Amazing

Near the end of the work day yesterday a surprise popped up in the project chat window, in short, it was a message from one of the many "Team Leads" that said something along the lines of, "Thanks for all your hard work, take the weekend off." This message was shortly thereafter endorsed by the Lead of the Team Leads. What makes this so amazing is that the office work culture very highly promotes working on the weekend. This is further reinforced by the fact that any sort of "bonus" and/or recognition is based solely on quantity and not quality of work. It isn't so much working smarter, but more along the lines of work however many hours it takes to get the job done. Of course, the initial message included the familiar, "But if you are going to work then I will be available..." kind of statement. Why would someone say, "Take the weekend off" but then follow it up with, "But I'll be available..."? It seems to me that it was conveying the message of take the weekend off, but I want you all to know that I will be working because I am a "Team Lead" and that is what we "Team Leads" need to do. We need to set the example that we're going to be working on the weekend even though we said to take the weekend off.

Of course, when it all comes down to things in the end, these will be the folks recognized for "stepping up", "doing anything and everything they had to do to knock it out of the park" and so on and so forth. I've learned though, not to be forced into feeling guilty by not working over the weekend. Especially the truly frakked up way that the project is being run as I believe in Work-Life Balance and not Work-Life Integration.