Had it been a man who’d made these demands, then, maybe, the outcomes would’ve turned out, differently, and that just shows how the workforce still discriminates against us women, translated…
The commute for over two hours every day for the past three years had slowly, killed off my passions for work, and I’d felt, that my boss who was far off in Hong Kong who’d, switched me to a home office had affected my productivity, and although for those six months, I was on call online 24/7, but, it’s the most balanced I’d ever felt, for working for over a decade.
Back then, I’d not felt the least bit owing to the family because of how I’d worked, for my boss, who’d studied abroad, all he’d cared about was, if the work gets done on time, and it didn’t matter where I’m working from.
That was a rare win-win negotiation that was hard-to-come-by in my lifetime. These three years, after spending over 1,500 hours on the commutes, I’d finally worked up the courage, to tell my manager I’d wanted to work from home one day of the week. I’d told him, that I’d felt so bad that I couldn’t accompany by my young, and it’d, had an affect on my decision-making at work; I’d said so much, told him all of the tensions I’d felt, how fragile I’d felt, but, for a traditionally operating enterprise, this was, an unreasonable demand. In the process of negotiating, there was that unfair asking to slash my wages to seventy-percent of what I’d originally made if I were to work from home. Back then, I couldn’t hide my shock, but what I’d not dared blurted out was: maybe in the Asian world, people still wanted to see the workers, sitting at their desks, tapping away on the keyboards, and this sense of security, beats out being productive.
It’s truly difficult, for a woman who’d wanted to get that balance between work and home. Being women, surely, we all want to be home early, to chase a night’s worth of soaps, or to box it all away at the gym, but most of the times, we’d needed to feel tortured by the guilt that we have, for not being available to our children when they needed us. Perhaps, men shall never understand the struggles of women, surely, we had less of an outlet compared to men, to vent out the stresses, I’d attempted to use my own weak strengths, to change, and so, when my manager told me, “Sorry, I couldn’t let you have things your way”, I’d told him firmly, “I will work hard, to not put in the overtime at the offices then.”
This is my demand for me, only by drawing that clear cut bottom line, I can not rely on the benefits that others may give to me, thus, winning my own life back. Perhaps, I didn’t lose at all.
And so, women have it harder than men, because of the multiple roles we are taking up, mothers, wives, employees, bosses, etc., etc., etc., etc., and when we asked our bosses to allow us some leeway and they wouldn’t, we’d needed to, hasten up our work progress, so we can go home sooner to take care of the family, and that is something that you men, will NEVER understand!
Life, the Obstacle Course 