Demanding Balance by Rejecting the Blackberry?
For 3 years the New York State Bar Association's Special Committee on Balanced Lives in the Law has been holding forums and collecting data on their members' work lives, expectations, and quality of life - essentially their ability to be anywhere but the office on the weekends. As noted on the front page of the New York Law Journal, the resulting report makes some interesting observations:
- Attorneys feel they have less time for volunteer and pro bono work than earlier generations
- Increased demands of child rearing compound the strain put on families with no primary care giver
- Female attorneys have expressed their expectations of maintaining personal commitments outside the office to a greater extent than men have - those who don't work towards greater flexibility in traditionally demanding work environments opt for practice areas with greater leeway
- Flex-time is offered as a reward to the most desirable associates to increase retention
- New communications technologies have increased pressure on attorneys' personal time
- Collegiality within the profession and between lawyers and their clients is on the wane
The report also outlines best practices for implementing more flexible time requirements and recommends that law schools engage students in discussions about work-life so that their expectations for their workplace commitments are realistic and so that they can career plan accordingly.
Of all these observations the one I've been thinking about all day is that new telecommunications technologies (i.e. Blackberries) have exacerbated the imbalance between legal career and personal life. Constant vigilance of a Blackberry inherently disrupts every conversation and activity because you are interrupted not just with urgent emails but with every email - the automatically generated ones, the ones that can wait until Monday, the ones on which you were just cc'ed and to which no response will ever be required.
I was with a couple friends this weekend who kept their blackberries out throughout our time together - if a partner or client needed them they wanted to be sure not to miss the email. Makes sense to me. Only for all the checking of the Blackberries none of these folks ever had to leave or cut short our time together to work. Still they were constantly distracted by the continual flow of info to their PDAs.
Another friend has refused her Blackberry - she figures if it's that important then someone will call her. This makes a lot of sense to me. My dad worked long hours, was called to work from home many nights and weekends, but my time with him was focused. He was never glancing away from me to double check there wasn't something more important he needed to be doing. When there was something crucial, the call came, and it seemed natural, not personal, that he should leave me.
So much of the work/life balance conundrum is about expectations rather than objective measures of time and commitment. We each have a different conception of what it will mean to build a career that's simultaneously fulfilling and only one aspect of a well-rounded, multi-faceted life. But I think we can all agree that whatever quantity of personal time you need to find balance, those minutes, hours, and days only count if they're of a certain quality. Time spent with your daughter watching you on the Blackberry is effectively not time with your daughter.
So ditch the little gremlin, give your boss your cell phone, and enjoy your Saturday!
- Topic: Balancing Private and Professional Life
- Optional tags: Technology, New York, Family, Bar Association
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Comments
Actually I got my Blackberry to IMPROVE my work/life balance
I dunno, Jessie. I just got home from buying my first Blackberry (a red Blackberry Pearl, woo hoo!) because I was already doing so much email on my phone anyway and the quality of Sprint Vision sucked. So... I am actually hoping to improve my work/lilfe balance with the crackberry by using it to handle mundane email while I'm standing in a long line at the checkout counter, waiting for meetings to start, etc. It has been great to get back to my PC after an outing from my desk and not have 50 messages accrued in my inbox. I sit right down and do actual work instead. Maybe the Blackberry, like most tools, can be used for good or evil. I choose good.
(But ask me again in 6 months, right?)
Good or evil
Like anything, they can be used for good or evil, of course. Yes. if you keep it out on the dinner table and check it every 5 seconds it is controlling your life and you're not really "at" dinner. But if you bring it home, leave it on your desk and stop by and check it every hour, or once during the evening (depending on how important you are/whether you're in the middle of something) that's not that intrusive, and allows me to quickly assure somebody that something got done or know what's on my plate for the next day. And if there's a true emergency that simply can't wait an hour, yes someone can call. Maybe some people expect you to check your email constantly after 8 p.m., but I find that if they really need me and I don't respond, they do usually find another way to contact me. I don't know, I guess my point is like anything else, if you draw personal boundaries, it can help.
And I love being able to deal with conflicts checks and other mundane email while waiting in line or waiting for someone.
UPDATE: NY Firm Bans Blackberries
Slate.com reports that Meltzer, Lippe prohibits Blackberry use at meetings - reminds me of my mom banning my cousins from playing gameboy during family gatherings. Slate's Phillip Carter notes another arena where Blackberries are problematic: in the car!
expectations
I agree with Jessie that much about the work-life balance is about expectations. It is a lot harder to handle working late when you have somewhere else to be or have made specific plans that must be cancelled. However, it is easier to stomach when you have nothing else to do, or better yet, when you've planned on working late.
The same thing goes for the burden of the blackberry. I suppose that I always check it just in case there is an emergency or an email that needs my answer. However, I am always hoping that there isn't. I hope that checking the blackberry won't drag me back into work when I have turned off that part of my life for the evening. Sometimes it does. Sometimes, however, it just helps me plan out my next morning or at least be able to know what I am going into the next time I do work again. One nice thing about being able to check email on a blackberry versus having people call all the time, is that I am much more in control when communications are over email. Generally, nobody knows when you check it or if you check it. Sort of by definition, they send you an email knowing that you'll see it the next time you check. At least in my practice, there is no general expectation that you are checking email every second of the work day or night. Of course, if you are expecting an emergency then you are expected to be on top of it. Likewise, if you've sent out an email requesting an after-hours response, there is an expectation that you'll be there to receive such response when it comes.
I live by the 24-hour rule
I live by the 24-hour rule when I choose to email v. call someone. If I want a response within 24-hours, I call. Anything else, I email. When there is ever an issue when I can tell someone expected an instant email and I did not respond, I let the emailer know that while many days I do regularly check my email via blackberry, remote email access, etc., there are some days where I am too busy to check and respond more than once a day. If in doubt, please call me.
I've never had a problem with this so long as I am clear about my availability. I think that many people live their lives via email/technology and so assume everyone else does, as well. They need to be reminded.