CrackBerries

From Menletter April 2010

By Tim Baehr

Years ago the company I worked for was bought by an entrepreneur who wanted to change the business model and goals of the company. Unlike the previous owners, this guy didn't have a good grasp of the technical details of our product. That didn't stop him from making cockamamie suggestions, sometimes bringing product development to a halt as we tried to implement some dumb idea or explain why it was bad for the product.

K. was sure that we all needed to share his near-fanatical devotion to the success of the company, the process of creating product, and the product itself. This included, in his mind, our being available at all hours to answer questions and solve problems.

This was in the day before I had e-mail or even a cell phone. K. called me one Saturday morning with a sense of extreme urgency. The more I listened, the more I could see that the problem he was describing could wait until Monday morning. And it also dawned on me that at least part of his motivation was to throw his weight around - to assert his role as boss, and maybe even to reassure himself that he was in control.

I said two things to the boss: This can wait till Monday, and Don't ever, ever call me at home again. In fact, I think I even had a few words about home being sacrosanct and not an appropriate place to do business. I guess I was really pissed off.

He didn't fire me. For one thing, I was the only one left at the company doing what I did, and he could never have afforded to replace me (I had been three years without a raise and the company was bleeding money). I did leave a few months later (K. calling me a traitor to the cause), and the company folded shortly afterward.

It would be a couple decades before anybody in H.R. coined the laughable term "work-life balance."

Which brings me to a short article I saw recently in the on-line version of Fast Company: "Work-Life Balance Digitally Destroyed: One in Three Permanently Connected to Employer." In it, Kit Eaton notes that 30 percent of people in technology jobs are connected to work 24/7 and that 25 percent of workers feel that they must be available electronically after working hours. Also, 17 percent fear management's displeasure if they don't check in while on leave. Eaton goes on: "Can you say 'CrackBerry' and 'iPhoneaddiction?' And can you add on "Bye-bye any notion of work-life balance" just for good measure?"

And then there was the brouhaha in Pennsylvania when a school sent home laptops with Web cameras that could be turned on from the school. Totally creepy.

It seems that as each bit of technology is invented, people find ways to invade our home life, just because they can. But we can't blame the technology. My boss used a regular old land-line phone.

How far are we willing to go to protect the privacy and sanctity of our home life? A lot of us can't have a snit and stick it to the boss, especially in a shaky economy. And some of our employers have legitimate reasons for us to be in constant touch, say, if we're doctors or IT professionals responsible for keeping a bank of servers up and running.

But our constant connection to work is at least worth thinking about. Are we making assumptions about what our employer wants? Is it time to explore alternatives to an explicit or unspoken policy of total access? Are we as addicted to the gadgetry as our bosses are? And if it's an addiction, what aspects of our lives would be enriched if we could break it? Are we using the 24/7 connection to avoid some aspect of our home life? How many years are subtracted from our lives - in total longevity or even in the quality of the life we live - in service to institutionalized stress and overwork?

What about it, guys? If we're in that one-third group in constant contact, are we willing to ask some questions of our bosses, our co-workers, and ourselves?