If I wasn’t already in meetings 4-6 hours a day every day except maybe Fridays, it wouldn’t be so much of a downside. But I have to be at my computer physically all day, and I need to be able to power down and step away at the end of the day to avoid burnout.
I do have my email and Teams on my phone for the ability to check in for my own peace of mind, but it’s on my own terms, as I don’t get any push or other visible notifications from either one. My team can call or text me in a crisis, and I will log on if needed.
In cases like @Maphistos_Sidekick mentioned, where a model is being run or something, yeah it’s definitely nice. But by and large I don’t want to feel on call and more importantly I don’t want to set the expectation for my team that work takes priority.
A decent part of why I left my last job was it was a super meeting-heavy culture. I looked at my calendar once and realized I averaged 36 hours of meetings per week. When in the hell am I supposed to get any actual work done???
One of the things I’ve liked about my current and prior roles is that I was primarily an individual contributor. Until recently, many weeks the only meetings on my calendar were the daily huddle within my team, the weekly 1-on-1 with my boss, and the half-hour departmental social “Coffee Break” on Teams that started during pandemic lockdowns.
However, that could be changing as my role is evolving and my team has grown. I like being able to delegate some of my more rote tasks to minions and being freed up for more interesting projects…but unfortunately some of those projects come with meetings.
I started work around 8:30 before the pandemic, because of i left home any later i couldn’t get a space at the commuter rail parking lot. Now that i work from home i don’t usually log on until 9.
Of course, i used to mostly eat breakfast at my desk and casually look through email 8:30:9, and now i eat breakfast at my kitchen table and am really working at 9, so it’s not very different.
I really enjoy the sense of ownership with a managerial role, but definitely see the appeal of not having many meetings and getting to be more focused on project work
Possibly, I think it’d be difficult to own the actuarial side of a line of business though without being a manager because it’s too much work for a single person
