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By Beth Herman, Special to the Sun Journal
Rising each day at 5 or 5:30 a.m., Jonathan LaBonte of New Auburn reads newspapers on his laptop or BlackBerry. An hour later, he’s deep in the trenches, responding to work-related e-mails that have accumulated overnight. If he waits until 8 a.m., when most people arrive at their desks, the in-box fills up faster than he can clear it out.
As executive director of the Androscoggin Land Trust and an Androscoggin County commissioner, for LaBonte, the border between work and life — or what experts call the “work-life balance” — simply doesn’t exist. Often working six days a week, at times attending board and selectmen’s meetings or grappling with grant deadlines well into the night, LaBonte oversees a territory that ranges from Jay and Canton to the north and Lisbon and Durham to the south. His personal and professional lives merge into one indistinguishable entity.
“For the most part, the days of shift work where you punch in at 8 and punch out at 5 are gone,” said LaBonte, 30, speaking to the many requisites and variables of his chosen path. “I’m not sure my personality fits with that anyway.”
According to the Harvard Business Review, a study conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy entitled “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek” found that many workers become “hooked on the adrenaline rush and gargantuan rewards” of the so-called bottomless job. With more than half of the study’s respondents professing the loss of family relationships, and almost as many conceding their sex lives had succumbed to the din of constant connection, having it all in the 21st century can exact a high price.
In some cases, and especially in the tenuous economy of the past few years, efforts involved in simply keeping one’s job can cast employees into workaholic roles once highly scrutinized, but today considered as essential as the caffeine required to do them.
Where friends and family are concerned, many claim that the preponderance of social media like Facebook and Twitter, and software such as Skype, make staying in touch electronically a viable runner-up to dinner and a movie, or Sunday pot roast at Mom’s.
Split-second response time
“The way we communicate today, if you wanted to send President Obama an e-mail, he might answer it,” suggested Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chip Morrison. “People in a variety of places make themselves very available – instantaneously.”
In his current capacity for 15 years, Morrison, who is 65 with two grown children and several grandchildren, recalled the early years of his career doing a great deal of federal grant writing. At that time, a secretary took dictation, typed a draft of a letter and then a final one with carbon paper, and mailed it — a process taking three or four days before it reached its destination. A response might take another week.
Reflecting on his own current working style, Morrison said he receives e-mails at a rate of 125 to 200 a day, and sends about that many. “I try to be available to people who want to get a hold of me by phone or e-mail, getting back to them clearly within a few hours . . . or no later than 24 hours,” he said, noting the large number of in-person visits that are also a requisite of his job.
When he is on vacation, he admits that he is not on his laptop or BlackBerry 24/7, but they are close at hand and he checks in with them at least every 48 hours. When everybody’s in bed, he said of his normal work week, he might be answering e-mails.
“My work, in addition to being work, is like a hobby,” Morrison said of his appreciation for the job and his 60- to 70-hour-a-week schedule. “If I thought of it as drudgery, I wouldn’t do it.”
For Susan Stine, 56, a Washington, D.C., interior designer who frequently vacations in Maine, disconnecting from work and iPhone is never an option in her highly competitive industry.
Though she affirms she is not a “CrackBerry,” a weekend at a Bar Harbor bed & breakfast may find her mixing eggs benedict with e-mail. As president of her own design firm, Red Team Strategies, “a 110 percent commitment to every project” is pretty much in the drinking water for Stine, with minimum 12-hour workdays the rule rather than exception.
“I’m lucky. I love what I do,” she said, maintaining passion is a key component in propelling her through a six-or sometimes seven-day workweek. With technology precluding the need for a separate office, Stine said often she will work in her home office until she is just so hungry that she realizes it’s 8 p.m. and she hasn’t eaten all day. “Mine is a very engrossing profession, and the (technology and software) tools I use are very engaging. You can work and work until it becomes physically impossible, because your back hurts,” she said. “Other than that, there’s no reason to stop.”
Powering up, though BlackBerry-free
Read The Rest Of The Sun Journal Article
As executive director of the Androscoggin Land Trust and an Androscoggin County commissioner, for LaBonte, the border between work and life — or what experts call the “work-life balance” — simply doesn’t exist. Often working six days a week, at times attending board and selectmen’s meetings or grappling with grant deadlines well into the night, LaBonte oversees a territory that ranges from Jay and Canton to the north and Lisbon and Durham to the south. His personal and professional lives merge into one indistinguishable entity.
“For the most part, the days of shift work where you punch in at 8 and punch out at 5 are gone,” said LaBonte, 30, speaking to the many requisites and variables of his chosen path. “I’m not sure my personality fits with that anyway.”
According to the Harvard Business Review, a study conducted by the Center for Work-Life Policy entitled “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek” found that many workers become “hooked on the adrenaline rush and gargantuan rewards” of the so-called bottomless job. With more than half of the study’s respondents professing the loss of family relationships, and almost as many conceding their sex lives had succumbed to the din of constant connection, having it all in the 21st century can exact a high price.
In some cases, and especially in the tenuous economy of the past few years, efforts involved in simply keeping one’s job can cast employees into workaholic roles once highly scrutinized, but today considered as essential as the caffeine required to do them.
Where friends and family are concerned, many claim that the preponderance of social media like Facebook and Twitter, and software such as Skype, make staying in touch electronically a viable runner-up to dinner and a movie, or Sunday pot roast at Mom’s.
Split-second response time
“The way we communicate today, if you wanted to send President Obama an e-mail, he might answer it,” suggested Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chip Morrison. “People in a variety of places make themselves very available – instantaneously.”
In his current capacity for 15 years, Morrison, who is 65 with two grown children and several grandchildren, recalled the early years of his career doing a great deal of federal grant writing. At that time, a secretary took dictation, typed a draft of a letter and then a final one with carbon paper, and mailed it — a process taking three or four days before it reached its destination. A response might take another week.
Reflecting on his own current working style, Morrison said he receives e-mails at a rate of 125 to 200 a day, and sends about that many. “I try to be available to people who want to get a hold of me by phone or e-mail, getting back to them clearly within a few hours . . . or no later than 24 hours,” he said, noting the large number of in-person visits that are also a requisite of his job.
When he is on vacation, he admits that he is not on his laptop or BlackBerry 24/7, but they are close at hand and he checks in with them at least every 48 hours. When everybody’s in bed, he said of his normal work week, he might be answering e-mails.
“My work, in addition to being work, is like a hobby,” Morrison said of his appreciation for the job and his 60- to 70-hour-a-week schedule. “If I thought of it as drudgery, I wouldn’t do it.”
For Susan Stine, 56, a Washington, D.C., interior designer who frequently vacations in Maine, disconnecting from work and iPhone is never an option in her highly competitive industry.
Though she affirms she is not a “CrackBerry,” a weekend at a Bar Harbor bed & breakfast may find her mixing eggs benedict with e-mail. As president of her own design firm, Red Team Strategies, “a 110 percent commitment to every project” is pretty much in the drinking water for Stine, with minimum 12-hour workdays the rule rather than exception.
“I’m lucky. I love what I do,” she said, maintaining passion is a key component in propelling her through a six-or sometimes seven-day workweek. With technology precluding the need for a separate office, Stine said often she will work in her home office until she is just so hungry that she realizes it’s 8 p.m. and she hasn’t eaten all day. “Mine is a very engrossing profession, and the (technology and software) tools I use are very engaging. You can work and work until it becomes physically impossible, because your back hurts,” she said. “Other than that, there’s no reason to stop.”
Powering up, though BlackBerry-free
Read The Rest Of The Sun Journal Article
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