“Dear Employees,
I hired you in the hope that you can be a good provider to your family, not to take you away from them, to give you additional skills not take your parental skills away from your kids, to make you a better person, not just for the company but all the more for your family.”
We recently came across this Facebook post from lady boss Charity Delmo in Sydney, Australia, and quite honestly, it was refreshing to hear after the year we’ve had.
It’s been exhausting, hasn’t it? The news that made headlines, the professional workload, the deadlines. And that, of course, doesn’t include the personal struggles, whether they came in the form of battling to get your little one up and dressed and ready for school for the past 365 days or something that left you more than just physically drained and broken.
- Also read: Morning chaos and a single mom
In her post, Charity highlights the importance of fixing what is broken.
“Your family, the home that you built, once broken, will never be the same again. You will never be the same again.
"So when the time comes that you will have to choose between attending your sons and daughters’ school activities over a client’s needs, if you have to choose between your wife or your husband’s needs over mine as your boss – please choose them.
You see, not all employers will understand some of my principles in leadership but I would rather close this company than seeing you miss your kids school activities because you have to be in a meeting, or seeing you getting broken because of your unfixed misunderstanding with your husband or wife. They are your home first before the company gave you a second home, they’re your family before you became mine.”
And isn’t that just the gosh darn truth?
We can become so preoccupied with our nine-to-five that we forget that our whole other life outside of work needs the same amount of energy and love.
Years of research proves that, if anything, we should work in intervals and take constant breaks, according to an article written by Derek Thompson for The Atlantic. And Forbes indicates anything more than 50 hours of work a week drastically reduces productivity. So we need to take breaks so we can reboot and refresh, but more importantly, we need to remember why we tire ourselves out in the first place.
- Also read: Distracted parent? Your children could end up depressed, so here’s how to unplug and engage
It’s simple, really: As Charity says, we take on the jobs we do and we work tirelessly so we can be providers for our family. It only makes sense that we go home and enjoy our successes and triumphs with the people who matter most – the people we do it all for.
In case you didn’t get this same letter from your boss before Christmas, let’s put the “happy” in “Happy Holidays”, and from an employer to her employees,
“Go home. Be home.
“Your work can wait.”
Do you often feel like your work life takes away from quality family time? How do you balance the two? Tell us by emailing chatback@parent24.com and we may publish your comments.
Read more:
- You’re not “just a mom”: Motherhood is like working 2.5 jobs – fact
- Permission to say nope to Christmastime
- Working moms share their experiences: “I doubt work life balance and having it all is for the majority of moms”
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