My crummy work-life balance

As of late, my suspicion that I’ve been doing a poor job balancing my life and work has been confirmed. Not only am I not getting anywhere with work, but my life isn’t faring any better either (financial, physical, relationships and interests). It has gone to some extent lately that I assume my boss has noticed it, hence his hour long monologue just this morning, coaching me on the benefits of a Spartan lifestyle.

No, I’m not repeating the monologue here at the risk of sounding pathetic. What I’d like to do is to explain the ineptitude of the different factions of so-called work-life whereby I can quantify the different aspects of both life and work so that I could carefully monitor my future progress. And since writing my thoughts (taking notes, as my grade school teacher calls it) is the best way to be able to organize them, why not showcase them via this blog post. Anyway…

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Okay, let’s talk about work first of all. My main objective at work is to ensure the future growth of the company through a sustainable increase in the volume of sales. The pre-defined indicator, put simply, is monthly volume of sales. Now, a crisis arises, wherein the projected volume of sales for the year has gone down from what was achieved last year.

Why is that? Of course, the global economy has hit a slump and since our clientele is more or less caught up in a complex web of global trade and production, it directly affects us through sales. But does this justify the decline of our monthly sales? Yes, but it shouldn’t.

Lost? You see, the definition of my job, as my boss had conveniently laid down for me, is to achieve growth through SUSTAINABLE means. The decline in sales that the company is experiencing for the past 8 months is proof that the previous growth was not sustainable, thus I’ve been neglect in my duties. An analogy can be made with a bookstore. Typically, bookstores’ sales go through the roof come enrollment time. However, you cannot rent space for enrollment time only, neither can you retain employees for only one month and lay them off the rest of the year. Moreover, you cannot expect annual sales to grow by this annual windfall alone as you will surely reach a saturation point eventually, overhead costs will overtake profit margins. So how do bookstores sustain their business for the whole year? By selling other stuff or services. Yeah I know it’s too simple, but hey, makes some sense, doesn’t it?

Now going back to the situation involving my company, my boss argues that despite hard economic times, the main thrust of my department is to assure growth. The fact that we lost clients due to the economy should have made little or no impact if sustainability were made a priority. Thus, my “excuse” that a whole income stream was lost (particulary the mining sector which virtually collapsed along with metal prices) is lame at best. The present decline in sales is therefore a direct consequence of my department’s inaction or misappropriation, translating directly into MY inaction and misappropriation.

So you see, despite a 20% growth in the company’s other revenue stream and a total increase in annual sales by 3% compared to last year’s, I’ve failed to ensure the company’s target of a 20% annual growth rate for 3 years, this being the third year. This means that for this year, the projected growth in revenue is overshadowed by the 15% increase in overhead and development represented by mandatory salary increases, interest on loans, investment in new equipment and of course, inflation and price increases on consumables. My bad.

Now comes the life part which as I’ve mentioned above can be broken down into 4 parts: personal finances, physical (health), relationships and interests.

With regards to my finances, I’ve still to make any significant progress with paying off my credit cards (plural, yes.). Though the expenses have been stymied and the total balance to be paid has gone down to more manageable numbers, the interest rates are still of a magnitude that cannot be deemed insignificant. I blame this directly on the loss of a huge chunk of my previous revenue stream, that of prostituting myself to the blog advertising demons, which was deemed too damaging to my sanity and over-all health and had to be cut-off. And of course, recent impulsive purchases didn’t help either, as well as exorbitant costs of living (read rent). Needless to say, accumulating any semblance of a savings plan is out of the question in the meantime and I have found myself living from paycheck to paycheck.

They physical aspect of my life is locked in a constant tug of war between losing and gaining weight. For the past 5 months, I have yet to shed off any more pounds despite regular dieting and exercise and continue to be overweight by around 20 pounds. Then there is the problem of smoking too many cigarettes which can be a manifestation of increased stress levels brought about by an imbalance between work and life. Recently I’ve discovered that three of my close buddies have a fatty liver condition which is quite bothering since they do not drink the exorbitant amounts of alcohol which I’ve been guzzling down for years. Am convinced my past offenses with booze and cholesterol is sure to catch up with me one of these days.

Relationships, not limited to romantic ones, have also stagnated. I am maintaining the same social circles since last year and have yet to develop new ones or add to the ones I already have. My recent disdain of alcohol does not help, I’m sure, as I’ve been ridiculed for it and have been ostracized at recent drinking binges. Seems that within the life part, a balance needs to be struck as well.

Finally, I suppose that this would probably be the healthiest of all the aspects of “life”. In a span of a year, I’ve developed some new interests such as jogging, blogging, camping, an increased need to read, as well as home improvement and the culinary arts. There are even some projects in the pipeline such as carpentry and photography. Now there’s a bright spot.

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Having listed and expounded on my problems with my work-life balance, one can clearly advocate a more Spartan lifestyle as my boss suggests. Now the next step is to take measures towards that regimented goal. Well, good luck to myself, I guess.