Oihana means Office, and you can left that one behind
When I explain about stable work spaces, I elaborate the concept with the following metaphor: taking into account the current life expectancy, people spend around 20 to 25 years asleep, (this happens, if we sleep around 8 hours every day, which I confess this is not my case) I mean that on average we spend a third of our lives sleeping, which is why it is important that we buy a good mattress to rest.
We can apply the same approach to our working life, if you work around 40 hours a week (which sadly I confess sometimes is not my case either), estimating an average working life of 45 years, in total we spend around 12 years working, so this is why it is important that we have a job that we like and that is somehow comfortable for us.
And a comfortable job implies things that we may not be able to define at the beginning of our professional career, they can range from reviewing the distance between the house to the office, the tools that we are offered and the working environment conditions which have evolved since the pandemic thanks to remote work policies.
But we must be careful and avoid that a comfortable job engulfs our life to the point of becoming our identity, since this comes with a cost:
When people invest a disproportionate amount of their time and energy into their careers, explains Anne Wilson, a professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, it can lead to a psychological state called "enmeshment," where the boundaries between work and personal life are blurred.
We begin by clarifying the time, the hours and how life can be so short by quantifying the time we invest in daily activities such as sleeping and working, having put this into perspective, we can anticipate if an imbalance occurs in a recurring activity which left us with less time for our hobbies and interests, this is why we must do an exercise in diversifying our lives because we are more than our jobs.
Sharing my very biased opinion (as I always mention to my students), the word "family" should not appear in the description of a “comfortable job”, although the relationships with the people we work with can enrich our lives in many aspects such as in growing our career, in having emotional support and even cultivating a friendship, the way in which they develop, evolve or transform will depend on the culture of the organization. There is nothing wrong with family culture or experiencing a sense of belonging to the organization as long as it is not used to foster relationships with high performance expectations, limit conversations or privacy, forcing employees to feel a "debt" to share any information that is asked of them and finally understand that the word "family" can have different meanings and not all are as good as when we read "family combo", it is important to understand that not all employees want to create dependency on the organization or connect with your colleagues on a deeper level.
Even we have to understand that the word "family" does not necessarily have a positive connotation for everyone.
There is some alarming research that says that people who are excessively loyal to the organization are more likely to engage in unethical acts to keep their jobs and are also more likely to be constantly overtaxed by their employer, boss or manager. They could also find themselves working long hours on projects that are not related to their function or position and this can lead to that person experiencing burnout.
We must be aware of where we invest our 100 and this also has to do with the human relationships we cultivate.
We must also transform the perspective in which we belong to a "family" to a sports team; even this concept can create an aspirational feeling of continuous improvement for the members and who knows, motivate them to be the same as [insert the name of your favorite team here]
Finally, let's remember that "nothing comes by force" and add to this the thought of the impermanence of situations, good times, bad times, family ties are not fixed because everything that is mandatory can feel permanent and any permanent situation inhibits and even prevents growth and personal fulfillment.
This article was translated by @ross.gspr
Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of affiliated organizations. The information is for informational purposes only and not intended as professional advice.
Benlloch, C. (2017, August 5). Así de corta es tu vida. Las Provincias. https://www.lasprovincias.es/sociedad/corta-vida-20170721191912-nt.html
BBC News Mundo. (2021, May 19). Por qué nos definimos por nuestros trabajos (y cómo puede ser peligroso). https://www.bbc.com/mundo/vert-cap-56754305
