Weil Gotshal’s April Fools Day Backfire

Weil Gotshal's April Fools Day Backfire

Weil Gotshal & Manges is a major, white shoe law firm. But their April fools joke went down like they had their feet in their mouths.

Big mistake Weil.

They ‘joke’ was a work/life balance one – you’ve heard them, we’re sure. It declared that under a firm-wide, new email policy no emails were to go out between 11pm and 6am with the concluding note: “We are proud to be taking a leadership role in caring about our colleagues’ quality of life.”

What the joke did do is focus attention upon the whole work/life balance myth. Do employers really understand it, or just pay lip service? Especially Wall Street firms charging every second of every day God sends them.

What Weil Gotshal’s joke did do, however, was to tacitly accept that work/life balance truly is a myth, especially at firms like theirs. Jokes on them, now but it makes little difference we suppose. The bills go out as frequently as the emails. Even between 11pm and 6am.
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