Fall Guy

Fall is one of those typical times of transition. It's back-to-school time, a time in a lot of families where some of its members have to sort of step up and take on new responsibilities -- move on to the next level. One day you only have to focus for a few hours, 3 days a week; seemingly overnight you have to adjust to a longer day AND everyday.

I'm speaking, of course, about myself.

Since our son was born, way back in the previous millenium (!), I have been working part-time -- actually, if you're scoring along at home, there was only one two-year period (1997-99) when I worked a conventional 40-hour week, but that may be a subject for another day. I went down to 30 hours at that time; then, after our daughter was born, we moved here, and my wife went back to full-time, I dropped to 20 hours. I've been working half-time since spring '03 and spending many, many hours with the kids and/or "managing the household".

Well, the household will still need managing, I suppose -- but suddenly there are many fewer kid-hours, as my daughter is off to kindergarten. So there isn't much demand for childcare during the school day.

I then am presented with two options: (1) increase my blog-posting frequency, intensify my piano practice, maybe start exercising, and fit in an occasional nap; or (2) increase my work hours. As you can guess, both options hold a certain level of appeal. Naturally, I'm also mindful that the former alternative, with its cachet of "too much free time", is probably going to imply as well an increased emphasis on the household management aspect.

In the end, I'm choosing to be inspired by my daughter. After all, in preschool she's been going 3 days a week for an abbreviated day, and now she's stepping up to five full days a week. And... so am I. Well, not "full" in the... you know... "working full-time" sense -- but starting in a week and a half, whenever the kids are in school, I'll be squirreled away in my cave-like space toiling for the greater good of A Major Multinational Corporation.

I'm certainly not going to object to the increased paycheck, and my co-workers won't object to my increased availability: I miss a lot of meetings and trainings just because "oops, that's not one of my days in the office." Sometimes they even end up covering for me, which is just really unpleasant for all concerned.

Not only that, but do you know that sensation you get when you come back from vacation? For one thing, you have a million things to catch up on: mail, meetings you got scheduled into while you weren't looking, projects that are in a whole different place than the last you knew. But besides that, don't you get a feeling that you're starting from scratch, sorta relearning your job?

I have that sensation every week. I leave work on Thursday at 3:15 and I don't come back till Tuesday at 8 (i.e. 4 1/2 days), so Tuesday morning is always "What do I actually do, again?" time.

I'm hoping that altering my work schedule will do more than just screw up my chore schedule -- it'll enable me to maintain a little continuity and momentum, and diminish that sort of jetlagged sensation. Maybe I'll even get better at my job! After all, as one of my favorite sages wrote, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

I'm not sure, but I think that means I'll be 32% further ahead of the game.