if I have an idea in the shower this morning, that I incorporate into a client presentation while on my computer at the coffee shop this afternoon, that enables us to win the client's business tomorrow, how many hours have I worked? What was my output per hour? Who knows? Who cares? The truth is, I do whatever work I need to do whenever I need to do it to fulfill the responsibilities I have committed to do. Time Tracker belittles that commitment.
Third, the introduction of Time Tracker sends me the message that my employer doesn't trust me. I have to account for my free time by the hour, but not my work time. Where was Time Tracker last week when I was at the office from 8:00 am to 8:30 pm trying to get a deal closed? If I take the afternoon off to play with my kids but field a call from a client during that time, am I working or not? Before Time Tracker, these conundrums didn't matter; I believed my employer trusted me to do the job when and where it made sense. Now, it seems my company is telling me, we don't trust you after all: you need to account for (and get prior approval for) every minute you are not working. It's silly.
Finally, the email from HR explaining why we are adopting Time Tracker is a model of corporate doublespeak. It says using Time Tracker "allows us to help team members make their work-life balance a top priority." (Really? It seems like trusting me to get the job done whenever and wherever I want to would be a lot more helpful for making work-life balance a top priority.) Using the tool also allows us to "accurately account for time." (Hint: buy a watch. It works for most of us.) And, for managers, incorrect time balances for their employees can "adversely affect your [department] budget." Time is money! Watch out for those lazy employees trying to steal it!
Time tyranny like this invites subtle forms of rebellion: long lunches, the occasional unrecorded afternoon off (horrors!). I decided to rebel by entering my annual allotted paid time off in the first days of the year. So, it looks to the system like I was gone for the whole month of January. Won't someone be surprised when they see my revenue results for January--how productive I was while not working! Maybe they'll encourage me to take more months off........
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
BOOK REVIEW: The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
What would make you happy?
Gretchen Rubin set out to answer that question for herself, and in discovering her answers and recording her experiences in The Happiness Project (published in 2009) she does not presume that the things that bring her happiness will also bring her readers happiness. Instead, she provides several valuable principles that can help us find our own happiness in our own lives.
It quickly becomes evident that Rubin is a highly motivated, compulsively organized person. To launch her project, she reads widely the works of philosophers, psychologists, neurologists, and poets to identify the physiological, psychological, and behavioral factors that seem to lead to happiness. Then, in the spirit of Ben Franklin's famous self-improvement project (which he described in his Autobiography), she makes a chart of these happiness virtues and sets about to work on a few of them each month for a year. (For many of Rubin's readers, I suspect that simply learning to organize like this would go a long way to boosting happiness, or at least to reducing stress.)
Rubin's quest is not of the total life change variety. Unlike the authors of other recent entrants in the Discover Yourself genre who undertook major disruptions to their lives' routines (like traveling to India or cooking difficult recipes nearly every day of the year), Rubin acknowledged from the beginning that she is generally satisfied with her life, family and career, and that a major change of location or career wouldn't really boost happiness. Instead, Rubin sought happiness by finding more enjoyment in her daily existence; by appreciating more readily the raw material for happiness already present in her life. (At this blog, we might say she sought to live in the present tense.)
The narrative of her year spent working on these virtues is by turns earnest, sad, obvious, trite, poignant, impressive, and exhausting; sometimes more than one of these at a time. Rubin retains a sunny optimism about the project throughout, and I think by the end concludes that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. (In this instance, that means that even though she may not have perfected any of her individual happiness virtues, the whole project provided a noticeable boost to her well-being.)
I found that Rubin made one of her most profound observations right at the beginning of the book, when she unveils what she calls her "Twelve Commandments," or rules to live by. Number one is "Be Gretchen," and throughout the book this commandment serves as a reminder not to try to change her fundamental nature. No amount of mental resolve or personal discipline can change your fundamental interests and abilities, and you will only set yourself up for failure (with a resulting loss of happiness) if you try. It doesn't matter if everyone says you should do power yoga to get fit; if you hate yoga, you will never stick with it and thus won't get fit. As Rubin states it in her Happiness Manifesto: "what's fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa." Rubin did an admirable job of keeping that principle front and center.
Also, Rubin proves that a series of small improvements can add up to make a major improvement in our lives. None of her individual happiness virtues is that big of a deal on its own. (Example: "Take Time to Be Silly") But because she was disciplined and stuck with her project, the little improvements worked together to change her outlook on her life; to help her appreciate the causes for happiness that were already all around her. That is a realization from which I'm certain we all could benefit. In a way, that is the goal of Present Tense Living: to appreciate life today.
In the end, I was impressed by Rubin's efforts and inspired to be David, and to be more aware of my everyday blessings. I haven't decided whether to undertake my own happiness project yet, but I have loaned the book to my wife to get her perspective on the idea. Perhaps we will decide to do one together, or to do separate ones at the same time so we can encourage each other. If you've read the book, let me know what you think, and whether you've done your own happiness project. How did it go?
Gretchen Rubin set out to answer that question for herself, and in discovering her answers and recording her experiences in The Happiness Project (published in 2009) she does not presume that the things that bring her happiness will also bring her readers happiness. Instead, she provides several valuable principles that can help us find our own happiness in our own lives.
It quickly becomes evident that Rubin is a highly motivated, compulsively organized person. To launch her project, she reads widely the works of philosophers, psychologists, neurologists, and poets to identify the physiological, psychological, and behavioral factors that seem to lead to happiness. Then, in the spirit of Ben Franklin's famous self-improvement project (which he described in his Autobiography), she makes a chart of these happiness virtues and sets about to work on a few of them each month for a year. (For many of Rubin's readers, I suspect that simply learning to organize like this would go a long way to boosting happiness, or at least to reducing stress.)
Rubin's quest is not of the total life change variety. Unlike the authors of other recent entrants in the Discover Yourself genre who undertook major disruptions to their lives' routines (like traveling to India or cooking difficult recipes nearly every day of the year), Rubin acknowledged from the beginning that she is generally satisfied with her life, family and career, and that a major change of location or career wouldn't really boost happiness. Instead, Rubin sought happiness by finding more enjoyment in her daily existence; by appreciating more readily the raw material for happiness already present in her life. (At this blog, we might say she sought to live in the present tense.)
The narrative of her year spent working on these virtues is by turns earnest, sad, obvious, trite, poignant, impressive, and exhausting; sometimes more than one of these at a time. Rubin retains a sunny optimism about the project throughout, and I think by the end concludes that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. (In this instance, that means that even though she may not have perfected any of her individual happiness virtues, the whole project provided a noticeable boost to her well-being.)
I found that Rubin made one of her most profound observations right at the beginning of the book, when she unveils what she calls her "Twelve Commandments," or rules to live by. Number one is "Be Gretchen," and throughout the book this commandment serves as a reminder not to try to change her fundamental nature. No amount of mental resolve or personal discipline can change your fundamental interests and abilities, and you will only set yourself up for failure (with a resulting loss of happiness) if you try. It doesn't matter if everyone says you should do power yoga to get fit; if you hate yoga, you will never stick with it and thus won't get fit. As Rubin states it in her Happiness Manifesto: "what's fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa." Rubin did an admirable job of keeping that principle front and center.
Also, Rubin proves that a series of small improvements can add up to make a major improvement in our lives. None of her individual happiness virtues is that big of a deal on its own. (Example: "Take Time to Be Silly") But because she was disciplined and stuck with her project, the little improvements worked together to change her outlook on her life; to help her appreciate the causes for happiness that were already all around her. That is a realization from which I'm certain we all could benefit. In a way, that is the goal of Present Tense Living: to appreciate life today.
In the end, I was impressed by Rubin's efforts and inspired to be David, and to be more aware of my everyday blessings. I haven't decided whether to undertake my own happiness project yet, but I have loaned the book to my wife to get her perspective on the idea. Perhaps we will decide to do one together, or to do separate ones at the same time so we can encourage each other. If you've read the book, let me know what you think, and whether you've done your own happiness project. How did it go?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
The WiFi Made Me Do It!
Overheard from the seats behind me this week as our plane taxied to the gate:
I wasn't bold enough to turn around and ask the question that immediately entered my mind: Why? Yes, Wifi is available on many flights now, but it is not mandatory that you use it, or at least it hasn't been on any of the flights I've taken. You are still perfectly free to use plane time to catch up on your reading (as I do), or even to to be delightfully "unproductive" by watching the TV shows or movies on offer on many flights, or sleeping, or staring out the window. Perhaps the gentleman behind me works for a slave-driving boss who tracks when employees are on flights and expects them to maintain email access during airborne hours. If so, the gentleman needs a new job.
But before we cast too many stones at my hapless fellow traveler, we must recognize that his mistake in logic--"if I can work on a plane, I should work on a plane"--is a mistake that we have all made in general form to varying degrees. Just one example: for those of you old enough to have been in the work force before about 1999, think back to that time. Did you spend your evenings at home reflexively checking your Blackberry for emails from your boss? No way! And yet now, because we have can have email access 24/7, it has quickly become standard operating procedure that we should use that access.
Never mind that a high proportion--80%? 90%? 95%?--of our emails are either junk, or cc:'s that we don't need to see right away, or non-urgent administrivia that could easily wait until the next day or the next week. No matter--I email, therefore I am! I'm in the flow! I'm important--look at all this work!
If I may offer a gentle reminder: since those pre-1999 low-tech days, the number of hours in a day has stayed steady at 24. Therefore, all that time you now use to stay in the flow has come from somewhere else. What have you given up? Reading on planes? Exercise? Time with your spouse? Time with your kids? Hobbies?
Technology is a great tool. But its use is not without cost. You are still responsible for how you choose to spend your time; don't say the WiFi made you do it. Be deliberate and choose wisely, because each minute can be spent only once.
"Wifi on planes has killed my reading time. I used to really enjoy catching up on newspapers during flights. Now I just have to work."
I wasn't bold enough to turn around and ask the question that immediately entered my mind: Why? Yes, Wifi is available on many flights now, but it is not mandatory that you use it, or at least it hasn't been on any of the flights I've taken. You are still perfectly free to use plane time to catch up on your reading (as I do), or even to to be delightfully "unproductive" by watching the TV shows or movies on offer on many flights, or sleeping, or staring out the window. Perhaps the gentleman behind me works for a slave-driving boss who tracks when employees are on flights and expects them to maintain email access during airborne hours. If so, the gentleman needs a new job.
But before we cast too many stones at my hapless fellow traveler, we must recognize that his mistake in logic--"if I can work on a plane, I should work on a plane"--is a mistake that we have all made in general form to varying degrees. Just one example: for those of you old enough to have been in the work force before about 1999, think back to that time. Did you spend your evenings at home reflexively checking your Blackberry for emails from your boss? No way! And yet now, because we have can have email access 24/7, it has quickly become standard operating procedure that we should use that access.
Never mind that a high proportion--80%? 90%? 95%?--of our emails are either junk, or cc:'s that we don't need to see right away, or non-urgent administrivia that could easily wait until the next day or the next week. No matter--I email, therefore I am! I'm in the flow! I'm important--look at all this work!
If I may offer a gentle reminder: since those pre-1999 low-tech days, the number of hours in a day has stayed steady at 24. Therefore, all that time you now use to stay in the flow has come from somewhere else. What have you given up? Reading on planes? Exercise? Time with your spouse? Time with your kids? Hobbies?
Technology is a great tool. But its use is not without cost. You are still responsible for how you choose to spend your time; don't say the WiFi made you do it. Be deliberate and choose wisely, because each minute can be spent only once.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Snow Time
So life in Atlanta has returned to its normal frenetic pace following last week's snow induced shutdown. Beginning with heavy snowfall on Sunday night, followed by freezing rain and sleet all day Monday, and combined with public services ill-equipped to handle icy roads, and you had the U.S.'s eighth-largest metro area completely shut down for three days, and mostly shut down for a full work week. The kids loved the bonus week of winter vacation, and I confess to not being completely disappointed that my first business flight of the year was canceled.
It was interesting to observe that although my office was shut down for most of the week, no one seemed to notice. Our company did not melt down; clients from outside Atlanta did not call frantically wondering what was happening; the few truly important calls and memos got done from home. On a normal day we fret about being 15 minutes late to return from lunch.....yet it turns out we can miss a week and hardly anyone notices. I'm not sure what to make of that point yet, but I am certainly thinking about it.
It was interesting to observe that although my office was shut down for most of the week, no one seemed to notice. Our company did not melt down; clients from outside Atlanta did not call frantically wondering what was happening; the few truly important calls and memos got done from home. On a normal day we fret about being 15 minutes late to return from lunch.....yet it turns out we can miss a week and hardly anyone notices. I'm not sure what to make of that point yet, but I am certainly thinking about it.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
How to Kill an Afternoon in Atlanta
I live in metro Atlanta, a region that is a crossroads rather than a destination for most business travelers, who pass through Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on their way to somewhere else. But what if Atlanta is your final destination? This brief guide will give the business traveler to Atlanta a few ideas to make the most of her time between meetings.
- Even without your kids in tow, the Georgia Aquarium is worth a visit downtown. The main tank in the world's largest aquarium holds over 6 million gallons of water behind the second largest window the world, offering stunning views of the whale sharks, rays, grouper, and thousands of other fish; you can feel as if you are standing on the bottom of the ocean. Half an hour in front of the window watching the fish glide by is a remarkable way to relax after a stressful morning meeting.
- If you are more a plant person than an animal person, the Atlanta Botanical Garden in Midtown offers a variety of exhibits both indoors and out, including a nice collection of orchids, and is compact enough to get through in a couple of hours. The new canopy walk through the treetops is proving popular, too. Best of all, the garden is located adjacent to Piedmont Park, the finest public space in Atlanta, and a pleasant place to stroll or jog if you are here in the temperate months (late September through May).
- At the High Museum of Art in Midtown, the highlight may be the buildings themselves, a 1983 Richard Meier classic which was further improved by a Renzo Piano-designed expansion that opened in 2005. Check to see if one of the regular blockbuster exhibitions is on while you are here; if not, the best part of the permanent collection is the top floor of the new Wieland Pavilion, where natural light filters through a specially-designed high ceiling onto a part of the Contemporary art collection. If you don't believe that architecture can affect your perceptions and mood, visit this space.
- For the quintessential Atlanta shopping experience, head to Lenox Mall in Buckhead. Built in the late 1950s as an outdoor shopping center, expanded and covered since then, it has been THE place to shop in Atlanta since it opened. Housing both everyman department stores and luxury boutiques, this is the place to see metro Atlanta's mix of society matrons, hip-hop urbanites, modernist hipsters, and suburban families, all in one place.
- Atlanta is a great restaurant town, but if I had to pick just one place to recommend to a traveler staying in the downtown convention district, I would recommend French American Brasserie on Ivan Allen Jr Blvd. Walkable from all the convention hotels, FAB offers excellent French comfort food, Parisian-inspired decor, friendly service, and a cool rooftop bar that is an ideal place for an aperitif. Your clients will be impressed that you know about this place.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Spare Time
One potential benefit of the severe recession we've been through since 2008 is that fewer work hours, whether due to layoff or simply working less hours, is a time dividend that can be put to more productive use (psychologically, if not economically) building relationships, experiences, and memories with ourselves and our loved ones.
It appears, however, that reality may be a bit different than the theory. The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran an article highlighting how unemployed and under-employed Americans are spending the free time they used to spend working. Comparing 2007 and 2009 data from the Labor Dept.'s American Time Use Survey, the authors find that most people are watching TV and sleeping; daily time spent on those activities increased by an average 12 minutes and 6 minutes, respectively, over the two years. Meanwhile there was virtually no increase in the time spent volunteering, exercising, participating in religious activities, pursuing education, or even working on household chores. Says University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh of the time dividend: "It's a waste."
A couple of thoughts here. First, the Time Use Survey covers all Americans, not just laid off or under-employed Americans, so those left behind at companies, who are now doing the work that two or three used to do, could be offsetting the statistics from the unemployed. Second, some desirable activities may not show up in the available answers to the questions. If I now spend the afternoon helping my wife make dinner, it may take us 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes that it takes her alone. In the survey result her time on housework would go down while mine would go up; but the intangible benefit of doing something together and spending more time talking doesn't show up anywhere in the data.
Still, the fact that TV time is growing is troubling because it is growing off an already high base: nearly 3 hours per day for adults. There is nothing inherently wrong with TV, but to think that three hours out of every 16-hour waking day is spent in passive consumption of entertainment is disappointing, and indicates that many of us are missing much that is happening in the world around us. As I've noted before, very few of your most precious memories are created in front of a screen. Only by engaging with the world around us--the people, the sights, the sounds--do we really live; living comes through doing. Passively watching other people live their lives on screen (terribly misnamed as "reality TV") is a poor substitute.
What are you doing with your free time?
It appears, however, that reality may be a bit different than the theory. The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran an article highlighting how unemployed and under-employed Americans are spending the free time they used to spend working. Comparing 2007 and 2009 data from the Labor Dept.'s American Time Use Survey, the authors find that most people are watching TV and sleeping; daily time spent on those activities increased by an average 12 minutes and 6 minutes, respectively, over the two years. Meanwhile there was virtually no increase in the time spent volunteering, exercising, participating in religious activities, pursuing education, or even working on household chores. Says University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh of the time dividend: "It's a waste."
A couple of thoughts here. First, the Time Use Survey covers all Americans, not just laid off or under-employed Americans, so those left behind at companies, who are now doing the work that two or three used to do, could be offsetting the statistics from the unemployed. Second, some desirable activities may not show up in the available answers to the questions. If I now spend the afternoon helping my wife make dinner, it may take us 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes that it takes her alone. In the survey result her time on housework would go down while mine would go up; but the intangible benefit of doing something together and spending more time talking doesn't show up anywhere in the data.
Still, the fact that TV time is growing is troubling because it is growing off an already high base: nearly 3 hours per day for adults. There is nothing inherently wrong with TV, but to think that three hours out of every 16-hour waking day is spent in passive consumption of entertainment is disappointing, and indicates that many of us are missing much that is happening in the world around us. As I've noted before, very few of your most precious memories are created in front of a screen. Only by engaging with the world around us--the people, the sights, the sounds--do we really live; living comes through doing. Passively watching other people live their lives on screen (terribly misnamed as "reality TV") is a poor substitute.
What are you doing with your free time?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Long Day
Here at Present Tense Living, our philosophy is to make the most of every day, to enjoy life in the here and now. I've recently returned from Alaska, where long summer days open open up an entirely different perspective on "make the most of today."
While all of us in the lower 48 enjoy the longer summer evenings, in Alaska summer is a totally different experience. One evening I did my bedtime reading by the light streaming through my window at 11 pm--the trees were still bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun. Still adjusting to the four-hour time change, I awoke the first morning at 4 am--to bright sunshine forcing its way into the room around the blackout curtains. With 20+ hours of daylight, in Alaska one can pack two days worth of activities into each day--talk about "making the most of today"!
June 21 marks the summer solstice, the day with the most daylight in the Northern Hemisphere. I checked the stats for Fairbanks today: sunrise at 2:58a, sunset at 12:48a. I now know the answer to that hypothetical question: "What would you do if you only had one day to live?" Answer: Go to Fairbanks on a June day--the day never ends.
The payback comes, of course, in December, when I am told the night seems to never end. But for a few weeks in the summer, our friends in Alaska can do more in a day than any of us dare even attempt.
Wherever you find yourself on this longest of days, spare a moment to take notice of and appreciate the sights, sounds, and people around you. This is the day the Lord has made--let us rejoice and be glad in it!
While all of us in the lower 48 enjoy the longer summer evenings, in Alaska summer is a totally different experience. One evening I did my bedtime reading by the light streaming through my window at 11 pm--the trees were still bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun. Still adjusting to the four-hour time change, I awoke the first morning at 4 am--to bright sunshine forcing its way into the room around the blackout curtains. With 20+ hours of daylight, in Alaska one can pack two days worth of activities into each day--talk about "making the most of today"!
June 21 marks the summer solstice, the day with the most daylight in the Northern Hemisphere. I checked the stats for Fairbanks today: sunrise at 2:58a, sunset at 12:48a. I now know the answer to that hypothetical question: "What would you do if you only had one day to live?" Answer: Go to Fairbanks on a June day--the day never ends.
The payback comes, of course, in December, when I am told the night seems to never end. But for a few weeks in the summer, our friends in Alaska can do more in a day than any of us dare even attempt.
Wherever you find yourself on this longest of days, spare a moment to take notice of and appreciate the sights, sounds, and people around you. This is the day the Lord has made--let us rejoice and be glad in it!
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