I’m troubled by a riddle I can’t seem to resolve.
While serving in full-time church ministry, the emphasis and paranoia of us staff members was burnout. Mechanism after mechanism were in place to guard against it. Schedules were adhered to and Biblical support text’s were rolled out to back up our need to keep a balanced life. I, myself, was a big proponent of this mindset. And, at times, the care of people was sacrificed for the protection of the staff. The ends of proactively shielding burnout justified the means. Turn the page to the aviation industry.
The airline which employs me is predicated on serving the customer. Get just a few levels up into the company hierarchy and you quickly find middle-managers working inordinate amounts of hours in a week. Workaholic-ism is apparently a prerequisite of being in the corporate divisions of our company. I’ve spent time observing this phenomena from below as I receive middle-of-the-night email responses and 24/7 phone coverage from my superiors, contemplating the causes and effects in the airline context. While multiple factors add to the pressures the generate the workaholic response, I have identified one common denominator, when a customer has needs, top to bottom, our company drops just about everything to respond. Excuses don’t fly and concern for one’s burnout-ability are not primary. The company has established a culture that we exist to make our customer’s happy. Nothing else matters. And so, as I fall into the grasp of getting behind on my to do list, when a customer calls with a request, everything’s dropped and that specific need gets my full attention until it’s closed.
I’m struggling to resolve the difference between the two.
