Ambition
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I too would have walked from the deal. All too often people mistake the difference between 'urgent' and 'important'. They opt for 'urgency' out of habit and not true need. Someone who is successful usually has ambition. More importantly though, their success is due to their ability to discern 'important' from 'urgent', strike a balance between them and life and act accordingly.
Now with the Balmer/Super Bowl thing, well, we just do not have enough information to make a truly good call. But then, this is just a discussion.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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Steve Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft so if he missed the superbowl to close a business deal, to him it is normal. He probably missed a lot more things to do business.
I remembered the CIO of my old company said when he was trying to climb the corporate ladder, he missed his kids games, his family affairs and everything to try to get to the top. When the day he became CIO, he realized he did not know his kids, he was a stranger in his house, the price he paid for being a CIO was far too much. Instead of being happy to become the CIO, he felt lonely and empty.
Now he balanced his life, he went to all his family activities. His points was your job is part of your life, not your whole life. You could work hard to climb the corp ladder but there are other things are important in your life too. Don't sacrifice something for your job that you would regret the rest of your life !!!
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We're talking about a football game here... and your kid's not playing in it. It's not a birthday or something. I think family is an entirely different thing, and events like birthdays can't be rescheduled, but the Superbowl is not an event which should have any personal importance to most people. And you don't know why I have to have the deal done on Sunday. Maybe it can't wait... or maybe it's your fault for not getting it done on Friday.
I applaud Ballmer for his (minor) sacrifice. He's a guy that knows what matters and what doesn't. I doubt if he would miss his kid's birthday to close a deal, and I would not approve of that, but that's not what we're talking about here.
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Two comments:
First Steve Ballmer. He was probably making some statement. Certainly, anyone who had a potential deal with someone as influental as Ballmer would have to be really stupid to blow off the deal because Ballmer wanted to see the game. Emergency repairs, life threatening situations may require that sacrifice, but signing a contract is NOT one of those.
In the more general, it's not just a matter of protecting family time (though that's important). It's a matter of doing a good job as well. If demands jerk you around so readily, you are not in control of your own schedule, and are consequently not productive. Productivity includes the need to make rational prioritization (including prioritization of rest periods) and not letting the tasks run the show.
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-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
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Great stuff, Steve. And great blog entry on it too!
I am totally with you on this one. In fact, that is one reason I decided to open up my own consulting/training practice and be my own boss.
Sometimes life in big corporate world feels like being a little hamster in a spinning wheel, the faster you moves, the faster it spins. One needs to slow down, step back, take stock in life and see what is really important.
BTW, Super Bowl is not that important either, at least to me. It's just a game. However, the media hype machine never stops
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You have to make sure you get your personal priorities taken care of too. If you are just living to work, what’s the point?
They say that no one lays on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time in work.
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In this day of TiVos and PVRs and BeyondTV, I'd let our computer record the SuperBowl or Law & Order or Bravo's Top Design or whatever show I really enjoy but would need to miss for work. I can watch it later, when work isn't so pressing.
Now if it came to a family event or work, it would depend on all the circumstances. I used to immediately try to get work in first and family later. But as the stress wears on me, that's changing me. I'm evaluating situations more and more and seeing what really needs me more. If it's something for work but it can wait, then I'll let it wait.
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Two extremely valid points I'd like to emphasize:
Joe Middleton mentioned the "rising level of mediocrity in today's workplace". How very true. The people I sit near spend seemingly half their day on auto web sites, IM, etc. They end up having to do work from home because of it. If they DID work during work hours, they wouldn't have to work so much from home. This is NOT to say that's why people work on off hours. That's just what I see around me.
Michael Valentine Jones said "They say that no one lays on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time in work". We must be related! I can't tell you how many times I've said that very thing to these guys/clowns who sit next to me.
Lastly, I was a one-person show for a web app - .NET front end, SQL back end, conversion of legacy data, analyst, etc. I worked roughly 46 hours per week and came in on one Sunday for about 4 hours. I got the job done a) without working from home b) without a Blackberry and c) deployed the application 2 weeks early. This has been my standard MO in my 12 years of being a developer. And yes, I am highly regarded in the IT departments in which I've worked as well as with my end-users. True, there are some positions where you are screwed - if the network goes down, email goes down, etc. But from my perspective, I've always been able to keep the balance and be a top producer in my department. Sorry to toot my horn, but before anyone jumps on me, let it be known that I can stick to a pretty normal schedule and still make everyone happy and in many cases, ecstatic.
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That is the thing Tivo and some of us can program recording devices in minutes so I am sure Balmer's wife was happy to go shopping instead of taking care of the Microsoft supper bowl visitors for a change. Milage varies.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
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