Learning nothing and forgetting everything?
My attention was drawn, I think via Twitter, to this the other day: Against “Feel Free To Take Some Time If You Need It".
The person writing that appears to be a freelance, but it did resonate with me with those places which do not have Designated Leave Allowances but employees (do they even call them employees or some more happy-bunny term?) are free to take time off as and when -
- and I was very strongly reminded of that classic work of 1970s feminism, The Tyranny of Structurelessness, and its insights that without a formal structure, there will be an informal one that only the ones on the inside will know and it will be arcane.
Which, I understand, tends to be what happens with these 'take what leave you like' policies that this is often also in a context of 'also you do not have set working hours and we expect you to Give Your All'. (But hey, look at the lovely playroom we have laid on for you!)
(See occasional plaints on Ask A Manager about workplaces which either boast themselves to be 'like a family' or actually family-run, and the family is at best the Borgias and at worst the House of Atreus.)
That structures are about appropriate boundaries, and having discernable systems in place for dealing with issues. Okay, structures which are too rigid can be tyrannical, but at least the tyranny is likely to be more obviously definable.
I also have a YOY the findings of business efficiency experts of the earlier C20th on the inefficiency of overworking and extended hours seem to have been almost entirely lost to the consideration of people operating, or starting up, businesses at this moment in history.
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