July 19, 2011

What's your work mantra?

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Sunday night, after a glorious weekend on the Olympic Peninsula, I came home to several hours of uncompleted work. Due 9 a.m. Monday, hard stop. After two leisurely days of beach strolls and sunsets, communing with my computer was the last thing I wanted to do. So I picked up the remote, switched on the tube, and landed on an episode of "Deadliest Catch."

[Flickr photo by madame.furie]

One of the skippers was chewing out a deckhand who'd retreated indoors with a torn stomach muscle. With just a handful of crew on his Alaska crab fishing boat, the skipper needed all hands on deck, pain be damned.

"I've worked through torn muscles and all kinds of pain," the skipper snarled. "Unless you have a bone sticking out, you suck it up and get back to work."

Obviously, writing is nowhere near as grueling as fishing for Alaska king crab. Still, those were the words I needed to hear. So I switched off the tube, and with "Unless you have a bone sticking out, you suck it up" as my mantra, I slogged through my project and made my deadline.

When it comes to how we approach work, I'm a firm believer that each of us has our own mantra, motto, or credo. It may be a quote by a beloved author or philosopher. It may be something you heard a friend, relative, or reality TV star say. You may even have an entire theme song running through your head while you work.

For me, Sunday night's "suck it up" mantra was just a mantra of the moment. My overriding work philosophy has nothing to do with muscle tears and compound fractures. Instead it's more about trying to quell my workaholic tendencies.

To do this, I often return to an exchange I had with a next-door neighbor a few years ago. About 15 years my senior, she was an empty nester and frequently home during the day while her husband was at work. I lived alone at the time, and she took to keeping an eye on me, not in a nosy, invasive way, but in a caring, neighborly, even maternal way. Often we'd chat over the chain-link fence between our yards. Sometimes we walked our dogs together during the day.

I wrote two books while living in that house, sometimes working straight through the night, sometimes holed up indoors for days. My neighbor occasionally called to check in on me during these writing binges.

"Are you okay?" she'd ask. "Your lights were on late last night, and I haven't seen you outside in a few days."

I explained I'd been keeping some long, oddball hours to make a big deadline and it was nothing to worry about. But a few weeks later, I got another "Are you okay?" call. This went on for several months, me sequestered in my shack, my neighbor periodically calling or stopping by to make sure I was okay.

My dear neighbor has since passed away and I've since moved across town, but I think about her a lot, often when I'm spending more time in front of the computer than I am living my life.

"Are you okay?" I'll hear her say.

"No, I'm not," I'll answer silently, as I shut down my computer and get up from my desk. "But I will be."

Michelle Goodman is the author of "My So-Called Freelance Life" and "The Anti 9-to-5 Guide." E-mail Michelle at mgoodman@nwjobs.com

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motivation, work/life balance

4 Comments

Rob on July 24, 2011 7:16 AM | Reply

My daughter had cancer, found it at 15. After a tough battle it went away just in time for her to graduate from high school. After that she started living.
She put the things she "had to" do like school & work on one side of the scale and things "she wanted" to do on the other. This scale had to balance, the "had to" was no more important or no less so than the "she wanted".
It was a good lesson & she lived well.

Li Co on July 24, 2011 11:15 PM | Reply

I have read your work for some time now, but I am particularly appalled at your seeming obliviousness to the real physical hazards in the workplace. When was the last time you actually did any physical work?

Oh, WAH--- you have a typewriter deadline? Seriously? You want to equate that with a bone sticking out? There are plenty of us who have been in that specific place-on the job- with no real benefits to look after our on-the job-injuries. the Stae of Washington treats an injured worker like a criminal bent on fraud. Even a regular doctor is so intimidated by L&I that they will tell you to your face that they have to lie about the seriousness of your condition in order to keep on getting state money.

I have been employed under the table, when I ruined the bones in my hands for another glass artist. he claims to only hire males now.

I worked for a major nursery in Woodinville for no benefits after 7 years --only to be too disabled to carry on (@ $10 an hour-after all that time- with all my expertise).

Many many people are expected to work through the onslaughts on their person for no benefits. Sure -say that OSHA is out there. You really believe that?

I learned the hard way: there is no job worth your bodily health. The less it pays, the more they expect.

You need to get a clue and apologize to the people that are expected to destroy their physical health on the job: all for the benefit of the Corporate Republicans who are destroying the workplace protections that separate the US from the rest of the desolate workplaces around the world.

Your insipid equation of a mere deadline with the real physical abuse that happens on the job is outside of your usual perception.

KittKatt on July 25, 2011 12:06 PM | Reply

I'll share my work mantra: "Relentlessly Upbeat." Not always easy but it works for me.

KB on August 31, 2011 12:54 PM | Reply

loool Whattt? This chick is not writing about physical abuse on the job, and whatever it is you just went on about for five minutes had nothing to do with this article. Jeez Louise.

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