Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [52]
My sister and I are now taking things week by week with my mom. For example, I’m going to Indiana this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to care for her. I’ll have my laptop and I’ll feel great, knowing that I’m contributing to my company and caring for my mom. Before my brother died, the woman who cares for my mom on weekdays had scheduled a three-week vacation in September. My brother was going to take over her care during that time. Now that can’t happen, but because of ROWE, I’m able to step in. I will be going to Indiana for ten days to care for my mom. I won’t be taking vacation time because I’ll be getting my work done.
If it weren’t for ROWE, I don’t know how I would be getting through any of this. In the old environment, I would have had to take time off for my brother’s funeral and then probably had to take a leave of absence or even quit in order to care for my mom who lives out-of-state. That would have just added to my stress and my company would have suffered as well.
Aside from the situations with my brother and my mom, ROWE has done wonders for my business team. Our productivity is definitely up—everyone talks about that. We just crank through stuff—we’re focused on the work and you just get through it. There’s not a lot of BS anymore. There’s no time for people who are playing political games. ROWE isn’t about that—it’s about getting your work done. Period.
In ROWE, it doesn’t matter who is in the office. When I do come into the office, I never know who will be there and that’s okay. When I do see people in the office, my feeling about them has changed. Now I’m genuinely happy to see them. ROWE has made my job not just a job, but something I really care about.
If I left Best Buy to go to a new company without ROWE, they would probably think I had a bad attitude. That’s how you’re perceived if you don’t go along with the office politics and all the BS games that go on. Plus everyone watches the clock. It’s about desk time. But in a ROWE, you’re in a world where all that’s accepted is getting your job done, so all that stuff ends. It’s not about the petty stuff anymore. I’ve let go of that now.
CHAPTER SIX
Why Life Is Better in a ROWE
There is an idea out there, a kind of macho work ethic, that work is battle, that work is all-out war. The popular vocabulary about business is filled with aggressive, combative language—you scratch and claw your way to the top; you’re in the rat race; it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. It’s as if success isn’t just about your own personal excellence but also somehow about vanquishing your foes.
Isn’t that how it is? We say, Maybe.
We don’t doubt that for some people business is a battle and victory feels like winning a war. And we’re sure the true titans of industry must feel an enormous amount of power in making their decisions, and that when a hunch or a risk pays off it must be very rewarding.
But we say “maybe” to the whole business-as-battle idea, because while we admire the businessperson-as-warrior, and while we can celebrate the alpha- (usually) male entrepreneur, a lot of work frankly isn’t that dramatic. For most people business is not a battle at all. There are no lands to conquer. Most people get up, go to work, and do their jobs with varying degrees of success. Most people don’t need to have all the toys, or a mansion and yacht, or a profile in Forbes. They want to do their jobs, to be paid fairly, and to be left alone. They do not dream of the day that their competition’s head is stuffed and mounted on their office wall.
Still, this business-as-war metaphor is interesting because of the attitudes about work that it reveals. It’s also interesting because of what it allows