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What's like... to be back?
Nov. 21st, 2004 11:48 pmI blinked, and a whole week of work swept by. I blinked again, and the weekend followed it - and suddenly it's the latter half of November, and I'm back at work once more. What's happening? Pinning my waking hours to the same pattern for five days was tricky, but I had some structure by Friday. Flex-time is my friend, and my shiny new access card lets me out of the site later in the evening now.
It's certainly not the first time I've changed over to office hours, but it's such a refreshing change after the end of the uni year. Adding in travel time, I'm only "working" about 11-12 hours a day! I still can't get over how much I can get done in the evenings, and having a weekend of spare time is great. My working schedule is closer to a holiday than anything I've seen this year.
I'm trying to cut my contract down to four days a week, at the moment - I want to free up a day to do some volunteer work in Science Education. People at work think I'm mad ("why do you want to be paid less?"), but I can live on less than five days pay. I've "existed" on a single day's wage each week since July - it hasn't been pretty, but I can certainly live on 3-4 times that amount.
At the end of the day, it helps me get to where I want to be - something that I've already poured seven years of work/study/no holidays into, and I'm damned if I'll stop now. Keeping the additional day in my current job is only worth money, as the experience is "more of the same" - so I might as well look for new experiences while I have the luxury of doing so.
Yes, I'm an idealist, but I only need enough paid work to pay my bills. If you aren't doing something that you're happy spending your whole life on, why not work towards something else? Weigh up "it's only work" with "how much of your life are you spending here," and tell me which side wins out. Your dreams are only as unattainable as you make them.
It's certainly not the first time I've changed over to office hours, but it's such a refreshing change after the end of the uni year. Adding in travel time, I'm only "working" about 11-12 hours a day! I still can't get over how much I can get done in the evenings, and having a weekend of spare time is great. My working schedule is closer to a holiday than anything I've seen this year.
I'm trying to cut my contract down to four days a week, at the moment - I want to free up a day to do some volunteer work in Science Education. People at work think I'm mad ("why do you want to be paid less?"), but I can live on less than five days pay. I've "existed" on a single day's wage each week since July - it hasn't been pretty, but I can certainly live on 3-4 times that amount.
At the end of the day, it helps me get to where I want to be - something that I've already poured seven years of work/study/no holidays into, and I'm damned if I'll stop now. Keeping the additional day in my current job is only worth money, as the experience is "more of the same" - so I might as well look for new experiences while I have the luxury of doing so.
Yes, I'm an idealist, but I only need enough paid work to pay my bills. If you aren't doing something that you're happy spending your whole life on, why not work towards something else? Weigh up "it's only work" with "how much of your life are you spending here," and tell me which side wins out. Your dreams are only as unattainable as you make them.
