Saturday, May 15, 2021

The Saturday Morning Post - Weekends


 I never thought I would earn a living in my bedroom, but I have for the past 14 months.  When I started the job in DC, I drew a sharp line between work and home.  Simply put, I didn't work at home, I didn't sleep in my office. I did this because on my previous job, I found myself working 1 or 2 hours a day at home, in addition to working in the office, and working on weekends.  Work dominated my life, I was physically and mentally burned out. For 12 years I succeeded at maintaining a good distinction between home / personal time and work.  

All of a sudden with COVID I am doing working and sleeping in the same place. For the most part, I had been doing well in separating work time and not work time. Recently the line has started to blur, I am finding myself working early in the morning, and after dinner in the evening.  A confluence of several major projects all demanded my attention, stretching time well past the time reflected on my time sheet.  Weird, I am salaried, but we report hours. But time sheets never reflect more than the standard hours, great works of fiction, more of a what percentage of time is charged to each project than a true reflection of the hours worked.

I have long known I need to learn to say no.  To set limits. At my age, I think I will retire before I learn that skill.  I was talking with an old friend who retired last year.  She said it was liberating and disorienting, to hand everything over and walk away. 

I have so far, preserved my weekends.  Allowing my office computer to go to sleep Friday afternoon, and leaving it to hybernate until Monday.   

Still I need to return to balance on Monday through Friday.  I need to say no, I need to delegate. I need to be realistic on what can be done in 40 hours a week.  

A couple of weekends ago, I took the convertible in for a car wash, the prices have gone up significantly in the past year, (30%) and the owners car was parking in one of the detail bays, it costs a lot of money to keep tires on that and pay the speeding tickets.       

16 comments:

  1. With every job I had, I never had one where I could work from home. And just as well...as I'm one of those people who leaves work at the door when I left the building. Work bluring my home life would unsettle me.

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    1. Since I left the farm, all but one job, followed me 24 hours a day.

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  2. During my last job working for someone else, I could be found working in the office, on the road, and from home day and night with clients in many time zones around the world. It was awful and I had almost no control. Conference calls at 3 in the morning (thank god Zoom didn't exist), customer service complaints at midnight. I had absolutely no problem walking away from that. We used to have a rule when we commuted together in years past. We would choose a place along the route home and we weren't allowed to talk about work after that point. It was freeing.

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    1. A classmate of mine had a lot of clients in western Asia, to get away from the 3 AM conference calls, he moved to Switzerland (the firm he was with had an office there.) I need to sharpen some lines.

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  3. When I was a newspaper reporter, I was incapable of leaving my work in the newsroom. It was exhausting. I've come to visit because Debra devoted a post of memes to you.

    Love,
    Janie Junebug

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    1. Janie good to hear from you, the memes were fun. I do mostly research, resource development and consulting anymore, it is easier to separate work from not work. Newspaper writing, everything is a potential story.

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  4. since I was forced out of my job last june, I have come to appreciate the afternoon nap.

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    1. I look forward to that flexibility

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  5. I'm pretty good about turning the home office into the work office, and then back again by day's end.

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    1. the non stop work cycle creeps up on me

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  6. You're smart to recognize the dangers of overwork! Now you can strengthen your boundaries again.

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    1. I am starting to look forward to returning to the office and banning work, outside of the office.

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  7. This has certainly been a strange time. My job is so people centric, I didn't think I could make it work remotely. But, I have and it appears to be working well. When I'm done for the day on Thursday, I close that laptop and I don't open it again until Monday morning.

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    1. 30 hours of zoom calls this week, and edits on a major funding proposal. I have three major project proposals in the works, if they are all funded we will need to hire someone, and my job will be funded past my projected retirement date!!!!

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  8. I loved the first line!
    In response I say "I never thought I would earn a living in my boxers"

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    1. Don't let the APA secret police hear that

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