[RoNieveras]

Hi Everyone,

I've just been extremely tired lately. My boss, who is the CEO of a software company in San Mateo, California travels quite a bit, almost every week. He travels from domestic to international. Lately, I've been getting up way beyond my normal schedule to accomodate his European or Asian business hours.
I've noticed that the more your executives know you are attentive to their needs even over different time zones, they tend to address more action items while they are away.
I'm starting to rethink the whole idea of waking up at crazy hours to be online when he is or stop working from home to help this situation, but I tend to worry that something will fall through the cracks or that he'll miss a meeting.
Has anyone ever been through this situation? What did you do to cope?

At the moment, I work at least:
10-12 hours/day in office
2-4 hours/night once I'm home and when I wake up
on call via blackberry...


Thanks so much,
Ro

[Jodith]

I've been in this situation, Ro. Really, I don't think he expects you to be available every moment he is awake. My boss generally would send me things to do overnight but expected that I would start on them the next morning. If he needed something urgently,he'd call me at home. His primary concern was that someone was in the office that could deal with things there in his absence and keep him abreast of any urgent issues in the office.

You don't want to burn yourself out, because then you'll be no good for getting anything done at any time. If you have concerns about it, sit down and talk to him when he's back in the office. Find out what is important to him and how you can best address his needs when you're travelling. I always accepted the fact that I will probably work some odd hours when by boss was travelling, but I flexed my time when I worked later hours so as not to burn out.

[deana79]

I agree with Jodith. You don't want to burn yourself out, then you would very useful to your boss. I would suggest talking to your Boss and come up with a system of how to address "urgent issues" off hours. It could be that you are making yourself "too" available, that he doesn't even realize what time it is in the states or that you are even working so many hours.