Alright alright, don’t boo me. I know work-life balance is a politically correct alternative way of saying “I’ve had it up to here!”. Many people would seriously doubt its existence in the first place. Come on, what do we expect? Our employers hold the pay check, and they pretty much have the rights to do whatever they want with it, particularly in our neck of the woods where there are hardly any worker unions except flight crews and the government. We suck it up, and live with what we got. When we are about to get burnt out, we look for something else and if we are lucky, it’s the same old story all over again.
Nevertheless, I still check this list where employees are asked to report how their companies rate for balancing work with personal life, by glassdoor.com. Here is the list:
- Nestlé Purina PetCare
- MITRE
- SAS
- FactSet
- United Space Alliance Ops & Processing
- Slalom Consulting
- Morningstar
- Susquehanna International Group employee
- Colgate-Palmolive
- Mentor Graphics
- Autodesk
- Sheetz
- Agilent Technologies
- Turner Broadcasting
- Dupont
- Southwest Airlines
- General Mills
- Biogen Idec
- Scottrade
- Chevron
- Synopsys
- MTV
- Intuit
- National Instruments
What makes the list? Some examples…
- free lunches
- flexible work hours
- concierge services like car servicing and laundry
- 24 vacation days
- bringing pets to work
- sabbatical every 4 years
- ease of relocation
- lights off at 6pm
It seems that I cannot complain since I have worked for one of the companies on this list. However, all I can remember is that everyone’s salaries was cut by 5%, and we were forced to take no-pay-leaves when the economy was bad. I paid the dues, but never enjoyed the perks which were mostly applicable for our US colleagues, anyway.
Confessions of a Corporate Shopaholic 
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