It’s Just the Way it Is!
I have a wonderful friend who has a crystal clear vision of being a successful senior executive or entrepreneur with the power and influence to create family friendly work cultures. She thinks about it day and night. It is her passion. You might even say she is “obsessed.”
What’s her current job like?
She works 10 and 12 hour days with no flexibility to tend to a sick child; take a real lunch hour to eat a healthy meal; leave work early enough to get to the dry cleaners before it closes; or attend her husband’s surprise “joining another company” going away party, planned by his office mates.
Does she really have to work like this or is this self-imposed pressure?
She doesn’t know. Her colleagues never seem to take time off and her boss has never hinted that he would be amenable to such a request, so this must be an unspoken rule.
Would she ask?
Never!
Why?
She says “that’s not how I operate. I’ve always had jobs likes this. It’s not my nature to question the upper ranks. I think you have to go along to get along.”
One day, she says, when she owns her own business or has reached the upper ranks of corporate America, she will develop rules that will reflect “the way things should be. For now, it’s just the way it is.”
How often do you accept something because “it’s just the way it is?” What are you willing to risk to create what you want? What would it be like if you lived in an “It’s just the way I want it” kind of world?
