Re: How many have this problem at work?

["Susan W. Gallagher" <susan-gallagher -at- vertel -dot- com>]

As a salaried professional, I am paid to get a job done. I'm free to
determine the way to accomplish that on my own.

So, yes, I read techwr-l at work; but to be honest, I've cut back
on the number of mailing lists I subscribe to because I was spending
far too long on email. As a manager, I require all my interns and
entry-level employees to subscribe to techwr-l too -- yup, at work.

My company, both now and in its past life, places no restrictions
on internet usage. We are all free to check stock prices, check out
our competition, do research, and shop at amazon.com whenever we
please. When it comes to buying music, all the engineers like to
borrow my machine because tech pubs is the only department with
sound cards.

A couple of years ago, we employees chipped in and bought a ping
pong table. This year, the new VP of Engineering budgeted money for
a pool table, so now we have both. Sometimes when I'm working out
a particularly perplexing problem, watching all those brightly
colored balls roll around the table really helps. And sometimes,
it's the only place I can go to hit something really hard without
my target complaining!  ;-)

But, to balance that, you'll often find me red-lining a document
as I sit in front of the TV at night, I seldom take a vacation
day without at least checking my email, and my employees all know
my cell phone number and are free to use it whenever they need me.

The way I choose to live my life, home and work are fully integrated.
My company understands that there are personal obligations that will
infringe on work time and my family understands that there are work/
professional obligations that will cut into family time. Somehow, it
all gets done and it all evens out in the end.

Were it not for this professional atmosphere of trust and respect, I
wouldn't last very long at a job. Luckily, I have never had the 
misfortune to work for a company that has treated me otherwise.


-Sue Gallagher               http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/
susan-gallagher -at- vertel -dot- com   http://www.vertel.com

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