New mindset at work.

• Author: Ryan, Liz
• Position: GUEST column

Fifteen years ago, I worked for a technology company based in Chicago. One day, my CEO called me from the site of a new subsidiary outside London. The deal had just gone through--our company's first acquisition.

The company had been purchased on the brink of receivership, the British approximation of bankruptcy. But my boss wasn't calling me to share his joy at visiting his first-ever subsidiary's facilities. He was mad.

"So I have a meeting with all the employees," he said, "and one of the managers stands up and says 'I know the timing isn't great, but can I take off now? It's a perfect day for skydiving.' I just looked at the guy. It was 10 o'clock in the morning. I'd just bought the company and kept them out of receivership, and this is his big statement, in front of the whole staff."

"He might have wished the company had gone under," I said to my boss. "Unemployment compensation in Britain is almost the same as a regular salary."

"But where's the work ethic?" grumbled my boss. I felt sorry for him. The skydiving guy didn't last, but his view of life and work certainly hasn't disappeared in the years since.

Let me be quick to say that I think far too many organizations work their employees far too hard. It's stupid to work people to the bone--we treat our expensive copiers better than we do our staffs. No one can keep up a 60-hour weekly work schedule for long and stay healthy and productive. But here in Colorado, we also see the opposite extreme.

I interviewed a young lady not long ago, and when I asked her what questions she had for me, she replied "I just want to know: Is this job going to be the kind where I have to think about it when I go home? Because I definitely want to NOT think about my job when I'm at home."

Err ... I was kind of hoping for someone who would occasionally think about the job when he or she was at home, frankly. It's been my experience that if you like your job, you can't help but think about it at home now and then. But this young lady's perspective is common these days, and it's getting commoner. Not only is the new-millennium workforce more virtual, more diverse, less industry-stable, more networked, more job-hoppy and...