[Title adapted from "Brave New World" - a very popular work of Aldous Huxley]
There is definitely an evolution in the way workplace and work are being perceived in the everything2.0 era, and the ideas of workplace and work will still evolve in the future. However in my opinion , I can describe this evolution to pertain to only the corporate lifestyle. It would not apply to professions like school teachers, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors or any profession where healing, nurturing the other person is the main crux of the job.
Professional bloggers like Penelope Trunk, Marci Alboher have their "current" careers revolving around the same concept. In short, they precisely articulate this new work-attitude wave, and are definitely a motivation to everyone who feel trapped in their current work lifestyle. And if that wasn't enough, they enrich us with quite many positive ideas about improving workplace productivity, time-management, self-promotion, negotiation skills, shifting careers etc.
I read Penelope Trunk's blog quite regularly, and I have just come across Marci Alboher's blog quite recently. I have always felt quite the same about some of the topics that they focus on. Here is a sample of just three of them.
1. Change should be made a constant factor in career life. I believe in working in several different roles throughout my entire span of work-life which can be easily be between 30 to 40 years. Apart from my current job as Software Engineer, I am much interested to be a Librarian, Market Research Analyst, Entrepreneur, School/College Teacher as of now. I feel it is the variety of the work we do that will make our lives more fulfilling rather than dedicating one's entire life just climbing the ladder all the way to the top in just one profession.
2. Job titles are just fancy vocab games that actually limit our potential from delivering work to the best of our capabilities. Also we really do not work in a confined manner as described by the job title. The more we deliver "out of the box" of our job title, the better are the chances of us growing faster.
3. "Work-from-home mom" is the new blend for women who want to raise their kids by themselves instead of sending them to day-care, want to have a job, do not want to quit and stay at home full-time. Basically they want to have it all. There is of course some kind of compromise for the highly career-minded woman, as work-from-home may pose to have some kind of set-back to her desire of rising to the top in a fast-paced manner. But at least something is better than nothing at all.
Of course there are many more such ideas that will continue to evolve and fill up this blog space.
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December 23, 2007 at 9:55 AM
Good topic. And a host of quesitons :-)
Work from home option is certainly preferred by most Moms. But are there enough opportunities for the same?
And if you are in Software industry, wouldn't part-time be demanding as well?
I know a blogger who's actually a part-time employee of a big product company. However, she is on a support job which does not involve any prior intimation. Meaning, she has to be 'available' at a very short notice. With a daughter just over an year, even part-time has proved to be bit demanding for her!
But of course, this is back home. Not sure how the situation would be at your place. Perhaps you could throw some light on this.