Work Life Balance: We Need a New Conversation

The kid lost her cell phone. Last we can tell, she had it a week ago Sunday at 10:24 am when she sent me a smiley face text.

A few days into the next week, no phone found. "Ok, no new phone for 2 years." Oh so the drama, right? My frustration was not with her or even that the phone was missing. I was frustrated that I couldn't piece together what I had done yesterday, let alone a week ago on the day the phone was last seen. 

Work. Life. Balance. The "there's no balance about it" conversation plays out with a common voice of struggle that sways between wondering how we can get it all done, accepting we can't and back to honoring the choices we make.

All in all, it's rather disempowering to me.

Form follows function, actions follow words yet the conversation is 50 shades of the same. I want something different; I want something more than a working mother's manifesto.

Is it about taking the moments of our lives and separating them from this conversation? What if the moments of our lives were actually the answer - and not the question?

I am caught in a loop of my own and it'll take nothing less than a complete change in the conversation <and some action> for me to break free. So, I have a question for you:

When it comes to work life balance, who is talking or writing about this in an empowering and completely different kind of way?

We need a new conversation. There is a Samsung Intensity metallic blue cell phone replacement (and my psyche) on the line.

Question: How Can You Give Your HR Manager a Conniption?

Answer: Tell her a new requirement could mean it'll take you 2-3 weeks to clear applicants for hire . . . and then tell her like this:

Email: It may soon take us 2-3 weeks to clear applicants for hire.

HR reply: 2-3 weeks or 2-3 days? It takes you 1 day now.  

Response: 2-3 weeks.                                                               

HR reply: That's a major problem.

Response (wait for it, wait for it): Out of my control.

HR Manager is seething. Can you get why? Yes, the absolute lack of ownership, responsibility, and  understanding portrayed in the four words, "out of my control." It's really not the possible 2-3 week delay because no HR Manager worth her weight in gold is going to let anyone or anything add 2-3 weeks to her hiring process - and that's a given.

Holy smokes folks, don't communicate this way. Just don't. Get it or move on. We've got things to do and you are only in the way.