Physics At Work

This is going to be especially funny considering where I’m writing this, but then again I guess it makes all the sense in the world (you should be able to figure out where this is being written).

I’ve always been someone to put so much into my personal life (to no apparent avail) but not really put 100% into my academic/professional life (a statement with which pretty much everyone I’ve worked alongside would likely disagree). I think I’ve written enough about the personal stuff, so this time around I’ll focus on the vocational side of things.

  

To me, work is work. Always has been, always will be. All that stuff about taking it home with you and having it affect your personal life and crossing over and all that? Not I. I put in my time, I do what I do during that time, and when that clock is up I’m gone. I was thinking last night that this is a good way to approach jobs. Some people call it ‘creating a balance’, while I call it simple common sense.

Let’s look at work and what it means in physics. In physics, there is a mathematical equation that says work equals force times distance. As anyone who’s ever had a job knows, there is a certain endlessness when it comes to distance when thought of in this aspect (think of the phrase “going the extra mile”, or the thought that there’s always something else we can do on the job - which is usually the case). This means that in order for work to have any sort of limits, we have to limit the amount of force that we put into working.

If we never limit the force we apply, we eventually burn ourselves out - or worse yet, allow work to interfere with other areas of our lives where they can do completely separate damage to not only ourselves, but those around (and likely closest to) us.

Looking a bit more closely at force, we know that force equals mass times acceleration. Once again, we have a fairly constant figure and one that’s much more variable in nature. We’ll treat mass as a constant since that figure doesn’t fluctuate much among us, at least not in a way that will affect this significantly. Of course, that leaves acceleration. What’s acceleration? Velocity (you can say ‘speed’ if you want) over time.

Of course, velocity is a rate in itself. This means that acceleration can be negative (when one slows down), even though velocity cannot be. Acceleration should be negative at times in the workplace. Forget breaks and lunches, that part is obvious. We’re all different, so we can’t all be confined to the same schedules or lengths of time re: time off. It’s more efficient to determine our own schedules. I’m not talking about blowing anything off, just saying…for instance, sometimes I have to leave the building. Sometimes a trip takes me 5 minutes. Sometimes the same trip takes me 15. I find opportunities to take a little extra time if I feel it’s necessary and use them. Makes things much easier than they would be otherwise, and I had to learn that. Going all out every time actually hurt in some ways, which I didn’t realize at first. Now everything’s cool.

No matter what your supervisor tells you, deceleration is a necessary part of any working experience. It makes life a lot easier, both in and out of the workplace. It’s something you have to practice yourself, because very few are the times when others will encourage you to practice it. Your main job in life is to take care of you (and yours), and decelerating rewards in you in ways much more rewarding than what could ever show up on a direct deposit notification.