Marrying Your Job: “With this Blackberry, I thee wed”

By Gillian Seely

My last blog post explored the benefits of the increasingly popular four day workweek, but subsequent responses from readers helped me to realize that this topic was perhaps a bit narrow.  The changing workweek structure is only one part of an emerging phenomenon that warrants further exploration.

What deserves a closer look is not what the structure of the workweek is becoming, but rather that our once clear-cut lives are increasingly losing structure, making the work-life balance a less tangible idea.  The line between work and play is becoming distorted, and causing many of us to find ourselves writing blogs for our company website while lying in bed, and (let’s be honest) G-chatting from our office computers. If social media has taught us anything, it’s that today’s taboo will be tomorrow’s necessary in the workplace.

Mobile technology allows us to connect on so many levels that to limit ones’ interaction to 9-5 in an era of constant contact is really to shoot oneself in the foot and risk falling behind.  It’s safe to say, as one reader points out, that our jobs now largely require us to avail ourselves 24/7 in some fashion. 

Bearing this in mind, and coming to the realization that we are married to our jobs more than ever before (albeit in unconventional ways), it’s so crucial that you love what you do, and that you love the company you are a part of. 

But remember that the same technologies keeping us tied to our jobs are also allowing us to escape the confines of our offices.  And for that freedom, we are eternally indebted to our mobile devices… Married, if you will.

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