It was yet another late night today. Left office at around 9.30pm.
When I was a consultant reporting to my ex little boss, I gotta work late, or work at home and over weekends for the tasks he assigned to me. He also works long hours and is very dedicated to his job.
Now I'm at the same level as him and having my own team, i get to experience for myself on how the top presses the heavy workload on us, the middle management.
Yet, what I do not want to do is to do the same to my team members.
Big boss does not really care whether or not the work he gives us is more than we can cope, even though he would act as if he does care sometimes. Basically, he assigns the work to me and expects me to juggle within the resources I have. That is what i'm supposed to do in my position anyway. Being a manager leading a team, I am supposed to delegate the work to the subordinates, and I indeed do so.
But then, i'm in a bit of a dilemma here.
You see, i'm a firm believer of the Golden Rule - "do unto others as you would have others do unto you". If i do not want to be treated a certain way, then i should not treat the others in that manner either.
I've always advocated a work-life balanced lifestyle. I've never believed that career should be the topmost priority in a person's life, nor should the person spend more time working than doing other more meaningful things in life or spending time with the people we love and treasure. I've always hated that all employers seem to always pay the employees for the work of 8 hours per day and 5 days per week, and yet expect the employees to actually work more than 12 hours per day and 7 days per week.
That's why i cannot bring myself to offload the work to my team members, knowing that they are already busy with some assignments, or knowing that if i do so, they would end up like me, working late into the night everyday.
Of course, my boss is not gonna give me any less work simply because i'm being "too nice" to my team members. Since this is the choice i made, then i will have to do the work myself. And that's how i end up killing myself with long working hours and stressful workload, and not to mention the energy that is draining out of me bit-by-bit, day-by-day.
So back to the question i posed at the opening of this post, i actually know the answer - i ask for it myself since i do not want to be the "bad boss". And the ironic part is that my subordinates would never know about how i filter away all the excess workload and take it upon myself. Perhaps despite doing all these, i'm still a bad boss in their eyes. But then again, i'm not doing this so that they will be grateful to me. I'm simply staying true to what i believe in.
And don't be mistaken that i'm complaining about this. No, i'm not, since it's my choice - my choice to not offload the work, my choice in working late, and my choice in staying on with this underpaid overworked job (for now).
This post is simply the disorganised late-night thoughts of an overworked, exhausted lonely person. And no one should ever take such thoughts from such person seriously.
Labels: work
