G’day, it is small touches that change our world… this below will never make a desk calendar or a thesis… It is simply what a few folk I’ve being working with in Telstra have chosen to add at the end of their emails… particularly when sent late or across time zones.
I think is an example of everyday carefulness.
I send it without judgment or question. What a world we could have when this isn’t even necessary. What a world we have when people take the time to authentically say it.
Be well!
“We work flexibly at Telstra. I’m sending this message now because it suits me, but I don’t expect that you will read, respond to or action it outside of regular hours.”
2 Comments
Expectations are almost always sourced in rules, which are almost always sourced in the conditions of the world we live in. Mail used to be delivered once a day and a whole office was organized around sorting/delivering and responding. Now mail comes continuously. We used to work 9 to 5 schedules because it was efficient to have everyone come to the building together and produce whatever needed producing. Now that we are a service economy, being in the same place no longer has the same requirement……………yet the expectations haven’t always caught up with what the world needs now!
Now if only everyone caught up with the new reality, this kind of communication might not be necessary…………on the other hand, it’s a smart communication that honors that the sender works one way and doesn’t expect others to do the same!
Thanks for sharing!
David
Great observations David. Yes you are right. We forget that 9-5 work… or even “work” as a label rather than a doing…is a very modern industrial revolution phenomena. Previously people did not have “jobs” they just were… Farmers, builders, tanners, courtiers, etc.
I pose that the notion of a “job” could easily disappear over the next 100 years… rather we all have a portfolio of meaningful activities and contribution, that as you say, isn’t corralled by some notion of time or even “office”. Some activities that generate income some that cause distribution.
In any case it’s really time everybody thought differently or even stopped talking about “work-life balance” …and rather considered what is a balanced life.
Food for thought.
Cp