Where Does The Time Go?

Today is effectively the last day of my time off work. For those of you who didn't know, I've spent the last two and a half weeks off work. I've been -- shall we say -- a bit burned out at work lately. After bringing this up to my boss's boss, he suggested I take off three weeks in November. Ya know, since I have that much vacation time that I haven't taken. And I still have the time remaining to take off the last two weeks in December.

For me, this was a trial run to see how I do without a job. I'm seriously considering going the SAHM route, for a nubmer of reasons (Little Miss leaving me out of family pictures, the working through dinners while working at home, the challenge of finding the time to do everything I'm committed to doing, the absolute dread I feel every time I have to have anything to do with my boss).

I tried staying at home previously when the wee ones were truly wee. When Mister Man was two and a half and Little Miss eight months, I stayed home for six months. Going hundreds of miles an hour at work to zero with two mobile (she was walking shortly thereafter) children while living in a new area didn't work out for me so well. Now, it's a different story.

I can happily say that I was not in the least bored while off work. Interestingly, I've been more busy than normal. I'm way behind on my DVR. I'm so far behind on blog reading (sorry!) that I'll never catch up. I did fun homemade dinners more often, but not nearly as often as I thought I would. While I caught up on a lot of stuff at home, I'm still trying to figure out how I didn't get more done.

Things I did get done:
Made of list of everything I had to do while I was off
Wrote Mister Man's thank you notes for his birthday (that happened October 17)
Made it to the gym regularly
Had breakfast and lunch with friends I hadn't caught up with enough
Got a mani/pedi
Sorted my closet
Put together the annual gift card fundraiser for Little Miss's preschool
Put out the preschool newsletter
Got caught up on laundry
Played games with the wee ones
Took Little Miss to her gymnastics class
Got the old blinds over to my friend's house who will hang them someday (maybe this weekend, she says!)
Took the wee ones to open gym
Went to dinner with the wee ones at a friend's house
Read
Caught up completely on the Labels for Education sorting, cutting and gluing

Things I didn't get done:
Make that dentist appointment
Get to the dentist
File the growing pile of papers in the office
Get my flu shot
Volunteer in Mister Man's classroom
Get caught up on blogs
Put up the reviews awaiting my review blog (next week!)
Make an inventory of the freezer and do meal planning based on this
Take the wee ones' outgrown clothes to the shelter
Straighten up the office
Call for a charity to come take away the old entertainment center
Get Mister Man's swimming lessons moved to a new time

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm busier with more free time than I was when I was working 30 plus hours a week. However, the realization that I have three weeks before I'm off again was really depressing, as me who can't count thought it was only two.

I loved having time with the wee ones. Hearing about their days in school and being able to take my time hearing all the stories instead of having two minutes between conference calls was great. Being able to see Little Miss run around the gym was heartwarming. Having the time to do vision therapy exercises with Mister Man instead of nagging my husband and mother to try to do them was gratifying. I liked being home.

While I felt guilty the first week about a couple things that I wanted to do for work, I successfully resisted the urge to ever check my email or to even charge my Blackberry. I separated, and I didn't miss it.

And there are so many things that I want to do yet if I had more time. With more time, I could really improve the wee ones' largest fundraiser of the year coming in May. I've wanted to volunteer at a hippotherapy center near me for years, but I can't justify it while working. I'm running further now, but once I go back to work, I have only one or possibly two (including the weekend) days that I can get to the gym, which means my progress will stagnate or worse. And the playdates that the wee ones love to have and so rarely get when I'm working? Just the joy that Mister Man showed on his face when I took him and a friend to go see a play on Monday was priceless.

But I'm wondering if the office will still remain with its growing pile of papers. I think my magazine pile might continue to expand. Somehow, the days just disappear. What's the saying though? Time flies when you're having fun. And me? I've been having fun.

How Did I Get Here?

I got an email today from someone who had read my profile and was interested in understanding how I managed to have a part time position. I started to respond via email but realized it was a really long answer, so I gave her the short version. Instead, you lovely readers get the full story.

Here's the history. Two plus years ago, I was a relationship manager for the same company I work for now. I literally never saw the wee ones except during the weekends. My primary client was on the West Coast, and I was on the road around 50% of the time. When in the office, I rarely was able to leave before 7 or 8. My son was 2 1/2 at the time and would scream NO when he saw me while turning his head and sticking out his hands and arms to keep me away. Needless to say, that was heartbreaking.

As much as I loved my job, my family obviously came first. We could afford to have me stay home, so I submitted my resignation and began life as a SAHM to an 8 month old who was incredibly mobile and started walking less than a month after my last day and a 2 1/2 year old with some special needs.

Going from being in charge of everything and having my schedule be my own to being at home -- and I do me AT home -- with two small children who constantly needed refereeing was exhausting. I no longer had the mental stimulation I craved. I could rarely take the time to go to the bathroom unless they were napping. I had few friends (as we were in a new location) and fewer activities for the two of them, other than taking them to their Early Intervention therapies (my daughter was also receiving speech and occupational therapies, although she graduated from them last August).

The changes were quite a shock to my system, and I started climbing the walls. Luckily for me, I had two contacts who started calling me right about the same time to see if I would come back. The ironic part is that every time I had a conversation with one, the other would call me within 24 hours. Since they knew each other, I was convinced they were talking although they were from different companies, but that wasn't the case. It truly was coincidence.

The first to call was a guy I had worked with when I was a management consultant who had opened his own consulting shop specializing in marketing consulting with a large concentration in financial services. It really would be quite a neat fit, as I had loved consulting except for the hours. He had another former colleague (with infant triplets!) working for him on a part-time basis, so he was comfortable with part time workers. Given the size of his firm, it would be a contract position (e.g., no benefits) and half time. His version of half time was around 27 hours a week, which was more than I was willing to commit to at that point, but I'd be able to do the majority of the work from home. Plus, given that it's consulting, the pay was really nice.

The second job was with my former company in the same division. At the time, it was a contract position as well for 10 hours a week, again the majority from home. The pay wasn't fantastic, but it was decent. It was also far more flexible in terms of me setting my 10 hours versus the more rigid set by the client.

In talking to my friend who worked in the consulting company, her part time was becoming much more of a roller coaster full time and slow times and leaning more and more towards full time. Since I also needed childcare and didn't have an au pere (as my friend did), getting the flexibility in daycare also played into my decision.

I ended up going back to my former company. Initially, I was doing training on an analytics system for the business folks. It was super easy to use, and I was training the old marketing and sales people that I had worked with previously. Unfortuantely for them, the analytics guys couldn't translate their knowledge to the business folks, so I had a nice cushy job.

A few months into doing this, my boss's boss called me into his office to try to talk me into coming back on a more permanent basis. This would mean bringing my hours up to 3 days a week and working on a larger variety of projects. Personally, he had taken a number of lateral moves in his career so that he could have more family time and absolutely understood my desire to have time with my family. I agreed to come back, and the stipulation was the 24 hours meant 24 hours.

At that point, I began working on cross sell initiatives, helping the boss's boss put together analyses and business cases for the senior execs at the company and the like. I also started taking on some fun projects that involved developing new products and expansions to grow our overall business. The work was definitely interesting, and my role was appreciated even as my division was reorganized.

This May, we had another reorganization and I was volunteered for a new Strategy team that is focusing on defining a new era for our business. I have a new boss now, one who I don't respect nearly as much as I did my previous boss. He's very hands on, which irritates me as I know what I'm doing and don't like to have someone looking over my shoulder. Being part time though, I don't have too many options. Finding another job in my company will be difficult given the economy and the intellectual challenge I have will be difficult to replace. Plus, they pay me nicely.

The plus side is that my boss's boss again affirmed that I'm valued and seen as a critical contributor and supporter of me, so I'm currently working through how to make my situation more palatable again. My boss is clueless, and I'm still figuring out how to address his passive-aggressive tendencies.

I've thought about quitting to stay home again. I think I could do it now. My wee ones are older now and play nicely together and independently. I'm involved in a lot more activities, and the wee ones are also in school which gives me time to run errands and the like as needed. Plus I've been in my town for two plus years now, and I've made a lot of really good friends, which helps keep me sane.

So why haven't I quit? First, I do like what I'm doing, in general. Second, they pay me, and it's hard to give up that second income. Third, I get benefits with my job that are far better and cheaper than those my husband has -- and as a side note for all of you who think that teachers and other public servants have cushy benefits, I'd like to respond with a big old HA! Plus, inertia is a huge factor.

I joke that I'm waiting for a layoff that I'll happily take. Enjoy my severance and then stay home. Honestly, if I were to get laid off, that's exactly what I'd do. The industry I work in has many problems, although my company is doing ok. We have had some layoffs in my company and my division, but I've yet to be affected. And the Strategy team I work on that is figuring out how to fix things and how to recreate the business is likely to be among the last to be let go. And I'm consistently ranked at the top end of our evaluations, which leads me to believe that I'm again likely to be amongst the last to go, if there were additional layoffs.

And so I continue... my part time work life, part time home life, part time volunteer life, part time family life -- and way overcommitted life that I enjoy. But ask me tomorrow how I feel, and I may give you a different answer!

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And don't forget! Today is Free Slurpee Friday at 7-11!