To me the ideal work balance is that I can turn off work. when I log off of work, I’m off of work.

I don’t need to monitor anything and I don’t have to address things over the weekend or whatever.

It’s perfectly fine if I do not have work things on my phone. I work in support so there is some minimal amount of pressure to check things after hours, but as of now my team doesn’t have those expectations. sometimes we come back to messages on Monday morning and think, if one of us had worked over the weekend we could have resolved this already. if they ever instill this expectation, I’ll leave.

sometimes I might need to stay late to finish something, that’s fine as long as when I log off I can log off. I’m salary so this is to be expected.

flexibility, permanent remote… those would all be very nice, but only if I can log off my computer and my brain when I’m done. not interested in full time remote work if it comes with an expectation to “work whenever needed.”

But end-of-the-day work-life balance is just an illusion. People just get used to it and say it’s “balance”.

Here are what netizens think:

It’s very easy for me to get caught up in other people’s expectations. I can’t not care, so even if I could technically ignore expectations to work after hours without getting fired, I would think about it and fret constantly.

I need to be able to log off work when I leave, and I need to be confident that when I take time off, it will be respected.

I enjoy my career, am paid well, only work OT if completely necessary and I’m compensated for it. I travel, I’m not micro managed. I have great friends at work I take lunch most days, have a free gym at work and a very flexible schedule for appts etc outside of work. Work is done at the end of the day and I never bring it home.