Work/Life Balance
Posted by: Carl Smith on Thursday August 2, 2007
Like a lot of companies, we take time each quarter to discuss what’s working, what isn’t and who needs to be quieter in the bathroom. (It’s me fellas, I get it. No really, I get it.)
One of the things I think that’s really different about us is the way we look out for each other. A lot of companies help out employees when they’re in a jam. But at our last quarterly meeting, I found out how far my fellow nGeneers would go to help me out.
You see, it all started like this. Somehow my wife and I hadn’t talked about my oldest daughter’s dance recital. (hadn’t talked = I didn’t listen) It was a huge deal to my daughter. She had spent all summer working on her dance routine. And of course the recital was smack dab in the middle of the quarterly meeting. So my wife and I decided I just wouldn’t go, and that my daughter would be fine with it if we didn’t mention it.
The morning of the quarterly meeting, which was also the morning of the dance recital, my daughter came in like it was Christmas. “Today is the recital! Get up daddy! We have to get ready.” As you can imagine, I was done. So when I got to the meeting I told the boys what was up.
What happened next was awesome. We met for a few hours. Then everyone jumped into the car and we headed to the recital. My daughter loves my fellow nGeneers (I’m watching you Travis) and was so excited to see everyone there. Afterwards, we continued the meeting over some great Indian food.
So from now on I’m not trying to balance work and personal so much. Instead I’m going to work on prioritizing and keep my commitments. Oh, and listen to my wife when she tells me things. That would probably help a little too.
Filed under: Business
Julie Lenzer Kirk
08.03.07 at 8:34am
Congratulations – you’ve learned a great lesson! Integrating work and life can be HUGELY rewarding and is the only way I was able to grow my software company to multi-millions with two little ones at home. You’ll be surprised how accommodating others are if you’re just up-front about your priorities.
And I bet your daughter just LOVED being the center of attention for all those people. And you sound like you are working with a great group of people – congratulations on that!
Julie Lenzer Kirk
Author, “The ParentPreneur Edge: What Parenting Teaches About Building a Successful Business”
Carl Smith
08.03.07 at 10:00am
Thanks Julie.
She absolutely loved the attention. I was actually worried she was going to forget the routine because she kept staring at us the whole time. But she did great.
I love the ParentPreneur concept.