Wally Backman -- Kicking it old school

[G1911]

Originally Posted by bk400

I missed the voice of wisdom and truth from the thread. Welcome back!

Why aren't you working? Go be the best! Show these young losers how it's done, put in that OT and don't have a personal life or take weekend days off. Hop to it

[bk400]

Originally Posted by G1911

Why aren't you working? Go be the best! Show these young losers how it's done, put in that OT and don't have a personal life or take weekend days off. Hop to it

Ok, I'll engage with you.

What do you find "over the top stupid" with what I asserted in Post 17 of this thread (which captures the heart of the issue)?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by bk400

Ok, I'll engage with you.

What do you find "over the top stupid" with what I asserted in Post 17 of this thread (which captures the heart of the issue)?

As a guy who has run the gamut in his career from entry level to management to business owner I'll take a stab at this one.

Interesting. And perhaps another fundamental disagreement. It's not my job to be popular at work; it's my job to deliver results and help instill less experienced colleagues with the skills and mentality to succeed in what is considered to be a fairly competitive field.

It may not be your job to be popular but if you answer to HR it MAY be your job not to make your underlings so miserable that they feel compelled to report you.

We'll see who gets further in his or her career, D1 Rower or BCC HR. If you don't think career success is relevant to long term happiness and security or if you define career success differently, well, to each his own.

We'll also see who burns out faster and who is a better future manager of people. There's this wonderful touchy feelie concept of emotional intelligence, that I happen to believe in. I don't want to bash the person you perceive as more ambitious, I can even admire that she is willing to go the extra mile, but you're judging by your yardstick only and that's a lack of perspective that isn't productive.

Perhaps there will come a day when you can get promoted and paid well while perfectly protecting your work life balance. But I don't think that day is ever coming, at least not in competitive fields in a capitalist society.

Simply put, you're wrong. That day is here. people who DO protect their work life balance are actually more productive during their work time because they don't resent the intrusion on their life. If you are going to ask people to do things on personal time then where is the incentive for them to finish their work in a timely fashion during normal hours? When I have a kick ass employee who blasts through tons of work during the regular work day I DON'T reward them with an intrusion on their personal time, and in turn they DO reward me with continued excellence. An occasional emergency notwithstanding I am incredibly respectful of my employees time, which in turn makes them respectful of mine (meaning their time at work.)

To bring it back to baseball, how much would you pay to watch MLB baseball players whose time on the clock in a traditional corporate sense (training, travel, physio, weights, film, batting practice, etc.) were limited, by statute, to 40 hours per week?

These are grown men playing a children's game with no real life consequences, and we are fine if they have no work life balance for at least 6 months out of the year and probably for many years before that when they are trying to just make the big leagues.

Why should our more pedestrian industries be treated any differently? Isn't it a good thing if doctors, lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, money managers, car mechanics, and carpenters also strive to be the very best in their fields? Happy to be challenged on this, but I don't think there is any field where you can be the best while putting in the minimum 40, especially when you're just starting out and learning the ropes.

Yes but the teams aren't forcing them to train extra, hire a nutritionist, work out etc, it's a choice. LeBron James is probably the most fanatical athlete in history about his prep, conditioning etc, which is why he has excelled years past a time when the vast majority of players have declined and hung it up. No team called him in the off season to MAKE him do this.

And how do you know the employees in question AREN'T working to improve themselves on their own time. Whether it's reading, formal education, or any one of a thousand other things that they might be doing to improve their knowledge and/or performance that you know nothing about.

Again you seem only able to judge people from your own perspective which is a pretty narrow view of things. I don't think you're a bad guy, or even a bad boss, but I do think you need to broaden your view of the world some. There's more than one way to skin a cat, not just the way you learned or prefer.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

As a guy who has run the gamut in his career from entry level to management to business owner I'll take a stab at this one.

Interesting. And perhaps another fundamental disagreement. It's not my job to be popular at work; it's my job to deliver results and help instill less experienced colleagues with the skills and mentality to succeed in what is considered to be a fairly competitive field.

It may not be your job to be popular but if you answer to HR it MAY be your job not to make your underlings so miserable that they feel compelled to report you.

We'll see who gets further in his or her career, D1 Rower or BCC HR. If you don't think career success is relevant to long term happiness and security or if you define career success differently, well, to each his own.

We'll also see who burns out faster and who is a better future manager of people. There's this wonderful touchy feelie concept of emotional intelligence, that I happen to believe in. I don't want to bash the person you perceive as more ambitious, I can even admire that she is willing to go the extra mile, but you're judging by your yardstick only and that's a lack of perspective that isn't productive.

Perhaps there will come a day when you can get promoted and paid well while perfectly protecting your work life balance. But I don't think that day is ever coming, at least not in competitive fields in a capitalist society.

Simply put, you're wrong. That day is here. people who DO protect their work life balance are actually more productive during their work time because they don't resent the intrusion on their life. If you are going to ask people to do things on personal time then where is the incentive for them to finish their work in a timely fashion during normal hours? When I have a kick ass employee who blasts through tons of work during the regular work day I DON'T reward them with an intrusion on their personal time, and in turn they DO reward me with continued excellence. An occasional emergency notwithstanding I am incredibly respectful of my employees time, which in turn makes them respectful of mine (meaning their time at work.)

To bring it back to baseball, how much would you pay to watch MLB baseball players whose time on the clock in a traditional corporate sense (training, travel, physio, weights, film, batting practice, etc.) were limited, by statute, to 40 hours per week?

These are grown men playing a children's game with no real life consequences, and we are fine if they have no work life balance for at least 6 months out of the year and probably for many years before that when they are trying to just make the big leagues.

Why should our more pedestrian industries be treated any differently? Isn't it a good thing if doctors, lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, money managers, car mechanics, and carpenters also strive to be the very best in their fields? Happy to be challenged on this, but I don't think there is any field where you can be the best while putting in the minimum 40, especially when you're just starting out and learning the ropes.

Yes but the teams aren't forcing them to train extra, hire a nutritionist, work out etc, it's a choice. LeBron James is probably the most fanatical athlete in history about his prep, conditioning etc, which is why he has excelled years past a time when the vast majority of players have declined and hung it up. No team called him in the off season to MAKE him do this.

And how do you know the employees in question AREN'T working to improve themselves on their own time. Whether it's reading, formal education, or any one of a thousand other things that they might be doing to improve their knowledge and/or performance that you know nothing about.

Again you seem only able to judge people from your own perspective which is a pretty narrow view of things. I don't think you're a bad guy, or even a bad boss, but I do think you need to broaden your view of the world some. There's more than one way to skin a cat, not just the way you learned or prefer.

+1

Well said, Scott.

[packs]

I’ll point out that you said you would prefer people get promoted and evaluated on their dedicated work but you also assigned a lot of preconceived characteristics to a colleague after you found out they were a D1 rower in college, all of which were unrelated to their performance in the office and tied only to assumptions about people who play a team sport in college. You didn’t make one comment about the quality of work of the person who reported you. You have only hinted that there is something inherently less than about anyone who didn’t play a D1 sport, which doesn’t sound like a sound method of evaluating employees.

[NiceDocter]

Alright you Net54 slackers….. where you been all your lives? Listening to rock music and bad mouthing your country? Don’t you eyeball me boy! Now drop and give me 20!!

[bk400]

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your comments, whether snarky or substantive. I started this thread on Saturday night, my time, as a way to channel some negative energy into a positive endeavor: finding an excuse to get good old Wally Backman some airtime. I didn't think that a post on a baseball card forum would lead me to some constructive introspection about real life issues.

Some of you put some real thought into your responses, so I'll respond in kind in two posts.

Packs -- With respect to your most recent point about a bias toward student athletes at work, I'll say that the first time I thought about her background as a walk-on, turned varsity D1 rower was when I was thinking about which junior colleague to send the work related email. I was frankly shocked that the first colleague felt like I was putting him under undue mental pressure -- enough to BCC HR in his carefully and assertively drafted response to me.

So you are correct in that I did take into account her background as a Division 1 rower in deciding which colleague to contact next. Rowing is one of the most physically and mentally painful sports, and I did assume that someone who was willing to put themselves through an endeavor like that for four years with little or no chance of NIL riches or professional career prospects at the end of it would be able to mentally handle a weekend email, whether welcomed or unwanted. Candidly, I also took into account the fact that she is female who decided to work in an overwhelmingly male industry. Is this bias? Perhaps. But we are all human beings at the end of the day.

To complete the point, I haven't really worked directly with either of the colleagues. This was basically the first substantive engagement with either. The only evidence I now have are their respective responses to my email.

I'll also reiterate that I did not provide a weekend deadline for the work (those days are long gone). I just asked to review something "early next week". I remain somewhat amazed that the mere receipt of a work email over the weekend could constitute undue mental pressure for any young professional. But I'm learning, albeit slowly.