Many professionals see work-life balance as a non-negotiable. Walmart CPO Donna Morris says people should practice work-life integration instead. Here's why.
I mean, she makes enough money to say that. Most everyone under her, not so much. The self-centeredness of these CEOs is staggering.
“I’ve never believed in the term work-life balance,” says Morris, who oversees the experience of over 2.1 million employees. “I call it work-life integration. There are times that your life requires a lot more, and there are times that your work requires a lot more. … I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
“You might be [at your kid’s] soccer game, but you happen to look at a few emails,” Morris says. Maybe you’re chatting with your boss via text while waiting for an appointment, or tying up a few loose ends at work before you put the kids to bed. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a workaholic who lacks boundaries — rather, you find ways to combine your personal and professional duties that work for you, instead of being strict and inflexible with your time.
It’s the life that all these corporations want their workers to be forced to live. In their eyes, if you’re not producing value for the one on top, you should either be sleeping or dead. Oh, and they’ll only be paying you for 8 of those 18 hours you’ll be working, at the lowest possible rate they can, if you get the luxury of payment at all. If you’re a prisoner, tough luck.
Prisoners get paid. It’s like $0.08 an hour or some shit, but they get paid. And the funds are used exclusively to buy temporary products like toothpaste, and deodorant.
Here’s the thing though, 90% of her life IS tuned down. Every time she’s not worrying about how to pay the bills. How to get to work. How many presents there will be for Christmahannukwanzakkuh. Hell even how much this week’s groceries are going to cost from her own store thst she almost certainly doesn’t get most of her groceries from.
She just doesn’t realize it, because that’s not a life she’s experienced. She has absolutely no way to empathize because it’s as foreign to her as a guinea pig flying an airplane.
“At the end of August, I’m going away [on vacation],” she adds. “And my team will all know, [so] when they’re able to actually go off and do something, they should go off the grid and do it.”
She’s not talking about being nonstop plugged in. The corollary is that you can unplug when you need to. That sort of thing goes without saying when you have a solid job and management.
That’s because as an executive she has no issue being able to just “work remotely” or leave “early” on a random day to go to a doctor’s appointment, or parent teacher meeting mid-afternoon. She’s only accountable to (maybe) the other executives who do the same shit. She doesn;t even realize she’s doing it. That’s just how life works.
Meanwhile Maria and Bobby are getting written up for coming back from break 2 minutes late.
You hardly have to be an executive to have those sorts of options. I have done everything you mentioned at my last two jobs and didn’t have a single soul under my name on the org chart. This comment tells me you’ve never had a good job at a good company.
This comment tells me you’ve never had a good job at a good company.
Quite the opposite, I haven’t experienced these hardships myself, but I’m able to recognize that tens of millions of people experience them every day. That it’s a reality we need to deal with as a society, and call out shitty executives that act like it doesn’t exist or that it’s the poor’s fault for not working harder (while they barely work, despite their claims). Did you mean to help prove the point that it’s extremely easy for people that don’t experience hardships like the inability to pay basic bills or afford food on a daily basis to fail empathizing with the workers that do? Because you did pretty spectacularly.
I’m talking about a majority of the everyday workforce here. Like 99% of the 2.1 million people working at Walmart stores under this executive’s leadership. Talking about the inability of corporate executives to empathize with their employees being broadcast widely without any of them realizing the hypocrisy in articles like this with their tone deaf claims.
Executives should be forced work their lowest paid company position, and be dumped in an apartment with absolutely nothing.
See how long they survive.
You can talk to me about my work-life balance when I’m not putting the healthy option back because it’s more expensive than the cheap unhealthy ultra processed bullshit and I can’t justify the expense.
Being able to even afford having children is privilege these days. No way I would squander it by prioritizing a company that would fire me at the wrong gust of wind.
I mean, she makes enough money to say that. Most everyone under her, not so much. The self-centeredness of these CEOs is staggering.
This still sounds awful. Never unplugged, never tuning down. What the fuck kind of life is that?
It’s the life that all these corporations want their workers to be forced to live. In their eyes, if you’re not producing value for the one on top, you should either be sleeping or dead. Oh, and they’ll only be paying you for 8 of those 18 hours you’ll be working, at the lowest possible rate they can, if you get the luxury of payment at all. If you’re a prisoner, tough luck.
Prisoners get paid. It’s like $0.08 an hour or some shit, but they get paid. And the funds are used exclusively to buy temporary products like toothpaste, and deodorant.
True, not much better though.
Here’s the thing though, 90% of her life IS tuned down. Every time she’s not worrying about how to pay the bills. How to get to work. How many presents there will be for Christmahannukwanzakkuh. Hell even how much this week’s groceries are going to cost from her own store thst she almost certainly doesn’t get most of her groceries from.
She just doesn’t realize it, because that’s not a life she’s experienced. She has absolutely no way to empathize because it’s as foreign to her as a guinea pig flying an airplane.
Do you not gly GuineaAir? Who do YOU fly with? Spirit??? Pssshhhhh!!!
I always wondered why people fly an airline effectively calling itself death.
She’s not talking about being nonstop plugged in. The corollary is that you can unplug when you need to. That sort of thing goes without saying when you have a solid job and management.
I notice none of the examples involve taking care of life stuff while on the job. Only the one direction.
That’s because as an executive she has no issue being able to just “work remotely” or leave “early” on a random day to go to a doctor’s appointment, or parent teacher meeting mid-afternoon. She’s only accountable to (maybe) the other executives who do the same shit. She doesn;t even realize she’s doing it. That’s just how life works.
Meanwhile Maria and Bobby are getting written up for coming back from break 2 minutes late.
You hardly have to be an executive to have those sorts of options. I have done everything you mentioned at my last two jobs and didn’t have a single soul under my name on the org chart. This comment tells me you’ve never had a good job at a good company.
Quite the opposite, I haven’t experienced these hardships myself, but I’m able to recognize that tens of millions of people experience them every day. That it’s a reality we need to deal with as a society, and call out shitty executives that act like it doesn’t exist or that it’s the poor’s fault for not working harder (while they barely work, despite their claims). Did you mean to help prove the point that it’s extremely easy for people that don’t experience hardships like the inability to pay basic bills or afford food on a daily basis to fail empathizing with the workers that do? Because you did pretty spectacularly.
I’m talking about a majority of the everyday workforce here. Like 99% of the 2.1 million people working at Walmart stores under this executive’s leadership. Talking about the inability of corporate executives to empathize with their employees being broadcast widely without any of them realizing the hypocrisy in articles like this with their tone deaf claims.
Executives should be forced work their lowest paid company position, and be dumped in an apartment with absolutely nothing.
See how long they survive.
You can talk to me about my work-life balance when I’m not putting the healthy option back because it’s more expensive than the cheap unhealthy ultra processed bullshit and I can’t justify the expense.
Being able to even afford having children is privilege these days. No way I would squander it by prioritizing a company that would fire me at the wrong gust of wind.