Work has been SO BUSY lately that I have been more excited than usual when the weekends roll around. I mean, things are going well at work overall and much of the work is very interesting and engaging, but it’s just very go-go-go all day long. And some days seem to stretch later than I would like.
It’s very different from how my job was 2 years ago. I’ve grown a LOT professionally, and that part has been great, but let’s just say, it’s been a big adjustment.
The last 3 weekends in a row Asher had Saturday swim meets, but not this week! So this is a really nice, open weekend for me!!! YAY.
He had a meet last night (Ethan and I were timers and I had to basically race there right after work.) The meets start at 5:30 but we had to be there by 5:15 for the timers meeting. Ivan arrived late as he had to come straight from work, but he caught most of the meet from the bleachers.
It always is a little curious to me…. at these evening meets, I notice that basically ALL the parents are there. Including, or even especially, the dads. Which is great, but also, like, doesn’t anyone have to work?? I work from home and have no commute, and I even had a hard time wrapping up and making it there by 5:15!
Yet all these dads were already there in their jeans and t-shirts and looking totally relaxed at 5:00 on a Friday, not like they came rushing in from work. I know these people certainly must work (most of the swim team families I would say are middle/upper class type families, highly educated people), but do they all just have super flexible jobs then or what? (I have also noticed this even when it’s a middle-of-the-week weeknight 5:30 meet, on the other side of town.)
Anyway, Ivan and I ponder this sometimes. Seems like a lot of people have figured out how to make a lot of money, with not a lot of stress or hours, or something. hehe. I will work on figuring that out and report back. LOL. (I know some people may just work earlier hours, but is that generally super common? Are people just working 7-4 or something? But then who is managing getting kids out the door and dogs walked in the morning?🤔 Also, at my job they “prefer” us to stick to “8-5” as much as possible these days…)
I am also happy today that we are experiencing a WARM UP! It’s been sooo cold recently and I am over it. I truly generally don’t mind winter, but I strongly dislike the bitter cold.
For the second winter in a row now, I keep finding myself daydreaming about our March 2023 Costa Rica trip. I keep thinking, Ohhhh, I wish we could just go back in time and relive that entire trip. Coming out of the cold winter, the heat, humidity, lush greenness, the hot springs, the rainforest, the super fun things we did, the ocean…. it was just a dream. I told Ivan last night over a margarita that I have decided it’s official- our Costa Rica trip is officially my most favorite trip we’ve ever taken so far.
I know it’s very popular for Midwesterners to plan “beach escapes” in the January-March timeframe to get away from the cold, but we’ve never really made that a priority, exactly. I mean, we’ve done a couple warm weather spring break trips, but definitely not like every year thing or anything.
But I keep having more and more thoughts of “I really wish I were going somewhere warm!” Maybe as I get older I am preparing to be a snowbird somewhere?! LOL.
London will…. not be warm, probably. haha. That’s okay! I’m very excited about it, and our travel windows are just super limited right now with the boys’ schedules. And as much as a spring break beach trip sounds nice, I am literally feeling a little panicky about how little time we might have left to really travel with the boys! I cannot believe Ethan is picking classes for his JUNIOR YEAR right now!! So, I feel a sense of urgency to get to some of the places we definitely want to go before he’s off to college.
Speaking of London, that is my main priority for this weekend! Planning didn’t end up happening on my Monday off this week, but IT IS HAPPENING today.
Okay, time to pick up Asher from swim practice… have a great weekend!
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for warmer weather! It’s a balmy 29 degrees Fahrenheit right now. Haha.
GRATEFUL KAE 
My middle son plays basketball for his school and his games start at 3:45! I’m definitely not going to all of them, but I did block my calendar to drive to one away game (they don’t have busses so rely on parent carpools…. which is super annoying because you have to be AT the school at 3pm to get them) – there were tons of parents there! Both moms and dads and I definitely know that almost all of them work. I just randomly looked up a few of them to see what they do 🙂 One is a risk management manager at a large bank….. I work as an advisor at a university….. one of them is a lawyer who works 100% from home. My husband is a software developer. For me at least, aside from a few very set events/the class I teach in person (which is just once a week), I can completely set my own calendar. Yes, I have students I need to meet with, but no one is telling me when I have to offer those appointments, I get to choose. So I choose to be done, 99% of the time, by 3:30pm 🙂 My husband often has a lot of meetings, and sometimes those are at 6am, or 10pm because he’s meeting with people worldwide, but he also can just say, I’m not available at X time and doesn’t have to give anyone a reason for that. As long as the work gets done it’s fine! Longwinded way of saying how it might work for people, who do have jobs that are full-time but the actual hours you work are not rigidly managed by anyone else.
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I used to wonder the same thing of the families whose kids played Rep hockey. Many of those tournaments start Friday so it’s often 3 day weekends. And rep hockey is SO expensive (here in Canada anyway) that they have to have good jobs. And this was before the whole WFH thing !? As an official snowbird who has spent 3 months in Mexico (Progreso) for several years, I highly recommend you building that into your long term plan!
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I love that you go to Progreso!! I think I maybe told you before that we actually own some land not too far from there, near Merida? It’s just basically sitting there at the moment, but at some point we need to go again to pick up some document, according to my husband. We were down there like 5 years ago now and we stayed in Chelem for a few days. Maybe it will work out that we’ll be down there while you’re down there and we can meet up! Not sure you ever told me- do you own property down there? Or where do you stay when there?
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We rent while we are here. We have been in the same condo for 3 years now. Great community but it’s typical of Progreso/Mexico that it’s hard to get any improvements done. We come for the friends and activities, not the “luxury”. Chelem is nice too- we take a bus and go to a couple of restaurants there. Yes it would be fun to meet up!
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“It’s very different from how my job was 2 years ago. I’ve grown a LOT professionally, and that part has been great, but let’s just say, it’s been a big adjustment.” I could literally say the exact same thing about my job. For me the thing that cause such a change in my job with my coworker retiring in April 2023. He traveled even more than I do, but I had to take on some of his travel and have kind of stepped into his shoes. I like it, but it’s been a big adjustment.
I think that a lot of people work from home these days and have more flexibility than they ever would’ve had before. But overall, I feel like Friday afternoon in particular are kind of late in terms of how much people are working. Like it’s kind of an unwritten rule that you don’t schedule a meeting on Friday afternoon at three unless it’s something really important because people have kind of checked out at that point. I know Ivan in particular has no flexibility in his job so I can see how it’s really challenging to get somewhere at 5 PM. Our schedule is kind of limit the extra crickets that the boys can do. Like Paul was doing karate for a while, but the weekday classes tend to be at four or maybe a few are at five and there is no way I could get I’m there at four and even five as a stretch sometimes. So when he was doing karate, he only did one class per week where most of his peers were doing two classes. I also know a lot of parents who don’t have before and aftercare, despite the fact that the school day is something like 8:05 to 2:40. I know at some point kids have enough independence to get out the door for the bus and then come home and entertain themselves for a couple of hours that feels years off for us. So maybe in a few years we could stop using before care but I’d rather have the boys in aftercare while we are working versus having them on screens, etc.
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I can’t wait to live vicariously through you on the London trip. We still want to do London as a family, so I will be taking notes.
I really need to buckle down and start working more on Paris, but my priority today – after a morning basketball game and some cooking – was to get the photobook done. I am literally watching it upload now. Phew. What a labour of love.
My husband works from home and starts work around 6 am. While he works throughout the afternoon, if he needs to take time off, after about 12 pm, he can do so flexibly.
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I have definitely had this thought about people’s work schedules too. At first when you said this was a Friday, I was going to say what Lisa said–a lot of white-collar office-type jobs (whether in person or WFH) seem to have an unspoken rule not to have meetings on Friday afternoons and I think it’s just easier to dip out early! But then you said you also notice this on weekdays. I do think a lot of people have flexibility now to self-schedule many meetings and will sort of borrow time from elsewhere in the week to make up for a kid game or two on other evenings. I work in legal academia/immigration law and although some things are sacrosanct (never cancel class except for some kind of health or family emergency) I schedule all my recurring meetings so as not to conflict with times when I may need to leave early for a kid thing. I always figure I do some work in the evenings/early mornings at other times so leaving early is not a big deal. But of course many jobs still don’t have that flexibility and exact hours are required, so not sure how those people do it. I also remember this being a topic of discussion maybe on Laura Vanderkam’s blog at some point and someone made the point that many people (especially men–but women should do this more) just don’t ask for flexibility–they take it. And then most of the time no one really calls you out for it. Because people may be sort of in and out of the office for out of office meetings anyway, they might not even notice! Of course this doesn’t work in all office environments like it sounds like Ivan’s.
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I have wondered that SO many times, Kae. My husband has to work pretty much from 6:00 to 7:00 every day (with a few exceptions) and so I am almost always the one who is at my kid’s events. It seems like so many other parents end up attending! Music performances at 8:30! Presentations at 5:00! Showcases at 6:00! What are these other parents DOING for a living?
London is going to be so fun! And yes, the years go by so fast — it’s wonderful to be able to have these special vacations with the kids while they are young.
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Tell me more about working from home as a full time RN! Didn’t know this was a thing?
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We both have super flexible hours and tons of autonomy, so we can always be where we need to be for the kids. Unless we can’t— that’s the thing about having so much scheduling freedom. When you have to be somewhere, you HAVE to be there.
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I’ve pondered the same work mystery many times! My husband is a software developer but even when he was a manager, he had very clear start and end times to his day. He starts work at 8 and shuts down at 4 or 4:30 with very few exceptions. I’m an accountant so you would think that I would have a very precise workday, but it’s not like that. In theory I work from 9 to 5, but the actual start and end times are fuzzy. And it’s not because I can’t get my work done, it’s because finance people like to show off and work long hours. This job isn’t terrible, but it’s not unheard of for people to be messaging me between 5 and 7. I’ve gotten better with boundaries and ignoring after hours messages if it’s not urgent, but it’s still grating. Back in my in-office days I worked with a couple of people who would come in at 6 or 7 “to beat traffic” and would still be there when I left at 5. It’s mind boggling and there is no reason for it.
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My husband and I always wonder the same thing….how do parents (moms and dads) get to sporting events that start in the afternoon/ early evening? I don’t get it!
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I think a lot of people, especially middle and upper middle class people, have a lot more freedom in their hours nowadays. If I am super busy at work, but want to go to my kid’s game, I can leave and just finish up after. That’s not going to work if you have meetings and so on, but I rarely had trouble scheduling around meets or whatever. Of course there are tons of exceptions, people who do not have that flexibility.
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I laughed about how these parents are in tshirts and jeans, ready to start the weekend at 5pm Friday- sounds good to me!
I work in academia, and WFH a fair bit with a lot of flexibility and do know if that was me I’d simply WFH and plan to finish work at 4 that day, so I could change and go. As long as I’m getting my work done, no one would know or mind. So might just be the kind of role they have?
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Well, I’ll chime in on the work mystery. I’m a massage therapist and I work days- so, like the normal time people would be at work. A lot of my clients are retired people, but not all. Frequently, a younger man or woman comes in for a massage in the middle of the day, and these people clearly have a good job (just based on the way they’re dressed and the things they share about their lives, like they travel to nice places) and I’m always wondering- how are you here right now? Is your job that flexible? How can you get a massage in the middle of the day? Hmmm.
Eek- 29 F. I know that’s “warm” compared to what you’ve been having but… and those icy roads. I can see why you’re dreaming about a beach vacation.
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In addition to a lot of jobs having flexibility I think part of it might be a matter of perception. People probably see you and Ivan at the swim meets and think the same thing about you. They aren’t seeing the challenge to that it takes to get there. People may not have the ability to work whenever they want all the time but once a week might be possible.
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I think like others have said, they have more flexibility with their hours, or like me, may be using leave for some of these events. I work an 8-4 job with the federal government (in Canada), but for my position we can request to flex our hours so I can move them as early as 6-2. Logistically this doesn’t work for me every day as daycare doesn’t open until 7 so my partner has to be able to cover the kids that am, but use this sometimes to avoid taking leave. Otherwise for a lot of these events I’m putting in an hour or two of vacation (I get 4 weeks currently but we can carry over a balance up to a certain number of hours). We have a lot of shift workers in our area as well so they have more daytime flexibility the days they’re off (but obviously a tradeoff in that some weekend they aren’t free).
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I love how weather is so different from place to place. In Florida, we were FREEZING in the low 30s and couldn’t believe how “cold” it was. And you’re like “a balmy 29 degrees!” HA. We had a very unusual cold snap this winter but I’m glad for it because our winters have been super super mild (like, milder than a typical Florida winter!).
I always wonder about how people are out and about during the day! I think this is the whole RTO conundrum. More and more people appreciate the flexibility that comes with working from home and nobody wants to go back to 5 days in an office setting! Ugh. No thank you! I think more companies are just allowing more flexibility for stuff like this, and it’s a good change.
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Interesting observation about work schedule. I think many of us have flexibility in most of days so it’s possible to be there on Friday 5pm. With the new president, maybe that flexibility would be taken away, hope not.
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I’m a little late to this, but my husband is a physical therapist and it would take an act of God to get him to leave work early. Kidding, sort of. He can block his schedule and add patients at other times or stay later on his early day. He finishes patient care close to 3:00 a few days a week. His late days (tues/thurs) he works until like 7:30. This is a huge improvement over the days when the kids were little and he got home around 9 pm three nights a week. It was ridiculous. I shuffled everyone to their activities solo. When our kids have varsity b-ball games on Tues or Thurs, he misses them – but if it’s a home game, I bring him a thermos with dinner and he arrives midgame, if he can. I have a daycare and pickup is around 4 (but for 5 years I had one family that picked up at 5 a few days a week).
I think it is always interesting to hear about people’s jobs and how they manage their schedule. Also, as a Midwesterner who rarely goes any where warm for spring break, I’m feeling more and more like I need that to get me through the Chicago winter. Our kids’ sports have really dictated when we can travel, but our last sporty kid is a junior in high school . . . so maybe after she graduates (although, she wants to play in college). Never been to Costa Rica. Sounds amazing. Off to read about the London planning.
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Isn’t it wonderful for people to have flexibilities in their job to achieve a better work-life balance? I am not sure why a certain someone wants to take that away from people by making everyone go back to their office desks when it’s been proven that WFH works (and often to the advantage of the employer too).
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