Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
I guess it has been a while. Owned my business for over 15 years. I like a small pond. I'm not a careerist. I don't get excited by growing a business. What makes me happy is being home for supper with my family every night. It makes me happy to not work on weekends. I love that my kids can call me anytime of the work day if they need me and I can drop everything and help them. If my wife needs me, I'm there.
I like that I never miss a wing night with my friends because I had to work late. I like how much money I make and don't feel the need to squeeze my people harder just to tack on an extra 5% to my net. I like paying my people a bonus, giving them paid days off when it's too hot to be working like it was three weeks ago. I felt good when I brought in medical and dental benefits for them.
I like when I go out with friends that I don't talk about work because I have more important things going on in my life and talking and hearing about work is soooooo boring.
So yeah, why haven't I grown larger? I don't want to. My energy goes into my family and friends and I leave work at work. If it can't be done in 8 hours, I don't want to do it. I turn down jobs all the time because I don't want to get bigger to handle them. I could get richer financially and show off my big business, but I don't want to invite more work stress into my life.
I think working for me my people understand that I extend the same respect to their personal lives that I do to mine. I want them home on weekends enjoying life. I want them home for supper at night. If it's slow and I'm going to let the office people go early, I put my name in the hat along side theirs and pull it out to see who's going home early (paid, of course). I always fataing lose for some reason, but I don't elevate myself above them. They are just as valuable as people as me. I'm not better, and I'm not smarter. Life just cruised along and through a series of events out of all of our control probably going back generations led to me owning the place and being their boss, but first and foremost we are all just people that work at the same place.
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To be honest I had you pegged as the exact opposite to your post above. I would of guessed over working your employees, paying yourself handsomely, not caring about people’s problems etc… I based this purely on how dismissive you were to other management styles and assumed you were a “my way or highway” type.
The only thing I would like to challenge about your post is this. Just because someone is driven by career/business growth doesn’t necessarily mean they need to sacrifice their work/life balance to do so. It also doesn’t mean that they are out for profits and to squeeze their employees or treat them poorly. In many cases I think people love to see themselves play a role in their coworkers growth. It might be monetary or not. Some might say that in itself is selfish but I view it as win-win.