Work / Life Balance

The big fat butt elephant in this scenario is employers who limit worker freedoms.  The little mice (employees) are just trying to balance their work and home life, but no matter how hard they try they can't balance out with the hairy pachyderm who demands 10 hours worth of work within an 8 hour period.

Today my wonderful employer stated that no company property can be used for personal purposes, specifically no company computers can be used for personal social media site viewing, no email, no news reading, no bank account checking, no weather radar watching.... NOTHING... INCLUDING DURING LUNCH HOURS.  The only thing those suckers did allow was the use of personal smart phones during lunch hour to do whatever you like.  My immediate reaction.... INSANE.

For literalists such as myself (when being one is a benefit to me of course) I then question what employees are to do when they have brought there lunch in and want to eat it at their desk?  We have 60 short minutes to scarf down the food, check our personal email, check our bank accounts, see if there is any news of the world that we should know, check on the stocks (if you choose to run that gauntlet), and decide which of the GOP nominees you wish to despise for the week.  Now how many of these activities requires the use of a computer.... hmmm.... 5/6 (well, can say 4/6 if you want to decide on the nominee based on whoever the favorite is of your office biznatch).

If I am so kind as to impliment this 'rule' upon myself at work, then what will I do with those 50 minutes that remain after eating my lunch?  I will proceed to do only what is reasonable.... think of ways to work around the rule!  I'll have to either 1) Upgrade my phone to a darn expensive smart phone 2) Bring my personal laptop to work to do my checking there, or (worst case) 3) Write all my posts in a Word doc and post them online once I get home. 

Of course it needs not be mentioned that I will no longer answer calls from co-workers at home or after I have clocked out and will not stay passed my scheduled hours like I had been before, sometimes by 2 or 3 hours.  This is, of course, an important part of their reason for creating this rule... to gain 'Work Life Balance'...

Fine.... I'll balance it... you asked for it!

To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I'm working on the foundation. - Marilyn Monroe