A friend of mine was once interning with a major Wall Street bank.
One day, on a Friday evening, his boss asked him to make a presentation and share it by Sunday, ensuring that his weekend was ruined. My friend did not understand the urgency but there was little he could do.
So he did the work and sent out the document on Sunday morning. But he also added a ‘read receipt’ to the email. And it turned out that his boss opened the email only on Monday afternoon.
So much for the urgency.
In the corporate world, a lot of the deadlines are just made up by somebody. And the junior folks end up spending late nights and unreasonable hours chasing them.
What is the solution to this? I think we need a culture shift. We have to normalize people probing the deadline and its underlying basis.
All we should care about is getting the best work done — not indulging in power plays.
And the best work doesn’t happen on late nights or weekends — it happens when we are fresh, mentally alert, and happy.
– Rajan