Burning Our People Out

Let’s presume who works from where were resolved. Crystal clear, set in stone, no ambiguity. How wonderful would life be? Team/collaborative work when we are best primed for it in joyous, fun, creative and innovative meetings of psychologically safe and tight-knit teams in inspiring collaborative environments and individual work when we are mid-flow whenever and wherever suits us best. Nothing better.

But it isn’t sorted. Not by a long country mile. Not with the absurd latest statements of how WFH is “immoral” and any other of the utterly ridiculous directions this adamant desperation to save the high street has brought about. If we are to be honest though, the truth is that our hard-fought-for flexibility is under threat at a collective level but it isn’t as pressing an issue for most of us on here reading this.

Consummate professionals with active LinkedIn profiles are likely the least affected group when it comes to oppressive knee-jerk reactions of unthinking organisations that demand a return to micromanagement and line-of-sight. We have had many many years of having to juggle life and work and we know that at the end of the day, all that really counts is doing good work whenever we manage to fit it, being good to ourselves and others and honouring our professional commitments.

We know that no schedule will ever be able to fit our insane collection of todo’s and the unique intersection of personal and professional backlogs so we long stopped expecting it all to fit and learned flexibility is inbuilt not chosen. But we’re the lucky ones, the privileged ones. The ones who have either overt or covert liberty.

And if we find ourselves in roles that wouldn’t let us hold all our balls in the air we’d much rather change jobs than drop any.