Remembering Stephen Covey...
Jul. 19th, 2012 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpStephen Covey and Hyrum Smith pretty much "switched on the light bulb" for me as far as time management was concerned. Between the former's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and the latter's Ten Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, I find myself in a better place than I would otherwise have been had I not read their books.
Back when I lived the life of a corporate employee, I could not help but notice that all the fine words about "living a balanced life" sort of withered and dropped away as time passed. The bottom line was, if you didn't end up working 80-hour weeks, you weren't working enough.
I reached a turning point shortly after being laid off at Borland, while interviewing at Microsoft (believe it or not, I had a voicemail inquiry from Redmond upon returning to my office after having been told the news). The Microsoft interview was one of those deals where, after the preliminaries, you are interviewed by about a dozen people for about 20-30 minutes each. What made my antenna quiver was the way each interviewer reminded me—using pretty much the same wording every time—that Microsoft was not a life-sucking vampire but expected employees to live a life balanced between work and family. I took that re-echoing sentiment as a warning, and moved to Pagosa instead.
Years later, I passed a FranklinCovey store while out shopping on a Sunday. I was already a customer, and wanted to buy something, I forget what. But the store was closed, and a sign visible to passers-by said this was so that employees had an opportunity to "sharpen the saw," presumably in any way they saw fit. While I was disappointed the store was closed, my respect for the company went up.
Stephen Covey helped me improve my life. For that, I am grateful.
Back when I lived the life of a corporate employee, I could not help but notice that all the fine words about "living a balanced life" sort of withered and dropped away as time passed. The bottom line was, if you didn't end up working 80-hour weeks, you weren't working enough.
I reached a turning point shortly after being laid off at Borland, while interviewing at Microsoft (believe it or not, I had a voicemail inquiry from Redmond upon returning to my office after having been told the news). The Microsoft interview was one of those deals where, after the preliminaries, you are interviewed by about a dozen people for about 20-30 minutes each. What made my antenna quiver was the way each interviewer reminded me—using pretty much the same wording every time—that Microsoft was not a life-sucking vampire but expected employees to live a life balanced between work and family. I took that re-echoing sentiment as a warning, and moved to Pagosa instead.
Years later, I passed a FranklinCovey store while out shopping on a Sunday. I was already a customer, and wanted to buy something, I forget what. But the store was closed, and a sign visible to passers-by said this was so that employees had an opportunity to "sharpen the saw," presumably in any way they saw fit. While I was disappointed the store was closed, my respect for the company went up.
Stephen Covey helped me improve my life. For that, I am grateful.
