While talking to a colleague in Brussels this week, she said she wants to "improve her life", what she really meant was she wants to improve her work-life balance - apparently her Dutch did not translate correctly in English. I tried to find that out of course (I am not the one who trusts on first impressions either !), I asked her, did she mean she wants to change her identity and run away to Canada or perhaps find a new partner (bling! opportunity!!) - no she did not mean neither. She meant her well deserved holiday should not be jeopardized with our commitments on her time. Of course we did not listen to her, I bought her some Leffe and explained to her the importance of work and life (yes that pithy four letter word reserved for magazine writers!)
Everybody talks about it work-life balance and if one asks people to define it - they would generally end up giving you a book to read - but can not define themselves. It is such a vague concept. It does not tell you if you should have more fun or do more work. And what if people enjoy the work that they do? Should they be working more to achieve work-life balance or less? We keep complaining that work is bad - I think that is primarily an urban thing. I don't seem people outside cities complaining about their work - or maybe it is just me. I think the civilization as it stands today has made life more comfortable and that includes millions of people doing work. Imagine you take a vacation at the same time hotel staff is on vacation, how the hell you are going to enjoy the vacation? You want to go on a picnic to improve your life and the petrol pumps go on holiday too! So if one part of the society has to enjoy life the other part still has to do the work. Is that what is work-life balance is all about? I am sure it improves the life of several million people at one go!
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