There was a time when people used to work till very late night to show how hard he/she is working. Leaving office before boss leaves used to be considered as a serious crime :). People often do one more thing to show how much they are into the project and work by checking emails on their smart phones from home and respond quickly , even if it is midnight.
Those days are gone and gone those bosses as well. You cannot impress your boss by simply replying to email at midnight anymore. See below 5 reasons , why you should stay away from that trend.
1. Creating Dependency in Team: Team is built to support everyone. If you are responding to emails when you are not supposed to , your team members will be confused and will be expecting a solution from you. They will stop analyzing problems and always will await your mail first. This will not establish you as a Master Problem solver in team but it will only create a dependency on you in Team. No manager will love that and hence eventually your manager will not love you.
2. They will know you: Not only you, there are other people in team who love to be seen by others. When you are playing these tricks to impress your boss, those people will surely understand the game. Believe me , they will hate you. They will talk about you when you are not around. In one word your own team members won’t love you.
3. You will make more mistakes: When you are responding to email at midnight , lying on your bed from a smart phone, you will hardly have patience to read through the mail completely, analyse properly and respond with proper information. I had a friend in one of the support project , who once responded to a mail at midnight by just saying “OK, I will do it”. He didn’t read the mail completely until next morning he woke up by a call from his manager. Now when he read the mail now and saw it was from a customer who was querying about delay in product arrival and was asking if some one can provide an update. It is easy to imagine how much that one liner response from him made the customer more frustrated. So your customer won’t like you.
4. You are not giving 100% to family: I bet your wife,husband, kids won’t love seeing you checking emails and responding them now and then. Never ever do the mistake of assuming that your family feel proud when they see you occupied always in your work. It is of pride for them to think or say you are very responsible person at work. At the same time it is frustrating for them to not having you with them when they do deserve. So , your family will not love you also.
5. Your boss is always smarter than you: The final and most important reason I feel , we all should remember is, however smart you are or you think you are, your boss is always smarter than you. Boss can understand every action you do and the reason behind it. By trying to fool your boss you are actually making fool of yourself only.
One cannot work or live with so many people disliking. So its better to take some actions to correct these.
There are times when working off hours or late night be required. These are emergencies but not routine. Nobody expects you to work 24 hours. If at any point you are feeling that there are so much work and 24 hours a day is even less for them to completed, stop for a moment and try to take the below steps.
a.) Speak to your boss about the situation
b.) Learn how to make realistic estimation
c.) Stop creating false expectation to others about your commitment and availability
d.) Learn how to delegate work effectively.
If you still cannot find personal space even after practicing the above steps, that simply means you are not suitable for the role you are assigned to.
Now don’t blame your manager , if you don’t get a better hike next time.
