I have been working here for 11 years. It would be logical that with the experience and the routine I gained I can now have a more harmonious work/ life balance. Paradoxically, what is happening now is that I am finding it increasingly difficult to balance between business and other obligations. I recently spoke with a colleague who also claims that it has never been harder for her to strike a balance between those two things.
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I was lucky when I worked there things were great when Phil Knight was there, as soon as he retired it started becoming super corporate and profit over people driven decisions. The disparity of expected hours VS. what the HR/Studio Managers mantra of "work-life balance" said it was annoying and not reality. It was actually, WORK= #1, Life=#10- then Balance.
The best part is if like me, you finally speak up and say something about the 12 hour days and weekends of work, instead of any support, you’ll get punished and retailed against and have ‘big projects’ pulled from you.
It is very very very rare that you will get rewarded for working long hours. Why do you work them? Will you get fired? You probably get a successful rating like the rest of us.
OP, 12-year employee here and I feel your pain. I consider myself highly capable and skilled, and an effective manager of my time. Yet each passing year gets harder than the last. It’s always “do more work with fewer resources” but you can only tap that barrel for so long before it runs dry.
I am now routinely putting in 60+ hour weeks and just barely treading water. Managers tell us to take care of ourselves but at the end of the day the work still needs to get done and no one wants to hear any excuses. It’s difficult to take care of myself when my email is blowing up 24/7 and the work comes in faster than I can even think about it.
For me Nike has become like one of those “can’t live with them, can live without them” relationships. And none of this is related to the pandemic. It’s been this way for a couple years now. I have mostly liked working at Nike but am increasingly feeling that for the sake of my health and sanity I might need to start looking elsewhere.
I learned there's no "taking a sick day" anymore. You fall in one of three availability categories: 1) Dead and have an excuse, 2) Have contracted COVID-19 and have an excuse, or 3) are just fine, because you're WFH after all and there are presumably no other challenges in your life that would prevent you from completing the 12 hour day that is implicitly - or directly - expected.
Just member you (and most other employees) care more about Nike than the company cares about you. Not sure why it took me nearly 20 years at Nike to figure that out. Good luck striking that healthier balance.
That’s because they’ve got you on your email from 6 AM to 10 PM