Email at the weelend...

[andy-xr]

BGARK said:

No its not, and clearly its not all about working 24/7 and arse licking but who do you think the CEO will consider for replacing him in the future, the person who just does enough or the person that puts in a bit more effort. If the two people are identical in every other way there is only one winner.

They'll bring someone in from outside 9 times out of 10. I don't believe that 'work hard, get promoted' is actually true, I think that's part of it but expecting it if you put the work hours in often leads to disappointment because the best way to get a new position is to do it for another company in the majority of cases. Or be family

[andy-xr]

As in what should people do instead then? Generally accept that not everyone can climb the ladder because there's only so many rungs.

As in my title? I sell software. I have no expectation or particular desire to become CEO of a company. Not interested. I like being able to do what I'm good at, which is going out and selling stuff. It's not an ambition thing, or lack of, I don't particularly want to be bogged down with bullst

You?

[BGARK]

andy-xr said:

As in what should people do instead then?

Not clear what you mean here, people can do whatever they want?

andy-xr said:

Generally accept that not everyone can climb the ladder because there's only so many rungs.

Simply not true, the mindset of successful people is very different and would never dream of making a comment like this.

andy-xr said:

As in my title? I sell software. I have no expectation or particular desire to become CEO of a company. Not interested. I like being able to do what I'm good at, which is going out and selling stuff. It's not an ambition thing, or lack of, I don't particularly want to be bogged down with bullst

You?

Sell software, ok I was unaware if you sold for someone else or maybe your own company, anyway do you mean you go through life with no bullst and its all roses?

andy-xr said:

You?

I run my own company designing and making things, seeing bullst from a different perspective can be a fun challenge, agree its not for everyone. I am fortunate enough these days to be able to pass the bullst around my team though

[Don]

When I had my own Company I carried my Blackberry everywhere. On holiday, weekends, wherever. I would deal with email I deemed urgent whether or not it was within business hours.

Now I'm employed I have taken advantage of the change to deliberately only have access to work emails when I am at work. They don't get to my smartphone, ever.

I've been enjoying this to the point that even when I run my own show again I'm thinking of sticking to it. Not much was ever that urgent. I just thought it was.

[andy-xr]

andy-xr said:

Generally accept that not everyone can climb the ladder because there's only so many rungs.

BGARK said:

Simply not true, the mindset of successful people is very different and would never dream of making a comment like this.

Sometimes what you don't say speaks louder than what you do. By implication, association and wording, you're making out you're successful and I'm not. That kind of feels like you're knocking something because you don't think that, and your justification is that successful people don't think like that.

Successful people have to think like that, because they need good people around, above and beneath them. A 1 man army doesn't fight that good.

If you're associating yourself with these successful people, I think you'll find a differing range of opinions

I'm not taking it as a knock because I think we define success differently. To me, being successful isn't running my own company or being promoted, or putting myself into a possible promotion scenario by (as we're discussing) answering email and doing work at the weekend. It's finding a balance between working hard and working smart, being honest and objective enough to know where your role and level is in life.

Mine is middle level, same as I was at school and I'm fine with that. I do what I do, I do it the best I can and at the end of it I go home happy.

My expectations aren't 'I'm going to work really hard and climb the career ladder'. They were when I was in my 20s, but other things are more important to me now

I want to be successful in the job I'm doing, but that doesn't then lead to 'well, you must want to run the company then'

BGARK said:

Sell software, ok I was unaware if you sold for someone else or maybe your own company, anyway do you mean you go through life with no bullst and its all roses?

There's always bumps in the road, it's part of life but I kind of like knowing the suspension will take them with the car I'm in at the speed I'm doing.

Not everyone wants to be Steve Jobs

Edited by andy-xr on Sunday 4th October 16:51

[bitchstewie]

Problem is BGARK it just leads to people thinking they have to be doing these things if they want to get anywhere - and I don't think decent employers expect it.

Being expected to be available 24/7 just leads to burn out and doesn't promote a healthy culture IMO - and in your example of the next CEO I suspect that in any reasonably sized company's it's almost always someone external, and in the small ones you work your balls off for 20 years and the CEO leaves and his son gets it

[BGARK]

Admittedly I am not the best at getting my true point across on these forums, I have never (even when I worked for other people) worked 9-5.

Rather than watching Eastenders all afternoon on a Sunday, I would rather (rarely now) work for a couple of hours, without the distractions of normal day-to-day stuff. If I then want to work only 4 hours on the Monday to collect the kids from school and do something fun, no issues because I have spread out my work load more efficiently.

[bitchstewie]

Tend to agree there.

Whilst I'm an employee and officially office based, my employer is pretty sensible because the job means that often you have to do stuff out of hours.

Personally I'd sooner duck out of work at a time of my choosing and just do what's needed at a suitable time than sit there clock watching doing nothing useful and then claiming overtime for the "out of hours" stuff.

I take the same view with stuff like email though, if I reply out of hours it isn't because I feel I must, or because I'm "so busy" during the working day that I feel obligated to go home and start replying to things on my own time.

[Amateurish]

I think that if you are good enough at what you do, people will accept the fact that you don't work out of office hours. It's about setting expectations with your colleagues or customers.

[AW111]

Nope.

A few people at work have my (private) mobile number. They know I will answer it any time if necessary, but it better be urgent.
As a result I get maybe 1 call every 6 weeks or so.

As a self employed contractor, I would answer work calls / texts anytime (if sober), but you had to pay for the privilege

[Hoofy]

Small business here. Tend to check all the time, may reply at 11pm. Am undecided as it might give the impression that it's a smaller business than it is rather than me being prompt at responding? Not... weely sure.