Work-life balance (and balance, truth and nuance)

Over on my main blog, at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2022/05/post-no-2210-work-life-balance-1100.html, I’ve published a few thoughts on work-life balance as a follow up to a post I did on balance, truth and nuance at https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2022/04/post-no-2192-balance-nuance-and-truth-5.html. 

. . .

And having got that out of the way, the reality is that employers have a great deal more power than employees, and thus this is NOT a meeting of equals.

In recent decades, particularly as neoliberalism has infested and infected the world, the inequality of power has become worse. There are growing concerns about a number of issues, including insecure work, extended working hours (especially for those working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic), being on-call at all times, and expectations of having a positive attitude that can reach into toxic positivity.

One example of recent changes that is quite concerning, in my view, is the expectation some employers have of employees bending the employees’ personal social media to the will of the employer. I consider it reasonable that employees don’t unreasonably bag their employer - in my opinion, genuine and fair criticism is another matter, but I’ve personally operated by raising such concerns internally (I have been very late to the social media bandwagon), but the gripes I’ve had have generally not been as severe as some of the things other people have been subjected to, and in those cases legal advice first would be my suggestion.

This coercion by employers in the area of social media, however, goes beyond not bagging them: there has been an increasing pressure for employees to turn their personal, private means of expressing themselves into mouthpieces for the company. 

That is utterly, utterly abhorrent, and, in my opinion, likely breaches several human rights conventions and laws 

. . . 

I invite you to have a look if you think either post be of interest. It’s a ~1,100 words, so a 4 - 5 minute read; the earlier article is ~5 - 7 minute read.