Is work your life?

I feel very strongly about work-life balance issue but have never organized my thoughts and so this is my attempt to put this in writing. I have worked in London and New York for about equal lengths of time and therefore, have been exposed two very different mentalities in terms of how people view time off from work and needless to say, I totally admire Britishers for their clarity of thought. Let me start with basics, in London I had 26 days of paid leave, whereas in New York, I have 15 days. I don't think the number of days are as strictly followed and it depends on your desk (I think traders need to take mandatory 2 weeks off in some places), your manager, how busy work is in a particular year etc. When I was working in London, I guess I was lucky to be in a team where senior managers had very clear boundaries about balancing life with work. They all took their days off, helped to cover for colleagues who wanted to take time off and we never worked late. I can never forget that my boss once told me as we were wrapping up at 7:30 pm that 'this culture of working late is not good and tomorrow we should finish by 6'!! I was taken aback given I was fresh out of school and had heard horror stories about i-bank hours! Once one of my managers asked me if I needed time off to go home to India as it didn't seem like I had taken any holidays in a long time! Let me qualify by saying that this was a top ranked team and we were very productive. Don't get me wrong, life wasn't a party, we worked hard and I guess everyone knew unsaid rules like everyone can't take off at the same time and you can't take off during some busy times in a year etc.



Now when I was moving to NYC, everyone told me the US is much more competitive and hard and forget about even using the 15 days you get or going home at 6pm. With this background, I was more determined to set boundaries as I don't believe in face time at all. I will stay at work as long as I need to to finish my work but not a minute more. Luckily, I got a manager who was like-minded (yeah, I know, I am probably jinxing it as we speak!). However, I did notice the culture difference. Americans feel proud to tell their colleagues that they haven't taken a single day off in the year, whereas a similar statement in the UK would've met with "don't you have a life?"! One person told me he didn't take a single day off in the first 5 years of his career and my only (unsaid) reaction was why? It doesn't sound like a very smart thing to do in my books. In general the culture is more individualistic as people don't want to be 'out of touch' for long for fear of a colleague gaining ground in their absence. In UK, everyone seemed comfortable that a team member is covering for them.


Anyway, I don't know why the rant because I am quite happy with my work life balance as my manager is an angel in that aspect. And some of my friends who curse me everytime I take off will testify to this. I guess I feel strongly about very few things. I am more the laidback person and had to rack my brains when someone asked me what are you passionate about but thats the subject of another post.

Here n There

Long time no post? Mainly because I have nothing new to say. My life has settled back into the usual rigmarole. Work is boring with a capital B, conversations revolve around the presidential cycle and since it is freezing cold, weekends are spent at home watching movies and eating (which reminds me of all the weight that I have put on). The presidential debates started by being a lot of fun btw - as one of the friends said, seem like glorified version of Indian politicians addressing villages and promising things they would forget the minute they are in the seat. However, they just seem to go on and on now. They are not going to select a presidential candidate till August and that just means there'll be nothing to watch on TV for the next six months. One of my childhood friends - we were neighbours and grew up together king of friend - is coming to NYC in March so that is something to look forward to. Oh - actually my birthday is in the middle but there is no longer that happy anticipation I used to feel as a kid - ah, growing old. One good thing that happened was that I figured I want to do an interior design course. Let me put some background to this - I have been thinking of doing something creative outside of work, to not waste time watching TV and this something should be what I like doing, and would love to learn more about. So it came to be suddenly like a bulb going in my head on a day I was home sick, that I would love to do a course in interior design. I love decorating my house - when I come back from India, half my suitcase is full of home decoration stuff. This time I actually got a beautiful cover stitched for our Ikea futon mattress because I want to have low seating in our living room. So anyways, I am still finding about the kind of courses offered etc but am excited about learning something new and creative - hope this fad lasts!

Goodbye 2007

Everyone seems to be doing lists on why 2007 was a good/bad year for them and this forced me to think too. I feel happy with the way 2007 treated me. I don't know why but when I look at 2007 from 20000 feet above the sea level, I find I was contented and happy through most of 2007 so I decided to pin down specific reasons and record milestones.

• I finished the CFA which means my weekends in spring will finally be free for me to enjoy the sunshine!
• My mum and sis were here for a whole month over the summer and we had a ball. Since I have moved out of the house (6 years back :(), I have found it hard to get along with both of them and have started finding small things irritating especially so with my sister which probably reflects a bigger problem I have with her. But coming back to the topic at hand, I feel S really helped me keep my calm and also gave me an outlet to vent when I had to. I felt I really connected back with my sister after a long time and it was really nice. I called my friends over a couple of times when mum was here and one such 'high tea' get together was tremendous fun with samosas, tikki, chai and my friends forcing my mother to play pictionary!
• My social life improved dramatically. I felt 2006 was a year of trying. Since I had moved to the US towards the end of 2005, I felt I was trying to get to know more people, make friends in 2006. However, 2007 I felt a level of comfort with the people and I also got to know many many more people. Lot of my friends got married and I got to make some girlfriends finally! One of the said spouse is especially a lot of fun - D, I love you!
• Moving on - I have always been the one to keep trying to keep in touch, making international calls to friends who would never think of returning them. So 2007 was a year of moving on. I stopped calling friends who never called me back.
• Traveling!!!!! The love of my life. In 2007, I dragged S everywhere - we went to Peru, San Francisco, Prague and aptly ending the year with a 3-week break in India. Peru was our first vacation in which we did proper hiking, climbed some really steep mountains and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I also went to Miami earlier in the year with my wonderful London friends. It was especially nice catching up with A (still can't believe he is a father now!).
• My 3-week break in India deserves a separate bullet point. I visited my father after a long time and spend a lot of time with my in-laws. Btw I love my in-laws, they are the most affectionate people on the earth. I slept on the same bed with my sister which we shared for 20 years after a very very long time and was surprised to find how much nostalgia can a piece of furniture generate.
• Work in the year was less than perfect. I did get new stuff to do but towards the end of the year, I started to feel bored. In my defence, I have been doing the same thing for 4 years. I want to do something else but my opportunity set is limited because of visa issues so lets hope I can find something I like. On the positive side, I reached out to some senior people in my firm for advise and was surprised to find how forthcoming and helpful everyone was.
• Saving the best for the last, S. I fell more in love with him in 2007, from wanting to go out every weekend for bruch, coffee and dinner, I now look forward to just lying with him with a cup of coffee and newspaper. I find it odd to say that 2007 bought a certain kind of comfort to the relationship, given we had dated for 6 years before getting married. However, 4 of those years were long distance and first 2 years we were college kids. I have given him a really hard time in the past, especially when I just moved to New York and the way he stood beside me, supporting me with patience is a testament to what a wonderful person he is.