From: learn@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (William Vajk (igloo))
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Smelling The Roses (was Re: Companies can afford it, right?)
Date: 5 Apr 92 17:06:54 GMT
Reply-To: learn@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (William Vajk (igloo))
Organization: Dares No Organization Like Dis Organization

In article <34028@unix.SRI.COM> Valerie Maslak writes:

>In article <2652@unisql.UUCP> wharfie writes:

>>In article <1992Apr1.191211.20193@news.nd.edu> susan larsen writes:

>>>Do you think working 70 hour weeks is living?  I don't.

> Oh, boy. This one strikes me where I live. I've tried it wharfie's
>way, and now I agree with Sue. Actually it was living it wharfie's
>way that made me think like Sue.

I was given "the proposal" to write. I was given a deadline. It took
95 hours in one week. I wrote, three women typed and proofed. I proofed,
we finished within the week. I was a consultant. The corporate comptroller
refused at first to pay me the hours. It took intervention by a vice
president for me to be paid. I received a thank you for my efforts. The
year was 1968, the project the Apollo Space Suit. I "made a difference"
too. I'll never do such nonsense again. 

> Yes, but wharfie, that's a very limited view of things, isn't it?
>You're working hard in one area of your life, and making
>contributions in one area of the world, one part of reality, but in
>my experience that entrepreneurial life makes you ignore the rest of
>life. You have no time, no energy, no interest in the rest of it.
>You're burnt out. Yes, you may hit the big bucks and make a big
>splash. But at what cost? The reaon our society is rapiing the
>resources of the whole world is that all we think of is progress and
>moving forward, and we don't look at what a wreck, human and
>otherwise, we leave behind us.

This paragraph should be required daily reading by all personnel at
all startup companies.

>>What you don't understand is that we are a team working towards a goal.

Golly, wharfie, this is what I thought life was all about, including family 
life. I thought a job was a means towards personal ends. It sounds to me as 
though you've bought into a hyped set of priorities. I know these things 
happen sometimes. 

>>	I want to be a farmer.  I want 40 acres in the Southeast with
>>a strong spring and some mature forest.  But there's about 200,000 reasons
>>I can't get there right yet...  By hard work and dedication now and for the
>>next few years, I might be able to cash in my stock options and do what
>>I want.  Or maybe not.  But it won't be because I was too damned lazy to
>>try and waited for someone to give it to me.
>other people.

My "farm" became a reality several years ago. I don't live on my 80 acres 
on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, though I might someday. The ownership
snuck up on me without my even realizing I was partially fulfilling a
lifelong goal. But that's about the time I slowed down enough to smell the 
roses, and started dealing with people differently than I had. That was the 
time when I stopped permitting job related pressures to drive my entire life. 
That was the time I started laughing and smiling again, and started telling 
anyone who tries to pressure me as mercilessly as they have in the past that 
there is only one more word between my staying or leaving. Interestingly, I
have not ever had to leave, but it really wouldn't matter in the grand
scheme of life goals if I the circumstances dictated I do.

>I also know what it feels like to be too busy and too tired to play 
>with my kids. If I could do it over, I'd let the company fold and play 
>with the kids more.

I don't know what's changed. This is the woman with whom I regularly
crossed swords for years, and we're agreeing again.

I feel too soon old, to late schmart in these regards.

Bill Vajk