Like every summer, I enjoyed a long summer break. Two months of staying at home, doing whatever I fall into. This year, it was Gemini, and Phoebe, my Gemini wiki.
Sadly, summer’s gone and that means going back to work!
#Gemini #Life
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It turns out I made a mistake! I knew that I had wanted to start a week earlier, and had told my project manager, but then I forgot about it but remembered that I wanted to start a week earlier, so when I showed up in the call today they were surprised. Alex is back one week earlier! Whaaaaaat!?
OK, I really got confused this time. Which is a good sign regarding summer break. If you can’t remember things from before your holidays, then those are good holidays in my book! I did remember my password, though, so the mind wipe wasn’t complete... 😀
I’m thinking of taking off two weeks in October in order to make up for it. So far, so good!
– Alex 2020-08-31 10:08 UTC
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Did I tell you that at my wife’s office the people working in Human Resources (HR) think that we should talk about “Life Balance” instead of “Work-Life Balance” since work is also part of life... That is such a clumsy way of trying to rework the language in order to reframe the mess we’re in, it makes me cringe. “Fremdschämen” is the German word to use when we feel shame for the mistakes of others.
Incredibly, I’ve since learned that they are not alone in their attempt to use “life balance.”
I think they’re trying to get away from the whole discussion of Work-Life Balance, all the books and papers and feelings on the subject. Instead of trying to fight the idea that work is something many and me included wouldn’t be doing if the consequences wouldn’t be so terrifying, they are trying to establish a new mind space that is still terra nullius. There, no opposition exists.
Which is why I like to fight this change. If we keep calling it Work-Life Balance, we have the existing literature in our back. And when they say that “work is not the opposite of life” we can either argue that an established concept is an established concept, even if the exact wording don’t match their expectations; we can’t just ignore the existing literature on the idea even if we don’t like the name of the idea. Or we can argue that “life balance” means even less: life in balance with what? A well balanced life in terms of what aspects? Like, how much walking we do instead of driving? Of watching TV instead of reading? We need to name the things we’re going to be looking at. Or are they going to just hand-wave it and claim, “everything?” In which case, the concept seems pretty meaningless. If we’re going to talk about how much time we spend away from the family and our relations, if we’re going to talk about the hours we spend at the office, if we’re going to talk about burnout, then let’s call a spade a spade. We’re talking about work.
– Alex 2020-08-31 10:21 UTC
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Your post has reminded me to create my own! I’d love to see other geminauts report their summers too.
gemini://tanelorn.city/~bouncepaw/gemlog/summer2020.gemini
– Timur 2020-08-31 18:52 UTC
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The Cure remains one of the best bands. 😄
– Alex Schroeder 2020-09-01 12:00 UTC