What working part-time taught me about The Great Resignation
In 2017, I made the decision to go part-time at my startup data science educator role to pursue photography as a career.
I was in Silicon Valley, the home of moving fast & breaking things, so some people asked me why I wasn't quitting tech altogether right away. If I was so passionate about photography, shouldn't I be going 'all in' into my new pursuit?
However, passion is a poor substitute for either technical & business skills, or financial security. Photography requires a wide range of skills to master; both technical and interpersonal. I needed to give myself the time and space to make the quantum leap from being a good amateur to a professional-level photographer; one who could deliver high-quality photos consistently to my clients.
I negotiated a work arrangement where I’d put in complete workdays 3 days a week (Mon-Wed). Everything else, including my pay and equity, was scaled down to 60% of what I made on a full-time job.
However, I was worried about whether that move to part-time would actually give me what I needed the most: time.
I had worked in several startups before, and I knew first-hand how hard it can be to preserve work/life boundaries in those environments. In my past experience, whenever you say ‘no’ to extra work in a startup environment, someone inevitably questions your passion or dedication to the mission. Would my 3 days/week schedule actually work? Would my workplace actually respect those boundaries I was trying to set?
To my surprise, my entire work experience changed for the better
Every time a task was assigned to me that I didn't believe was either high-value or a priority for the company, I'd ask, "I'm only here 3 days/week. Is this the most important thing I could be working on?" People would take that question seriously; something I had never experienced before! They’d either respond with a good rationale explaining why that task was important compared to others, or just take it off my plate (and often, off the team plan altogether).
Someone in a meeting would assign me a task and someone else would say, "I don't think that's worth Raj’s limited time, let's deprioritize that task for now."
On the rare occasions when I needed to work an extra day to meet deadlines (for a launch, for example), my manager immediately made sure I had a different day off scheduled.
Why would this be the case? My best anecdotal guess is that when you present something as a scarce resource, people automatically value it more. Marketers have understood this ever since marketing was a thing. I was experiencing the scarcity principle in a different context; my time was seen as scarce, and hence more valuable.
I had planned to spend a year working part-time. But my workplace experience and mental health was so close to optimal during that period that I ended up spending almost three years in that situation. It gave me the time I needed to build my photography skills, as well as the foundation of my creative business.
Yes, there were tradeoffs. I forfeited the leadership track I was on, and any chance of a promotion or decision-making roles. However, I got to spend 3 years in a role where I could work on very high-impact, personally meaningful projects, with a much lower percentage of the ‘bullshit tasks’ that we often have to spend a lot of time on at a full-time job.
In their excellent and deeply insightful book, Out of Office, Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel dive into the changes that the last two years have wrought upon the world of work. The first topic they cover is: flexibility.
Pre-pandemic, flexibility was a buzzword that in most cases, benefited employers far more than employees. It meant finding ways that employees could stay connected 24/7 to the office and could be reached while they were anywhere (including on vacation) -- all while avoiding any semblance of overtime payments.
However, today, in the age of The Great Resignation (or Reshuffling, Reawakening or any of your favorite R-words), employees are reclaiming the idea of flexibility for themselves; one that benefits them rather than just their employer. The WFH revolution means that employers will have to accommodate their workers’ schedules and lifestyles; whether it means they have to work around school and daycare schedules, elder caregiving or just life in general, as long as they get the work done.
As I look back at my part-time experience I have to wonder:
Why was it so easy for my workplace to respect my work boundaries when I was there for three days in the week, but not when I was full-time?
Why do we take full-time employees for granted?
Why do we insist on having so much busy-work for everyone?
I’m excited to see all the new innovations in the future of work, including more (actually) flexible working arrangements that benefit everyone involved, experiments with the four-day workweek and so on.
It’s no wonder to me that once the pandemic brought a taste of the flexibility and efficiency that’s actually possible at work, many people have decided that going back to the old normal simply isn’t worth it. I know that’s true for me.
What has your experience with flexibility been?
