Work/life balance, and WOMAD

[ailbhe]

Rob works five eight-hour days a week, plus 30 minutes for lunch. In addition, this week he worked:

Sun: 0.5 hours
Sat: (only a couple of phonecalls)
Fri: 5.0 hours
Thu: 0.5 hours
Wed: 4.5 hours
Tue: 0.5 hours
Mon: 0.5 hours

This is pretty normal.

Something is badly wrong with the world. He's tired all the time. He doesn't get to spend enough time with Linnea, because if he's not working from home he's too tired to play. He certianly doesn't have time for anything other than work and Linnea - though we did deliberately skip housework this weekend and go out as a family, just the three of us, because we will never be just the three of us again after 16 days.

So today's trip was to WOMAD - we triked down, bought tickets, got wristbands, went in, ate lunch, wandered around, listened to music, looked at goods, got too hot, went into the town centre to buy Linnea some shoes, went back to WOMAD after some clouds had gathered, wandered around some more, bought more food, saw the procession (theme: food, and which continents have x% of the world's population and consume x% of the world's food). Linnea played with drums and xylophones and bubbles and ran in and out of the clothing racks and sorted a big pile of postcards.

We each got a garment - Linnea got a "Charlie and Lola" top, which isn't very WOMAD but was very cute, and Rob got a hat to replace his lost Tilley (nothing like as good as a Tilley, of course, but there you go), and I got a great orange cotton scarf, which I promptly knotted around Linnea's ribs becase we'd forgotten her reins.

For lunch I had a vegetable curry and naan bread; the naan wasn't anything like any I have experienced elsewhere but the curry was fabulous, as was the mango chutney (made with real mangoes, nyum). Linnea had a sausage in a bun, of which she lost half in the grass, and Rob had a breakfast bap. Dinner was pasta with tomato sauce because that's what Linnea wanted and Rob and I didn't care by then. It was excellent, but not very adventurous of us (strange tomato sauce is not adventurous. Strange curry definitely is).

Yesterday, Linnea hurt her arm somehow - not badly, but enough that she spent some time cradling it. Today, she must have re-injured it, because she was cradling it a lot and actually agreed that it was hurt when we asked. I rigged a sling from the orange scarf and she was much happier, except when she wanted to eat or drink. By bedtime, it had subsided to a sore back-of-hand, so we gave her ibuprofen for any inflammation, rubbed arnica on it, and put her to bed. Hopefully tomorrow she will at least have stopped whimpering when she uses it by accident, if it's not better altogether.

We didn't go to watch any particular acts; the noise levels are too high for our comfort. But we did enjoy strolling past impromptu drum bands, women playing xylophones beautifully just because they were out on display, a whole family of hula-hoop artists... I love watching the people at WOMAD, especially the little boys, because there I see little boys in fairy wings brandishing swords, or 10-year-old boys in sarongs, or any number of other anti-stereotyped presentations I never see in my normal outings. People do dress little girls in khaki shorts, but rarely, rarely little boys in lilac tutus.

With luck, next year we'll be more organised, and buy our tickets in advance, and therefore get in earlier. I didn't want to this year in case Rob had to work or I was too ill to go. I am ill - my sinuses are acting up again, due to chemical cleaners, dust, and pregnant sensitivity, so my nose and ears ache (I was deaf for chunks of the day). And of course my pubis still wants to symphisis, though it's not done it properly so far. Oh, and I think I have a UTI brewing. It's hard to tell, with shooting pelvic pain anyway, and the vestibulitis.

Can I trade the body in for a new one? I'll keep the uterus; it's good at its job, and I've grown attached to the contents.

Comments

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

Sadly this kind of working pattern is not unusual. I fully expect that when DH returns to his normal job in September we will be back to 12/13 hour days. It does seem particulary bad for IT technical staff.

[ailbhe]

If he reaches the hours I did in my last job, managing a small project management dept, he's going to have to look for another one. Those hours are only possible for people who can manage on 6 hours sleep in 24, and he can't.

I agree that short of management positions, tech seems particularly bad for "assuming people will do unpaid overtime as a matter of course", but I don't have a whole lot of experience with other private-sector positions.

[barakta]

Public sector tech work sucks as well in my very limited experience. There's a reason my partner won't do systems/network/systadministry officially as a job, she just doesn't have the stamina to work like Rob is having to. My partner can do 2-5 days of those hours before turning into a nervous wreck - it isn't worth it. Her physical and mental health is more important to us.

People do not realise systems/networks are incredibly complex and take time to design and implement. They think it is just techies wasting time, because when it works they don't notice it, it is just there. I have total respect for a network/systems engineer who does a job without the whole thing falling to bits.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Depends on the public sector, perhaps. Here in a university, and married to the uni's anti-virus Bloke, it doesn't seem to be too bad. The techies clock off with usual hours and although yes, occasionally they work extra hours, it's occasional in the same way I'll occasionally put in an extra hour to get a journal article to the publisher on time.

The pay isn't good but the work-life balance is.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

But didn't you have a huge struggle to start working reasonable hours when you became a mother? Before, any time I tried counting my hours (as a lecturer, at that point), I'd get to 40 by Thursday morning at the latest, and still had Friday and the weekend to go... Long hours weren't required by anyone else, but they were (are!) definitely part of the culture, and hard to resist; I still feel left out, almost 3 years later, because I don't do them any more.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Nope, no struggle at all. But then I'm 'support', not academic. Dave's had no trouble and he's academic-related.

Let me think about my academics. Mark successfully switched to a compressed week so he could do five days' work in four and spend a day off with his 4 and 2 yr olds. He's now on 2 years' family leave. Gail's definitely not had a problem since coming back from maternity leave. Various of the academics at all levels have days when you can't contact them, and many either come in early so they can be home in the evening or leave late because they do morning duties.

But then, we have a very strong culture here of support, and "work-life balance" isn't just paid lip-service. We're also running an annual work allocation exercise and line managers are working hard to ensure that people don't get overloaded.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Law is pretty appalling - most firms consider anything less than 12 hours a "short day". The headhunter who contacted me the other day was very surprised to find that I do not subscribe to this delusion.