So what?
Dear Colleague,
You matter.
You matter to me.
You're my first 'So what?'
What might I do for you is on my mind every day.
Grateful always for you,
Gregory
Back in May, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon spoke at a Wall Street Journal CEO Council conference about his longing for a return to the traditional way of work with commutes and full offices. He summed his vision, “We want people back to work... it will look just like it did before.... and everyone is going to be happy with it, and yes, the commute, you know people don’t like commuting, but so what.”
Respectfully, Mr. Dimon, the ‘what’ matters more than ever. Workers are reassessing their work life today, because they can. They’ve learned they can work from anywhere, productively. And COVID-19 taught us all a difficult lesson; that life is short and work can and should be meaningful.
As I write this, some of my fellow Archies are getting their work done early so they can catch the European Championship matches on a gorgeously sunny Summer Friday. Another is finalizing plans for her sabbatical—she heads to Asia to teach English for a year—while another just moved into a new ‘temporary office’ in Costa Rica. That’s what.
When I stopped commuting nearly five years ago, I had a 1.45 hour commute one way, swallowing nearly four hours of my day. When I stopped that life-sapping commute, I gained the freedom to start Archie. My first ‘so what’ of a non-commute was unlocking the social capitalist in me. I had more time to ‘do good’ and do ‘good business’.
‘Do good’ has meant everything from the basics of volunteering in my community to giving more time in mentorship to other future entrepreneurs. Let alone the beautiful thing of taking my kids to school, sports games and enjoying more of family life. Contrasting Mr. Dimon, I tell my fellow Archies: I don’t believe in work-life balance. There is only life balance. Work either contributes to life's balance or it doesn’t.
In 2016, I started a business based completely on a remote, distributed, agile and independent workforce. This was somewhat rare at the time. I was able to help others be gainfully employed because I didn’t correlate hard work with a hard commute. This way of work brought tremendous benefits to all, but especially team members who are primary caregivers, those who are differently abled, and mid- and later lifers.
Our very first Archie member was a father over 50 who was finding challenges staying relevant in today’s workplace. Our second member was a mom who had worked some 20 years in the broadcast industry and deserved a fresh start. Our third, a woman in her 30s, and had just ditched corporate life for a budding portfolio career. We also have an apprentice program that hires everyone from college grads to former teachers.
Let me also be clear here. Not all commutes are equal.
Imagine if we weren’t describing my very favorable professional services life. I can’t help but think of my grandmothers. I wonder how they felt about their commutes to the factories... or my grandfathers to their day labor and waiter jobs... or my mother as a secretary at an NYC teaching hospital... or my Dad and the 3 jobs he held at once. Dad literally had 3 different commutes in a day. PS: One of those 3-jobs was to JPM on Pine St and my Pops lived in Inwood at the time. No small commute. He'd commute to deliver papers on the upper west side, then home, then shower/change and commute to Pine St, then commute to a grocery to bag food at night.
Let’s be clear, this is most of the good people Mr Dimon is referring to, and I bet that’s the same for your families too.
And while my commute of yesteryear was long, it was also as comfortable as could be. I walked to the train in the morning. I read a paper for an hour. I people-watched on a subway line. I got out and about, and my commute was made my own. So let me not go too far. Commutes ARE part of a working life. And aspects of a commute can even be perfectly enjoyable. Some people love commuting. So this isn’t a note about commuting. It’s about the ‘so what’ of Mr Dimon’s question.
This gets at a final ‘so what’. Work happens where the work 'is'.
For us, in our fortune at Archie, sometimes that can be on a computer at home, or on-site at a client, or at a café, a trade show, or at a getaway spot like Costa Rica, or at our own future office too. The ‘so what’ is how do we make these workplaces and work opportunities bring value and balance to the lives we can and do impact.
My ‘so what’ is to forever remember what a commute takes away from life so I stay mindful and responsible for finding "ways of work" or the ‘WoW’, as our colleague aptly termed it for us at Archie, that contributes back to life.
I toast my fellow Archie colleagues for gifting me a pretty darn cool working life and for the businesses we work with for understanding the unique ‘WoW’ we’ve implemented at Archie while still delivering darn good business results back to them.