I really like the last few pages that show more of Acier. Until now he had been shown as a boss who doesn’t really care much for a healthy work-life-balance and someone who seemingly harbors bad intentions towards the relationship between Miel and Abeille, but now we learned that he’s basically working just as much overtime as he asks his employees to do and doesn’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter, either. So now I hope that he turns out much more like Poppy instead of someone like Verbena. While there are definitely a lot of people like Verbena or Ivy’s and Abeille’s moms, who are too focused on themselves and just not nice people, we now see Acier and Miel as friends and I do want to believe that Miel is a pretty good judge of character so that Acier will actually turn out to be an okay guy. I guess the next page might start answering that.
I’ve been relating my experiences to what is in the story, which could be completely missing what is going on, but this sort of scenario is very common where I have worked. People should not be expected to work long hours and sacrifice their friends and families. It doesn’t matter who would be to blame. It’s an economy, not a person, I think.
Thing is, people have opportunities and then they have the healthy work/life balance. You always sacrifice one for the other and this is what separates “serious” people from the “just fooling around with their careers”. There’s some truth to that sentiment, but its thinking is too simplified.
I’d imagine most people would say, “yes, my job is very important to me” but a segment of that group would also say “… but I don’t think it’s the #1 priority in my life as a whole”. It isn’t really fair to feel the pressure to say that you live to work instead of work to live. Lacking *some* ambition doesn’t mean you don’t or won’t take your work seriously.
Yes and no to sacrificing work/life balance to opportunities. There are places where you can be serious but not be working insane amounts of overtime. I’m lucky enough to work at one! 🙂 But I suspect the attitude of the company I work for and my bosses arises from them wanting a healthier and happier work environment while you climb the rungs vs what they experienced before starting the company.
I’m two years late to this party, but FNL, you must not know many nurses. Nurses give up holidays, cancel vacations, get sent hoe early losing pay, get called at start of shift to come in on their day off..it’s one of the most codependent careers out there. In fact, back in the 1990s, I remember a magazine that was trying to get off the ground called “Nursing Life”. The idea was to help nurses balance their life between profession and their personal life. My take was that it would be a massive flop, based on the fact that “Nursing” was the first word in the title. I was a LOT different than my classmates and my coworkers since I basically came to nursing with a counter culture attitude, in a day and age when consent was always assumed to anything the good doctor decided. Patients just weren’t allowed to say “no”. Never forget reading a medical journal once(1980s?) where an oncologist was reporting on a study he did on his patients (consents were not mentioned in the article) He started by saying a lot more of his patients had asked about having some input into their chemotherapy regimen. At the time chemo was in the dark ages and basically the whole body was being poisoned and you hoped the cancer died before the patient. The patients wanting “input” were suffering pretty drastic side effects, forget nausea and vomiting, think about your entire digestive tract sloughing off and cardiac problems(I know there’s a diagnosis, possibly myocarditis? Damn memory disorder!) People not having such severe problems just took the pills or the IVs the doctor orddered. Those having horrible side effects usually wanted to break their chemo long enough to recover – and continue to fight afterwards, when they hoped to feel better. The doctor said that he found a SIGNIFICANT earlier mortality when cooperating with these patients, giving them a break, and therefore he recommended AGAINST allowing patient input into oncology, but doctors should enforce there recommendations….I read all the way to the end of the article, including looking at the mortality tables- the patients he gave a break to (stocking and glove neuro pain can be caused by the oldstyle chemo too) died an average of 19 hours- YES! NINETEEN HOURS!- sooner than the yes-doctor group.
Sorry, I was going somewhere with this…Oh yeah. I did a lot of reading in the 1990s on customer service and business administration, thinking I would perhaps need to leave nursing – but I found the goals and ideals of business education were trying force their employees to work like nurses did. So am not surprised to find businesses- even on Monotropa, are toxic and undermine their employees attempts to maintain any kind of personal life.
I think there is a difference between working for the local bakery and a company that has a “human resources” department. A business owner who goes from small to large probably wants to hold on to the same values, but what can you do when you are beyond Sandesh sharing size? You can’t know your employees. If you’ve played the telephone game, you might have experienced how communication is different at different scales.
I really like the last few pages that show more of Acier. Until now he had been shown as a boss who doesn’t really care much for a healthy work-life-balance and someone who seemingly harbors bad intentions towards the relationship between Miel and Abeille, but now we learned that he’s basically working just as much overtime as he asks his employees to do and doesn’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter, either. So now I hope that he turns out much more like Poppy instead of someone like Verbena. While there are definitely a lot of people like Verbena or Ivy’s and Abeille’s moms, who are too focused on themselves and just not nice people, we now see Acier and Miel as friends and I do want to believe that Miel is a pretty good judge of character so that Acier will actually turn out to be an okay guy. I guess the next page might start answering that.
I’ve been relating my experiences to what is in the story, which could be completely missing what is going on, but this sort of scenario is very common where I have worked. People should not be expected to work long hours and sacrifice their friends and families. It doesn’t matter who would be to blame. It’s an economy, not a person, I think.
Thing is, people have opportunities and then they have the healthy work/life balance. You always sacrifice one for the other and this is what separates “serious” people from the “just fooling around with their careers”. There’s some truth to that sentiment, but its thinking is too simplified.
I’d imagine most people would say, “yes, my job is very important to me” but a segment of that group would also say “… but I don’t think it’s the #1 priority in my life as a whole”. It isn’t really fair to feel the pressure to say that you live to work instead of work to live. Lacking *some* ambition doesn’t mean you don’t or won’t take your work seriously.
Yes and no to sacrificing work/life balance to opportunities. There are places where you can be serious but not be working insane amounts of overtime. I’m lucky enough to work at one! 🙂 But I suspect the attitude of the company I work for and my bosses arises from them wanting a healthier and happier work environment while you climb the rungs vs what they experienced before starting the company.
I’m two years late to this party, but FNL, you must not know many nurses. Nurses give up holidays, cancel vacations, get sent hoe early losing pay, get called at start of shift to come in on their day off..it’s one of the most codependent careers out there. In fact, back in the 1990s, I remember a magazine that was trying to get off the ground called “Nursing Life”. The idea was to help nurses balance their life between profession and their personal life. My take was that it would be a massive flop, based on the fact that “Nursing” was the first word in the title. I was a LOT different than my classmates and my coworkers since I basically came to nursing with a counter culture attitude, in a day and age when consent was always assumed to anything the good doctor decided. Patients just weren’t allowed to say “no”. Never forget reading a medical journal once(1980s?) where an oncologist was reporting on a study he did on his patients (consents were not mentioned in the article) He started by saying a lot more of his patients had asked about having some input into their chemotherapy regimen. At the time chemo was in the dark ages and basically the whole body was being poisoned and you hoped the cancer died before the patient. The patients wanting “input” were suffering pretty drastic side effects, forget nausea and vomiting, think about your entire digestive tract sloughing off and cardiac problems(I know there’s a diagnosis, possibly myocarditis? Damn memory disorder!) People not having such severe problems just took the pills or the IVs the doctor orddered. Those having horrible side effects usually wanted to break their chemo long enough to recover – and continue to fight afterwards, when they hoped to feel better. The doctor said that he found a SIGNIFICANT earlier mortality when cooperating with these patients, giving them a break, and therefore he recommended AGAINST allowing patient input into oncology, but doctors should enforce there recommendations….I read all the way to the end of the article, including looking at the mortality tables- the patients he gave a break to (stocking and glove neuro pain can be caused by the oldstyle chemo too) died an average of 19 hours- YES! NINETEEN HOURS!- sooner than the yes-doctor group.
Sorry, I was going somewhere with this…Oh yeah. I did a lot of reading in the 1990s on customer service and business administration, thinking I would perhaps need to leave nursing – but I found the goals and ideals of business education were trying force their employees to work like nurses did. So am not surprised to find businesses- even on Monotropa, are toxic and undermine their employees attempts to maintain any kind of personal life.
I think Miel’s boss has feelings for him…
I think there is a difference between working for the local bakery and a company that has a “human resources” department. A business owner who goes from small to large probably wants to hold on to the same values, but what can you do when you are beyond Sandesh sharing size? You can’t know your employees. If you’ve played the telephone game, you might have experienced how communication is different at different scales.
Let’s see where this conversation leads.