You have to run your business with the workforce you have, not the workforce you want
"Tiger's not kidding about his priorities." Read the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle. What followed was a story that, in incredulous tones, pondered whether Tiger Woods really will skip the British Open to assist at the birth of his first child if the two events conflict. "I just wouldn't go....[i]f she's having the baby during the week of the Open...," said Tiger, even though that would mean losing the chance to top the previous record of the number of consecutive wins at the Open.
Get used to it. Tiger represents the new generations of men, Gen-X, Gen-Y and the Millenials, who are less willing than baby boomers to sacrifice family life for the brass ring at work.
Not that they don't want to achieve. They are as driven as we baby boomers are. But they are driven in two directions. Rather than assuming that their contributions to the world will be in the public sphere, while their wives' will be in the private sphere, these younger men feel that being good fathers and responsible family members requires "being there" when family members need attention and care. (Tiget also took time off when his father was ill.) These men feel the tug of family as well as the tug of work.
Baby boomers often see them as slackers, lacking in ambition. They aren't. They have ambitions -- they just have them in two directions. They expect and aspire to be actively involved in family as well as work life.
Is this a bad thing for employers? No. So many baby boom men look back with regret, as men have since the 1950s, and wish they had spent more time with their children when they were growing up. Men like Tiger won't. Perhaps, as a result, they will be less likely to have disruptive mid-life crises in which neglected wives divorce them, or they divorce theri wives and start new families with whom they plan to have a different, richer relationship, or have heart attacks from the stress of decades of 60-hour weeks. Such mid-life crises are expensive for employers -- costs now seen (incorrectly) as unavoidable costs of doing business, rather than as avoidable costs of organizing a business in a certain way.
At any rate, emmployers need to recognize that they need to run their businesses with the workforce they have, rather than the workforce they want. Men, as well as women, are demanding work/life balance. As usual, Tiger leads the way.
Get used to it. Tiger represents a new generation of men, often called Gen-X, Gen-Y or the Millenials, who are less willing than Baby Boomers to sacrifice family life to get ahead at work. Not that they don't want to achieve -- they are as driven as the rest of us. But they are driven in two directions. Rather than assuming that their contributions to the world will be in the public sphere, while their wives will be in the private sphere, these younger men feel that being good fathers and responsible family members requires "being there" for other family members. These fathers feel the tug of family as well as the tug of work.
Baby boomers often see them as slackers, lacking in ambition. They aren't. They have ambitions -- they just have them in two directions. They have ambitions not only as workers, but also as fathers. They expect and aspire to be activively involved in family life.
Is this a bad thing for employers? No. So many baby boomers look back with regret, and wish they had spent more time with their children when they were growing up. Men like Tiger won't. Perhaps, as a result, they will be less likely to encounter a mid-life crisis in which they ask themselves what is the meaning of their lives, or to have heart attacks that result the toll of constant strain, or "get a newer model" and start a new family with whom they have a different, richer relationship. Such mid-life crises are expensive for employers -- though these costs are erased as inevitable costs of doing business, rather than as avoidable costs of a certain way of organizing economic and family life.
At any rate, emmployers need to recognize that they need to carry on with the workforce they have, rather than the workforce they want. Men, as well as women, are demanding work/life balance. Get used to it!
The example of a celebrity like Tiger Woods is part of the tip off that we're onto a yuppie post. Most people out there in the real world don't have much choice about whether to work.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
February 12, 2007 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed, John. In addition to being repetitive, I think this post misses the real story for those of us Gen Y-ers entering the workplace -- that as much as we might want to be there for a child's birth or to care for a sick relative, the bottom line demands that we sit and stare at computer screens for a requisite number of hours per week. It's also interesting to note that, at least at my job, and at the jobs of several other young professional friends of mine, it would be possible to complete all our work for the week in ten hours, but for the sake of appearances (which seem to reign in the business world, as in high school), we are required to sit the full forty (or eighty!) out in front of our desk. Reason enough to go back to academia.
Ben Cronin
February 12, 2007 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
February 12, 2007 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, $120 million in the bank makes it a bit easier to take a few weeks off.
sPh
February 12, 2007 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a lot of projection & wishful thinking going on here.
February 12, 2007 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
How much of this is due to a change in the attitudes of male workers, and how much is due to a change in the laws and culture of the workplace? My guess is that more working dads these days simply find themselves with the freedom to do what earlier dads always wanted to do, but were not permitted to do.
The post strikes me as a bit anachronistic. Are there really many places left where "my wife is having a baby today" is not regarded as the best of all possible reasons for missing work? My sense is that a guy who came into the office while his wife was giving birth to his child would be regarded by most of his co-workers these days - men and women alike - as a total jerk. I suspect that only in the upper extremes of old-boy buccaneer capitalist bastardy, or in special cases where employees perform an absolutely essential and indispensible role in a vital industry, do the old attitudes still prevail.
February 12, 2007 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Jalmari. I'll keep that quiet. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure that they are not abroad in the blogosphere.
Ben Cronin
February 12, 2007 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course there is a tendency to plan most deliveries so that a pregnancy going several days past due is likely to be induced, with a target date selected in advance. That makes planning a little easier.
February 12, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't discount this too easily. A lot of professional employers are facing this problem. Sure, most people aren't professionals, but that's not the point.
EDIT: The going rate for first year associates at large law firms in Texas is now roughly $140,000 per year, and it's on the way up again since New York law firms have begun to offer $160,000 per year. Again, that's for first year associates--people who have just graduated from law school. I mention Texas because I am living there, but also because $140,000 per year far exceeds any cost of living within the state. Property prices in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, though expensive, do not even compare to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago.
Thus, people who are just now becoming lawyers in Texas really do have the choice--work like mad to make that $160k, or forgo some of that excess income in order to have a more reasonable family and personal life--perhaps making $80k-$100k instead.
I'd happily choose the latter, and I think the reasons go deeper than just a greater focus on the family. Yes, most young men certainly care about their families. We have, after all, been subjected to pop culture influences our entire lives--movies that tell us that money isn't everything and it is better to be happy. It is not surprising that after some time, we began to take those messages to heart.
Beyond all that, though, I think there is, more and more, a belief (perhaps a recognition) that our professional lives are not the only way that we can identify ourselves. I would bet that a lot of us realize that defining oneself through one's career provides little meaning or depth to your life. I certainly don't want to look back over my life and see that I have only been a lawyer. How empty that would be.
February 12, 2007 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, my sister has a baby, with the flu, and had to take some "unpaid days off" since she just started working....
people like Tiger show that the world lifts some folks up while dropping others.
disclaimer: I'm not a golf enthusiast...
February 12, 2007 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Woods misses the tournament because he stays home to be with his wife, he will be putting "unpaid time off" in a whole new league.
February 12, 2007 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed.
February 12, 2007 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
he'd tell his honey: "I made more money in interest this week than I was paid for the first 5 year of golf..."
February 12, 2007 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your example of lawyers shows how the changes being described here is not really just about family vs. work, but about work vs. work.
Law firms that pay $140K to start are going to use you up, and give you no free time to develop your own skill set and practice. In the old days, that may have been worth it because once you started at a law firm you were almost guaranteed to make partner and be there for forty years, with a gold watch or some such trinket at the end. Now, most people who take that salary know they are only worker-bees, and they will never make partner - assuming the law firm lasts ten years, the way most law firms are going.
So they will be tossed out as a third or fourth year associate, with no skills for running their own firm or finding their own client base (although with their debt now paid off) and have to go find something else to do. Most MBAs, likewise, know that the first company they work for likely will only last a year or two, so they better scramble to build that indepdendent skill set.
Over 50% of people with JDs leave the law within five years. Most of the MBAs I know are starting their own businesses in their spare time, using their 40 hour workweek as a base to support themselvse while they spend the rest of their time working on their own venture.
Bottom line: Why work your rear off for someplace that's not even going to remember you in three years? (and if you do move up, that's even worse because then they'll just demand more of you... until the place goes under)
Knowledge-workers (high end workers, which are the type we're talking about here, obviously other types of workers have a completely and much more serious set of problems) don't think its enough to have time for the family and for the work anymore, they also want and need to be doing something they enjoy or find interesting, and they also need professional development, so that when their employer tosses them to the curb they can continue their career.
Tiger is a perfect example of this. He started with golf, but quickly moved on to endorsements. Now he's fine tuning his image as tabloid celebrity, apparently complete with shocking comments about his love life designed to garner media attention, which is why we're sitting here talking about him.
February 12, 2007 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boy there seem to be a lot of boomer wars around here lately.
Just to add my two cents these things are worth considering
This doesn't denigrate Woods' choice at all. I really applaud him for it, and I'm not sure most men in his position would make it. I don't think we should consider this a money thing, first and foremost. It is a pride thing...a chance to go into the record books having done something better than anyone has ever done it previously. I hope when someone writes Woods' biography 50 years from now he/she will note, should he skip the tournament, that he forewent the chance to make sports history, and thereby made a different and more important kind of history. It is quite certain winning the British Open a greater number of consecutive times than anyone else would have probably merited a chapter. Staying home should at least merit a footnote.
aMike
February 12, 2007 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would only add that many lawyers-to-be are well aware of their chances of making partner, are well aware that they will likely have to find a new job in 5 years--in short they are well aware that there is no such thing as job security--and they are planning accordingly. Planning to exploit the existing system to pay off their loans and build up some cash reserves before moving into a job that they will really enjoy and find interesting.
February 12, 2007 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There may be something "statistically" true about a blanketing generalization applied to all baby boomers but honestly, Joan, it does more harm than good. Its a fine thing if, in believing generalizations, one promotes a law or policy that makes it less burdensome to take paternity leave or other "family freindly " changes from the rules that applied to baby boomers who were raising children. But otherwise, spare me. What is being discussed here are personal priorities a couple either stumble into or agree to from the outset, not "its OK to act a certain way because my cohort are on record as having that value". If there were real consistency to generational stereotypes, why did the "generation" that went into the streets against the Viet Nam war go into the polling booths for Reagan?
I spent as much time with my children as my wife did. We both had jobs and we both would like to have spent more time at home.
As aMike points out, this post seems to be an instance of a pattern of generational labelings...but I am not going to parlay that into another generalization. Still, its better to be aware of all the instances so one can reach ones own conclusions. The last half of this recent rant of mine airs my annoyance at clumsy generational assumption broadcast by Open Source on NPR. NO folks, a post baby boom candidate is NOT the first person and sure as hell not different from a lot of us old guys in seeing the war on Iraqis as a dumb idea from the get-go.
If all these generationalizations held up, I could ask from whom this more-family, less-career oriented generation got that value, their parents?. It is not clear that progress in employer benefits...which EVERY "generation" has sought...account for the shift reported here.
-Greensmile
Freedom is not more important than fairness and much easier to fake.
February 17, 2007 6:51 AM | Reply | Permalink