What does your customer or employer want, require, and expect of you? Can you meet these? What are the tradeoffs? The following story may make some sense. When I tell people that on ‘death march’ projects, I’ve worked 80 hour weeks, they’ll say ‘oh yeah.’ Impossible! You’re kidding!
Well I wondered if I’m a minority. I talked with many people, self-employed professionals, small business owners, members of special projects, senior managers, and software programmers. Some customers or employers expect these horrible hours and tradeoffs. Many creative, self-employed people put in very long and hard hours as a norm to get work done.
Employees are also working long and hard to get their jobs done. The 40-hour workweek is long gone for many of us and 50 or more is all too common. ‘Finding balance’ and ‘getting a life’ have become more important among Brand U’s.