Lawrence's blog: Work/Life Review – A New Approach

In between work and trying to find space for the barrage of toys bestowed by relatives over the festive period (we now seem to have enough Little Tikes utilities to furnish a small flat), 2016’s introspection and work-life review has been somewhat overlooked. However, given that our soon to be three year old seems to have an answer to everything these days, I thought I’d put our work-life dilemmas to her…….

1.  Part-time and on a ladder (step ladder) with no rungs to climb - My partner works part-time and although her employer readily accommodated her request to leave at 4:30pm to manage nursery pick-ups, she has recently had an application to work from home one day a week refused; lack of sufficient architecture to facilitate flexible working cited as one of the ‘official’ reasons for refusal. Unfortunately, there is also very little natural attrition at her workplace meaning the opportunities for upward progression (especially for a part-time worker) are extremely limited. On the flip side, she is fortunate in that she doesn’t regularly have to take her work home with her. She finds herself in the same difficult position as many part-time parents, be grateful for the current working arrangements – ‘Stick’, or search for a new role with a more open approach to flexible working with the added hope of career progression – ‘Twist’.

Our daughter’s take on this issue got us thinking……

Mummy / Daddy: “Do you know why Mummy and Daddy go to work?” Child response: “To get the monies!”

Once we finished grinning, we realised that we didn’t fully know the answer to the question ourselves. Maybe, in my Partner’s case at least whether to ‘stick or twist’ is a matter of perspective and the question we need to ask ourselves is, aside from the money why as parents do we go to our current work? After much deliberation, my Partner has decided that 2016 may not be the best time to ‘twist’ in search of greener grass but instead searching for an internal move may provide some much needed career ‘variety’ in lieu of potentially ‘twisting’ fully in future.

2. Where are you Daddy? - I fare slightly better than may partner in some respects in that I am fortunate enough to work for an employer who advocates a certain degree of ‘flexible’ working. Although I work full time, I am able to work from home as needed; which does come in handy. However, my work is often deal related which does often mean working long hours, which can make it difficult to ‘switch off’. This is however a consequence of the type of work, which to a large extent I enjoy and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feed off it somewhat. The conundrum for me is a common one, how to better manage the impact of work (and my approach to it) on our 3 year old, such that we still spend meaningful time with each other and as a family?

The daughter’s take on this one was a little more direct….

Daddy: “Would you like to spend more time with Daddy?”  Child response: “Yes, I’m Elsa and you can be Christophe” (In reference to Disney’s Frozen to the uninitiated and a phrase I must have heard a thousand times). I’m sure I am not the only parent whose child is swept up in Frozen mania, or is slightly annoyed because they keep subconsciously humming the ‘Let it Go’ theme tune.

However, it struck me that although I’ve been told many times before that my daughter and I are Disney characters; we have never played pretend Elsa and Christophe before. Maybe the answer to my work/life conundrum is straight forward; spending ‘meaningful’ father-daughter time is as simple as making sure you allocate time to do what is ‘meaningful’ for them – running around pretending to be Disney characters.  As to how to make more of that time; well that’s not so simple, but running around pretending to be characters from Frozen rather than watching the Frozen dvd for the 1000^th time, is probably a good start. Who knows in time I might manage to forget the ‘Let it Go’ tune.

Overall advice for a work-life review; seek counsel from the child.

Lawrence is father to a cheeky yet beautiful two year old girl. He works full time at a City accountancy firm and occasionally works from home.