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Private or Business? ...

Friday, July 13, 2012. Yesterday I got a message which is passed down from the ministery to all units in our institution. Private phone calls are not allowed from the office phones. Private life and office life has to be completely separated. Here is your work, there is your other life.

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Separation of the Business Life …

Today, it is easy to avoid using the office phone, since everyone has a mobile phone anyway. But the message also made me feel upset. I am travelling a lot for my institute, and all the travel time is no working time anyway. Then, I am using my private mobile internet connection all the time to do work while travelling, and I use my private mobile phone to call my people. I could apply for a business phone, but then I have to carry two phones all the time, since private calls are not allowed from the business phone, I have to carry an adapter to charge two phones … and take care of them. The same applies to the laptop - I need a private one and a business one, cannot use the public network to connect my private one, not the private network to connect the public one … what a nonsense, honestly!

I have been in a different situation for many years - working in an academic environment. Here, there is no real distinction between private and work. A true researcher is occupied with his scientific questions all the time. That is acknowledged by the institutes, and they give freedom to balance things out yourself. I think that type of approach is much better, though it demands clear decisions from every individual then.

But there is more in this. What is our idea of business life and of private life? In an industrial environment things are not that strongly split. For example, many people get a car paid by their company, which they can use both for business and for private purposes. When we talk about a family-friendly workplace, we need to bring private questions together with business questions. That is important for many people, in particular for those with kids.

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In principle, we need to think about an integrated concept for private + work-life! We need to bring things together. We need to find flexible solutions. This task is a real challenge, touching legal aspects, practical aspects and our whole attitude. The integration and balance of work-life and private life starts in our mind!

Life Segments and Faith? …

Often, faith seems to be in some life segment as well. We attend church on Sunday mornings, but does it play a role on Mondays? It will, if we take it serious. Faith is something which changes all of our life, regardless of what we do. But it needs our active participation to let it grow to what it is meant to be!

We tend to have our different life segments. We tend to live here in a particular way and there in another way. But God wants us to be one person, fully integrated, with him in the middle. He wants us to be truthful, as he is. He wants us to be integer and sincere, as he is. He wants us to be joyful and friendly, as he is. All this applied to our business life as well as our private life.

Breaks and balance need to be part of all our segments. It is not that the private life needs to balance the work life, but we should have balance in our work life, with breaks and variety in an adequate measure. And we need balance in our private life as well, with home work and leisure in an adequate relationship. Faith should be in all of this, guiding and filling us. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts

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