September is always a very busy time of year for me – both at work, with the start of a new school term here at the University of Toronto, and at home, with my son heading back to school. So busy, in fact, that I’ve been neglecting this blog and many other things in favour of just trying to keep up with the essentials.
An article in today’s HBR Blog Network caught my eye: Work and Vacation Should Go Together, by Ron Ashkenas. Catchy title aside (guaranteed to lure anyone who’s snuck in some work during vacation time, myself included and I suspect many of you), the article has an interesting and novel perspective on how we manage work and personal life. For years I’ve been trying to achieve that elusive ‘balance’ that’s supposed to be optimal, and have been failing. Which is why this phrase got my attention:
The reality for many of us these days is that our professional lives bleed into our personal lives. The boundaries are increasingly permeable and movable. We check our emails in the evenings and weekends. We delay or miss family events because we can’t leave the office. And when we do, we take our communications devices with us so that we can stay connected to work.
Guilty as charged. But the thing is, I really *like* what I do. I love my job. It energizes me and gives me a lot of personal satisfaction. I also believe that it makes me smarter, which is important to me. Granted, I need a break now and then and vacations are wonderful. But my ideal vacation is having free time to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. Which includes thinking about interesting projects I’d like to start, working out challenging problems in my work, and talking to the many interesting people who are part of my work life. Increasingly, I am unable to separate the people in my life into categories: I am fortunate to work with people who have become dear friends, and even had the pleasure of having friends who have become colleagues as well.
Here’s an approach I can get behind:
Focusing on work-life “integration” instead of work-life “balance” has at least a couple of implications: First (and the one that I like the most) is that we can stop feeling guilty about scheduling calls during our vacations or checking our emails at night; and by the same token not feel guilty about talking with our spouses, friends, and family members during work time.
The second implication is that we no longer split up our time so rigidly between “work hours” and “non-work hours.” Instead, let’s be flexible about when and how we accomplish both our work goals and our personal goals. Obviously some of this has to be negotiated with others, both at work (who is on call for customers?) and home (who gets to use the car?). But the point is to make this a natural part of how we organize our lives instead of a special perk or exceptional situation.
While I’m very lucky to have a workplace that supports this kind of integration, not every employer has seen the light. But I think we’re getting there. At least, I hope so. Because one thing we know is that happy employees are capable of incredible things.
I encourage you to read the entire article, and the comments, too.
On Sunday, September 18, filming will be taking place on the St. George campus for a student-directed Lip Dub video to promote the University of Toronto, and you are invited to participate!
A similar video was created by students at UBC in the spring and has received over 1.2 million hits on YouTube since April. Many other universities have produced Lip Dub videos, for example, Boston University and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.
The organizers are hoping to gather 30-40 members of the UTL community to participate. Participants would be filmed walking down College Street pushing book carts, holding books and assisting students regarding library inquiries.
All members of the UTL community are invited to participate! The filming schedule will be:
- 12:10PM – 1:30PM: SECTION CHOREOGRAPHY
- 1:30PM – 3:00PM: WALK-THROUGH
- 3:00PM – 4:00PM: RUN-THROUGH
- 4:00PM – 5:00PM: FILM
Participants’ time would be required from 12:10 – 5:00 pm.
If you would like to be part of the UofT Lip Dub video please let me know or contact the project coordinator, sandra.zhou@utoronto.ca, directly.
Proceeds from student-secured sponsorship of the video will be donated to The Hospital for Sick Children.
The Globe and Mail – Published Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011 2:00AM EDT
Amidst recent public outcry against proposed Toronto Public Library cuts, City Councillor Doug Ford said he “wouldn’t have a clue” who Margaret Atwood was if he saw her. He has since backtracked. He also complained that “I’ve got more libraries in my area than I have Tim Hortons.” Actually, Etobicoke has 39 Tim Hortons and 13 library branches. It doesn’t really matter whether Doug or his brother Rob, the Mayor, would recognize a Canadian literary icon. What matters is that we Torontonians love and use our library, at a very reasonable cost.
One of Rob Ford’s election mantras was that he would run Toronto like a business. Now that he’s mayor, the city is “dedicated to delivering customer service excellence.” That’s the new tagline on the city’s press releases. Meanwhile, all City of Toronto departments have been directed to cut 10 per cent from their budgets. Respect the taxpayer, remember? So perhaps we must simply accept library cuts as business restructuring.
What about the 72 per cent of Torontonians who access the library’s 11 million items, making it the busiest urban library system in the world? Or the 55 per cent who said in a July survey that, if their local councillor supported closing library branches, it would affect their municipal vote “a great deal”? Tough cookies. Business is business.
But wait a minute! If this city is to be run like a business (a Ford mantra, not mine), shouldn’t our Mayor and city council prioritize, strategize and allocate money efficiently? Shouldn’t it cut high-cost, underperforming parts of the organization, and preserve or even strengthen the low-cost, high-value portions, seeking value for money? No intelligent business restructuring cuts 10 per cent blindly from all parts of the enterprise.
The Toronto Public Library runs on 19 cents per day per citizen. For this reasonable sum, 32 million items are borrowed each year. For context, the Toronto Police Service costs $1 per citizen per day, five times as much as the library. Waste management costs 37 cents. The Vancouver Public Library costs $80 per citizen per year; the Toronto Public Library comes in at $68. If I were running this city as a business, I would say the library looks like it is delivering excellent value.
Where would the 10-per-cent budget cuts come from, anyhow? Would it be from our library’s settlement and housing seminars for newcomers to Canada? From the library’s workshops on résumés and interviewing skills for those seeking employment? Perhaps some brave councillor would like to explain the axing of Homework Help for Teens, a free evening tutoring program, or the popular Business Seminar Series, which helps new entrepreneurs get off the ground? There’s no good place to cut when an organization is already delivering high-value services at a reasonable price.
Meanwhile, there are two priceless features of each of the 18 million annual library visits in this city. First, sharing wisdom through the library and its programs increases the wealth of our community. We learn, innovate and enrich our city by sharing knowledge through books, films, lectures and discussion. Second, the library is completely democratic. It provides access to information, culture and leisure for new immigrants and established Canadians, to children and the elderly, and to all Torontonians whether they’re rich or going through tough times.
Speaking of tough times, in which we’re told that all belts must tighten: Such are the precise times in which those with less disposable income need access to good libraries more than ever. Those who can’t buy books need to access the library’s collections, not to see acquisitions or library hours cut. The destruction of the ancient Library of Alexandria is one of the intellectual tragedies of antiquity.
The public anger in Toronto over proposed library cuts shows that modern citizens also know a library’s worth. The Fords might pay attention to former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, who once said: “If you cut funding to libraries, you cut the lifeblood of our communities.”
Of course, with 10 per cent off the library budget, each Torontonian would be $6.80 richer. Every year! What would I do with my savings? I could console myself by going to Tim Hortons. I’d have a large iced cappuccino, a yogurt and two Timbits, please. Oops – $6.80 isn’t enough for that. If someone is going to claim to use their business smarts to run this city better, they’d better not gut my library without even saving me enough for a snack at my favourite coffee shop.
Vincent Lam is a writer and ER physician. His book Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures won the 2006 Giller Prize. He is participating in the “Why My Library Matters to Me” contest for lunch with one of 11 distinguished Toronto writers, sponsored by the Toronto Public Library Workers Union. (Toronto residents can enter at ourpubliclibrary.to/contest.)