Work-Life Balance, Is It For Real?

Amidst the incessant honking of cars and two wheelers, I strained to hear Guhan's primary school teacher at the building entrance, "Sir, who will attend the Parent-Teacher meeting on Saturday? We will be discussing costumes for the Annual Day program. Guhan is participating in western dance."

I had no idea. I mumbled, "Ma'am, will let you know in the class WhatsAPP group by evening."

I hurried to my TVS Jupiter. I had 20 minutes to reach my office at Cenotaph Road. My boss had called for a team meeting at 9 o' clock. And, the office starts at 9!

Too much traffic for a Thursday morning.

I dashed to the conference room still wearing my laptop backpack. It was 9.05 am. Why do I often forget that there is only 1 elevator in the office building? My office was on the 7th floor.

"Hey Girish, Morning! Come, come, quick, take a seat", called my boss as I entered. I saw my colleague Gajanan taking notes or pretending to do so. I was not sure. The rest of the team, a couple of entry level employees, were sitting silently. They both resembled deer in headlights.

Controlling my smile, I wished everyone and slipped into the ergonomically comfortable chair. The question crossed again for the nth time. "How come the chairs in the conference room are always better than the ones in the cubicle?"

Air conditioning in the conference room was set at 18 deg C and fan speed 'high'. After riding a 2-wheeler in the hot Chennai sun, it felt like a welcome change. But, I knew that I was going to start shivering in a few minutes.

The meeting was to discuss the contents of a presentation meant for the visit of the Vice President - Corporate Strategy next Wednesday.

"Girish, I think I will embed your report on the 5th slide," said my boss. He added, "I want details of all domestic and export enquiries, order conversions, projections for next 2 quarters as well as the team's visit expenses for 2022 and 2023 Year to Date. email it to me by the end of the day."

Thinking about my report, I realized that now I was the deer in headlights! I had my task cut out. I needed to reach out to the resident product engineers in 9 locations across South India. And, then I had to gather details from the local team and myself. The temperature in the room did not bother me anymore.

My boss continued the meeting, throwing a lot of instructions to the team. Kailasam from the pantry arrived with coffee. It was for the boss. He had also brought the brown sugar jar from the boss' cabin with a teaspoon.

I wanted to tell my boss that I will need more than a day to compile the report he desired. I was not keen on stretching beyond regular office hours. It had become a bad habit and I was consciously trying to shake it off in order to spend more time with the missus and kid.

My boss and I already had a few run-ins in the past on this subject. I did not fancy another run-in with appraisal season around the corner! At the same time, I wanted to claim my 'work-life balance'. An inner voice said, "You gotta fight for it. No one else will."

The mind played little more by recalling a comment made by my boss in a team dinner event, not too long ago.

The VP - Corp. Strategy had offered to take the team out for dinner at The Westin Chennai, during his previous visit 6 months ago. To his question, "who is the best employee in your team?", my boss replied without batting an eyelid "whoever slogs the most", crunching his BBQ chicken wings. The VP smiled but nodded in disapproval. It was laughed off by everyone with the boss' laughter being the loudest and more hollow than that of everyone else.

The 30 minute meeting was about to end, a good 15 minutes past its schedule. I saw a couple of young guys from the Finance team peeking through the hexagon shaped glass window on the room's door. Apparently, they had booked the room for a meeting after ours.