Sometimes, I'm amazed at judgement calls by German political figures.
Over the past day or two.....they decided over at the Ministry of Labor....that no matter where you stand within the labor department as a boss or manager or chief.....you just don't call or email anyone after business hours, unless it's a pure-out-and-out emergency.
You can imagine this....the chief of the statistics department calling up his secretary at 8:30PM.....noting that he needs such and such done first thing in the morning. The secretary was in the midst of watching some murder-mystery and really didn't need that interruption on her own time.
The chief of the public relations department sending out an email to sixteen of his team-leads at 10:00PM.....noting a shift in the meeting for tomorrow. The team-leads are all worried over why the change in the schedule....so they spend the next hour (10:00 to 11:00) calling each other up and trying to find out the reason. In the end, they find that the boss has a bad tooth and simply out of the office.
Up until the late 1990s.....folks didn't worry much about this kind of stuff. Laptops weren't generally issued out and Blackberries were just beginning to be a common thing for the office. Now? Folks are dragging home their laptops and spending at least an hour each evening....thinking about work, but not being paid for it.
Stressed-out? Germans will always complain about the amount of stress in their life, and the necessity for more vacation (yeah, three weeks in the summer just isn't enough).
The belief? Well.....the German media will likely note that this was merely one division of the German government, and means very little. But.....it might be a trend.
As for evenings now? Maybe these government folks will take some of this new time given.....and actually watch soccer games, murder mysteries, or argue more with the spouse. It's hard to tell. The real shocker? A life without the Blackberry? It's hard to imagine....just twenty years ago....we lived such a life.
No comments:
Post a Comment