Hello, Work From Home Wednesday!
For about the past 10 months, I have had what is described in my office as a "compressed work schedule." I work eight nine-hour days and one eight hour day (for a total of 40 hours), and the nI get every other Friday off: Stay-at-Home-Mom Fridays. But tomorrow is the last of those days off and, as of Monday, I am back to an eight hour work day.
There has been a lot that I like about SHAM Fridays. Mainly, I've liked the not-going-to-work part. In seriousness, those Fridays off have allowed me to have some scheduled time off at a time when I had zero to little leave built up. I'm not sure I could have maintained my sanity without the time off. I was able to run errands, schedule appointments, hang out with The Boy and, sometimes, just generally chill out and do my own thing on those Fridays.
But the compressed schedule -- those nine-hour days -- that was the trade-off for the day off had become untenable. Honestly, nine-hour work days are looooong days, and I frequently come home more tired than I would have imagined one extra hour of work a day would make me. And that makes the evenings with The Boy and The Working Dad less enjoyable. It also makes it difficult, if not impossible to get regular exercise in. I'm still 22 pounds heavier than I was when I got married -- still carrying lots of baby and infertility treatment weight -- and I would like to drop those pounds for myself, my husband, and my child. I want to be a fit and healthy mom and I'm not.
Too, those nine-hour days, when combined with the daycare's schedule, allowed very little wiggle room. If I arrived late at the office for some reason or another, I would often have to take an hour or so of leave so that I could be sure to leave the office with time enough to spare to pick The Boy up from School. With the School's schedule, there is really no option of working late if I get in late. Similarly, if The Boy is sick and I have to stay home with him, I have to take nine hours of leave, instead of eight, which makes a difference when your leave balance is tiny. Then there's the fact that the rest of the world continued to transact business on my SAHM Fridays, so the Monday's after, I find myself playing catch up for half the day.
So even though SAHM Friday started out seeming like a great solution to the working mom's constant struggle to be all things to all persons, including herself, it really was not working out personally or professionally. So I'm giving them up. In their place, I am taking advantage of another alternate work schedule offered by my employer: teleworking. Essentially, one day a week (Wednesdays) I will log into work from my laptop and work from my desk upstairs. So for one day a week, I save the commute time and I save to morning primp time. I can just roll out of bed, pull on some yoga pants, grab a cup of coffee, fire up the computer, and I'm on the job. (P.S. Yes, The Boy goes to School on Work from Home Wednesdays.) I am hopeful that this new schedule of regular 8 hour days and teleworking once a week will give me the flexibility to exercise more often. I also hope that it will make me less tired at the end of work day (most days), and will help me keep on top of my caseload.
I feel really grateful that I have these sorts of flexible work options and am cognizant that many American workers don't. And even if employers do offer flexible work schedules or part time schedules, they seem farcically cruel. I was recently told by a fellow mom of a toddler, who is also a lawyer, that her firm lets her work part-time, 80% time. Her schedule: 8 to 4. My schedule working full time at my job (with a 30 minute lunch): 8 to 4:30. What's wrong with this picture? It's not just a woman thing. It's a worker thing. We spend too much time at work and not enough time at play and home. I think our Puritan work ethic may be killing us. But that's for another blog post.
For now, I sit on my sofa on a Thursday night, The Boy already in bed, The Working Dad at piano lessons, and I type this post, thinking of all the things I will do tomorrow on my last SAHM Friday. (Hair cut, pedicure, house organizing . . . .) I will miss these days off, but I do look forward to my new schedule that, I hope, will give me more "me time" every day, even as I will no longer have my occasional "me days." I think I may go to the gym after work on Monday, and sign on with a personal trainer and see if I can get someone to help me use a few of those extra one-hours a day to shed these extra pounds . . . . (Guess I'd better put this bag of Sun Chips I've been munching on back in the pantry, huh?) Night, friends!
