So I'm getting out of the rat race

I had to miss trick or treating last year, which was fairly devastating. I know that dads missed this stuff for generations and this smacks of #FirstWorldProblems. Don't care.

 

The only thing I've missed was my daughter eating solid food for the first time.

 

Guy who puts his family first.

In case I don't say it enough, you're a good man.

 

Ass-kisser.

My son lost his first tooth today at school. Never said a word about it. Walked up to his teacher, showed it to her and swallowed it. I'm gonna need to learn hockey.

 

Sounds like you made the right call, Dick.

The desire for a more family-friendly schedule is exactly what sent me on the path away from journalism. It took a while and involved a few missteps along the way, but I'm two years into the best job I've ever had and I've had the time to be there for Little OOP. (Thankfully, all she inherited from me is the same color eyes, a similar sense of humor and a fondness for geek stuff like comics and Star Wars.) The decision to alter my career goals to make my job a better fit for my family was one of the better ones I've made.

 

Dick,

Glad for you that you made the decision you wanted.

Biglaw; I've been practicing in a major metro area for 28 years now and just made the decision early on that I never wanted to sacrifice that much of my life for my career. Now, I've certainly seen my share of trials and 100 hr weeks preparing for trial and other matters. There were certainly days where I left the house with my kid(s) asleep and then getting home and they're asleep again, but my wife has understood (and my kids) that that was what made their lives possible.

I practice full-time but have always been able to coach my kids' little league teams, even for 4 pm games (which means getting there at 3) and seeing their school performances for the most part. Nowadays, I feel very fortunate to have found a firm that's only 20 mins away from home and that values family commitments and is a great place to work.

I certainly understand the decision you've made, I've got many friends who are in BigLaw so I see both the rewards and sacrifices that it entails. For those who want that, I say enjoy I'm glad that's what you want, certainly now what I want. With the ability to pull back and perhaps even thrive with your new lifestyle, I can only think your life will be that much richer and rewarding. Congrats!!

 

Congrats. I left newspapers in 2011 in large part because I was spending more time writing about other people's children play sports than watching my own child's games, and was missing out on so much other stuff by working four nights a week, and always at least one weekend night, for 48 of the 52 weeks of the year.

Have had to mix and match jobs a little bit over what will be the final 6-7 years of my working career. But the money has been essentially the same, and I'm a lot happier.

Good on ya, and good luck.

 

The right decision, totally.

I was the idiot who threw himself into journalism in high school. I was lucky enough to do a fair bit of writing and kind of become embedded in one particular town. My grades were crap because I figured I'd be a columnist by 25 (ha). I also had no social life -- admittedly, I was extremely awkward -- and I regret that.

Did it do me any good in the end? I have an OK job and I'm working somewhere I wanted to work, but I also sometimes feel like I've wasted the past 25 years.

Obviously much different circumstances, but message is the same: work to live, don't live to work. Good luck.

 

Meh. Now THIS is a lawyer who says goodbye to the rat race:

 

Good move, Dick. Nobody ever said on their deathbed that they wished they spent more time at the office.

When my kids were younger, working nights wasn't so bad, except for the lack of sleep, because I got to see them for most of the day. But once they went to school, it became a pain in the ass.

I'm still stuck in journalism, and there have been years that I've really hated it because of the hours, but as the kids have changed schools, they've gotten home earlier in the day, so I get to see them for a short while before I leave.

 

First, congratulations on your decision. If you and the family are comfortable with it, that's all that matters.

I was once one of those "going for the brass ring" (in my case, an eventual upper-management job in the newsroom, as silly as it seems 15 years later) and was considered a rising star by my bosses on the news copy desk. But when one of them told me all I needed to become the perfect candidate for advancement was to become more of an SOB by taking on the characteristics of the cutthroat gunners who rose to the top there -- along with continuing to put up with a stress level well outside my comfort zone -- I took a long, hard look at the situation and decided to ask for a demotion a month or so later. Everyone from my immediate supervisor to the managing editor was unhappy with me, and I basically was a non-person in their eyes until I left the paper six years later. But I'm also convinced it saved my marriage and preserved my long-term physical and mental health. And I could look in the mirror and like what I saw, at least most of the time. Now, even as an aging journeyman sports copy editor who could be laid off at any time, I don't regret the decision in the least.