Work-Life Imbalance

At what point do you begin to accept that your job is your life? I certainly haven't begun to reach that perilous precipice (and refuse to) but it would seem that my job has chosen to interfere with unacceptable gall.

If my profession demanded my sole devotion, my every thought, every ounce of my energy, I might accept giving up personally important moments for its cause. A trauma surgeon expects to be called away on business at any moment. He expects to give up longstanding plans because it is he, and only he, who can execute the one finite act of dexterity that might save another human's life on one untimely occasion.

My job comes nowhere near approaching that degree of critical weight and it is for this reason that I cannot accept the turmoil and disruption that it has brought to one consecrated ritual in my world.

The Man Weekend.

I have written of it and extolled its virtues. For my betestacled friends and me, it is pilgrimage to Mecca. It is communion. It is solstice and equinox, reunion and rejoice. Above all, it is tradition, and my job is blaspheming it. We hold the Man Weekend every year (ok, two years running now) on or near the weekend of September 11th. The significance of our nation's darkest anniversary is not unnoticed, but it is merely coincidental and has nothing to do with ManFest. It is simply the first weekend that falls after my wedding anniversary.

Each year, we commune for the better part of three days in an idyllic setting high up in the mountains, dwelling merrily in a cabin that might just as well be a page out of Mountain Living magazine. From its deck, we sip the essence of barley and malt or occasionally coffee, and we gaze across the creek toward a soaring mountain peak that is close enough to touch, but too far to climb. For that would mean we were ambitious and nay, the Man Weekend is not about that. It is about gathering a very small group of very good friends, telling stories, and laughing more than we have collectively laughed in the year that has passed since our last gathering.

When Man Weekend ends, we all agree that yes indeed, we shall do it again in about 365 days. We begin discussing next year's event roughly two weeks after it has ended. It is on all of our calendars, permanently etched in the blood of friendship and camaraderie.

Then came this year and I am overwrought with bitterness, perhaps more than I should be yet I feel this chagrin and woe and I will not hide my disdain. Someone within my job's chain of command way far away in a big leather chair threw a golden dart at a calendar and chose -you guessed it- the exact same weekend as The Man Weekend to forge into place a monstrous synergy of two companies' billing systems.

This to me is stomping on the Shroud of Turin. This is the burning of my flag. That someone could pick a date, any date, and have it be the one weekend of rare convergence with my very busy friends is surely pure twisted fate. We, after all, made plans last September. Work made plans a relative few months ago. By rights, I should be able to say "sorry, I already have plans" but no -- I can't do that because I am expected to be on the ready for my job.

On one hand, I can accept that. It tells me that what I do is important to someone and if I am needed, that is a good thing. On the other hand, my very small piece of this enormous puzzle (and I emphasize the word "puzzle") should be solidified and completely in place before this big corporate advent. My work should be tested and ready to roll well before the actual weekend. What's more, if there does happen to be something out of whack, we have a good month or more before any customer would even get to see the results of our labor. This translates into time available to fix things the might have gone wrong. So why is it that what I do has the dishonor of disrupting the plans and schedules of six individuals?

Innocent victims of inadvertent, random corporate terrorists. That's what it is.