The Work-Life Imbalance

Let’s talk about work/life and the so-called “balance”. I wrote about this in my last book “People Before Tech” and I am exploring the many possible models that are being trialled in an effort to avoid WFAA in my upcoming “Tech-Led Culture” one as well of course.

That said, let me tell you what brought it back from theoretical to very personal for me.

Over the last few weeks, not only has my 12-year-old had some school issues that need sorting and a trip to London to see a kidney specialist but has been complaining of “face pain” -which is an indication of how new he is to insufferable tooth pain- so we have had multiple trips to the dentist as well.

Now we are definitely lucky because all of my kiddo’s parents (myself, his dad and his stepdad) are in technology and very senior in our positions and have enough days WFH between us to deal with all these commitments and needs. We are well aware of how fortunate and privileged we are to be in that position and it makes me wonder how would a single parent who had to come into the office every day even deal with this short of taking the full day off.

My husband has had to postpone a strategic data architectural meeting so he can take him when I had my publisher come to my office for a half-day editing chat. My ex has had to juggle his ever-growing list of to-dos managing teams of developers when we were too tied up to take the kiddo to the specialist, and at long last, I have had to duck out of important product meetings regarding the new ISO certification testing so that I can take him myself.