Balancing Work, Life A Tall Order Even For C-Level Execs

When Google CFO Patrick Pichette announced in a post on Google+ that he is leaving the tech giant after seven years as the company’s top finance man, the post went viral.

Pichette said he left the job to spend more time with his wife, to whom he’s been married to for 25 years.

In his post, Pichette describes the struggle he experienced trying to find work/life balance. Although he loved his job, and was happy to return to work, he realized that over the course of his entire marriage, he’d been working nonstop.

He illustrated a remarkable vacation he took with his wife last fall to Africa where the two climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. While enjoying their exploration, Pichette’s wife, Tamar, pondered an idea that would fester with him for weeks.

"And Tamar out of the blue said ‘Hey, why don't we just keep on going’. Let's explore Africa, and then turn east to make our way to India, it's just next door, and we're here already. Then, we keep going; the Himalayas, Everest, go to Bali, the Great Barrier Reef... Antarctica, let's go see Antarctica!?" Little did she know, she was tempting fate."

Pichette explained to Tamar that although he’d love to continue exploring the world with her, he had to return to work. He explained that there are too many people counting on him and too much that he still wants to accomplish for him to simply turn all of that away.