So working full-time plus a 1 hour round trip commute is basically making life impossible.
I know other people have longer schedules with worse commutes, and those people are men with wives. I am a woman with a husband and, even though Perfect Tommy is probably in the 99 percentile of husbands, husbands ARE NOT AS HELPFUL AS WIVES.
Here are the things that I’m feeling about working full-time:
- My house is messy and I hate it.
- Laundry piles everywhere and it sucks.
- I’m tired all the time and I want to sleep.
- I’m pretty sure I’m not actually making any money.
- I don’t have any time to myself.
- I feel like Tom and I are living completely separate lives and I could have stayed in Seattle for that.
The actual job is fine. It’s pretty good and it’s all stuff I’ve done before and is pretty easy for me, the people don’t completely suck, and the people in my office are my age-ish. If I could work less hours or didn’t have to drive so far, I think I would be happy about it.
But the truth is most morning I feel like I’m going to burst into tears as I’m leaving my house, and I know it’s because Tom’s off for the summer and I’d really like to be with him, and if he were going off to work too I wouldn’t feel that way, but he’d be getting off earlier than me anyway and I’d want to be there then, too.
And maybe it’s weird that we’ve been married for almost 8 years and together for 11, and we’ve been basically been inseparable the whole time, and I still want to be right there with him whenever I can. But I don’t think it’s weird. At least, not any weirder than some of the shit that you internet people do (and you know who you are).
So, next week I turn 30. Then the next week we go to Hawaii. Then it’s back to this. Whereas, normally I would just quit and find something else to do, this is a small town and if I quit after 2 months, I would be burning a very big bridge. And Tom really wants to buy a home and even though my dreams are put on hold for everything all the time because I refuse to be selfish, I can’t let myself be the obstacle to Tom’s dreams. I feel like my role as his partner is to make those things happen. These are not tough choices for me, but it can make things feel a little bit out of my hands sometimes.
I’m not OK with you being miserable like this. There’s got to be a better option where you and Tommy both get to be happy. Granted, everything I’ve come up with so far involves me being a millionaire and buying you a house, but I’ll keep thinking.
Is there a possibility for telecommuting a couple days a week? Or (I don’t know if you’d want to, but it’s an idea) doing 4 10-hour days? That would lower commute time and give you one day a week at home. Yes, it would involve longer days on the other days, but at least you’d get an extra day at home.
Or you could work one of the weird schedules that my employees have come up with that would allow you to either have a 3 day weekend every other week or be off at 3 every other week. I’ll share details if you’d like. The schedules are very doable and quite clever!
Also, our internet is down right now or I’d be harrassing you about your b-day being tomorrow!!! Ha!
I love how no one is disputing anything in my post – we are all in agreement that husbands are not as helpful as wives.
I would love to work an alternative schedule, but California is so protective of employees due to the insane industries that thrive here (porn and agriculture) that my boss is wary… maybe in the future, after I’ve proven that I’m not a total slacker.
Actually, I think my husband is just as helpful as a wife would be (depending, of course, on the wife…if we’re going to conduct any comparison studies I have suggestions) but we weren’t talking about me. Besides, whether individual husbands or wives are helpful is basically irrelevant, because the system being set up to cater to husbands with wives seems to really be the problem at large. But not the immediate problem, which is making you happy. Oh hey, I know! Meet me at Pappy & Harriet’s tomorrow.