Balance: Work and Family

All I can say is that a long can change in 10 years...but of course, some are suited for being alone.

 

Well said, Zag. I agree completely.

 

It wouldn't matter. They wouldn't associate with you, anyway.

It's not sounding like a lot of people will. Relationships -- and I don't mean with just your spouse -- take time to cultivate. If you're investing in your job, it's taking away from investing in people. Those people are your support network.

You colleagues really aren't so much. You sit around and bitch about work, but that's usually about it. There are some exceptions, but your friends are where the support comes in. The work-above-all-else, in any career, doesn't last for most. If it does for you, fine. But be warned that, 10, 15, 20 years down the road, if ALL you talk about is your job, you're going to be alone.

Most of your current good friends will eventually marry and your friendships will fade because our common ground will shrink. They'll tire of you talking about your job (good or bad) and be upset that you didn't call Junior on his birthday or make time to go to the neighborhood block party they host. It'll become more and more of an acquaintence-only thing and you'll become more isolated.

If you're comfortable with that, that, it's OK. But know that you're going to change. Maybe not in that way, but there's a very good possibility that you will (because there are lots of examples in this thread of people who were just like you and have), so don't blow off the people here. They're speaking from experience.

Relationships matter. They really do.

 

Well, actually, I rarely talk about my job outside of work. But I know that you're right about that, because I've already seen it. I spent the last year and a half living 2000 miles away from everyone I cared about, with the exception of one uncle who lived four hours away. Not many of those relationships survived because of the distance. I've not seen some of my closest friends in over a year.

Outside of work, I left behind zero friends in my last state. Everyone I could consider a friend worked either at my paper or another publication. You don't have to tell me about isolation. Since I started in this business professionally, it's all I've ever known.

 

That's the other thing about this business. It's very hard to make, and keep friends.

My wife, a couple of years ago, grumped that I didn't have any friends because I was anti-social. I told her that I didn't have time to make any friends because I was working when the rest of the population was off, and vice-versa.

 

Ditto. I don't really care though. I have my family (wife and two kids) and my career. That's all I can fit. I don't need a bunch of guys to play golf with.

For the record, I don't think NightHawk has been at all judgmental about us old guys warning him that he may change his attitude. I think somewhere back there he conceded that we may be right, but he said he wasn't going to pre-emptively change his attitude before it changes naturally, and I agree with him on that.

I think he's taking the natural path that all of us took. Career first, till something better comes along.

 

This is absolutely true. It's a different life. It's really hard to make any friends when you're getting done with work at midnight.

 

It's all a matter of prioritizing what's most important to get into the paper and fitting assignments within a 40-hour work week...unless of course, you are being compensated for overtime work.

I think we often feel pressure to be at events more than we should, also you can find ways to get an event covered without actually being there in person.

In the end, I'll take some heat for missing Joe Blo's consolation tennis final if I know my wife enjoyed our Saturday date night.

 

And looking back on this thread eight years later, I realize that I'm not really any different than I was back then. I did end up forced out of the business (I certainly didn't leave by choice), and there's not a day that goes by that I don't wish I could go back, even to take the lower pay. I won't say crappier hours, because ironically, since leaving sportswriting and entering the "real world", my work/life balance has dropped to absolutely nothing. I haven't been able to find a real job over the past three-plus years and have been forced into freelance writing, and the hours I work now make working 60 hours a week seem positively quaint. I did end up getting married, and luckily, she's as dedicated to her job as I am to mine, so that's been the one positive in my life since being forced out of sportswriting.

I still don't think I want kids. Taking care of a wife and freelancing is hard enough. Adding a child would probably mean I'd have to cut sleep out of my life entirely (and I get very little as it is).

I still can't make myself stop working. Multiple times while I had a "real job", my supervisors would tell me not to work during PTO. I've never been good at actually taking time off (on average, I ate four holidays a year in journalism because the calendar would come to an end and I just never bothered to use them), and if I'm not out doing something, I like to help when I can. Routinely, I'd take a day off and then work anyway while my wife was doing her makeup or something. Of course, now that I'm a freelancer, there is no such thing as a day off.

If I regret anything, it's that I didn't fight harder to stay in the business. Yeah, it had its problems, but it was what I loved and it made my life a genuine joy most days. Now that's gone and I feel no satisfaction from what I do. Now I'm at the point where there's no way back into the business because it's only gotten worse, and I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do with my life for the next four and a half decades. Though writing this has been therapeutic, that's not a particularly happy thought.

 

It sounds like you need to figure out what else you might want to do (with the next four and a half decades, as you say). Despite your feelings and experience so far, there probably is something else for you. You just haven't found it yet. And if you're spending a lot of time freelancing, or looking for freelance work, you probably won't find it, either.

You need to look at, consider and try different things -- maybe even some vastly different things. But most people do end up doing more than one thing in life, whether by choice or by force. And they eventually move on from wherever they've been. I was once exactly where you are, and treated work as the be-all and end-all of life. Now, I know, and appreciate, that it isn't that. At the end of life, no one ever says they wish they would've worked more. The key is to appreciate whatever you do that allows you do other, more satisfying and more gratifying things. For me, that includes travel and church-connected things, and spending time with my family.

You, and many others, may be fine without kids and families, but that's another thing you realize more and more only as time goes by, and you get farther on in life: that kids and family, in the end, are your real legacy. Otherwise, once you're gone, for most of us, there will be, really, nothing of us remaining.

It's why -- especially if you don't have kids, and to use a cliche --it really is important to live my best life, and to get and do everything you can out of it. If you're doing that, great. If not, it's time to get past inertia and make some effort to change things. You might be surprised what you might end up liking, if you let yourself do it.

 

Absolutely. My career began to take off when I had my first kid and I told my employer I was doing my 40-50 hours and would be working more remotely.

Not every shop will go for that but I had put in a few good years beforehand and my bosses trusted me and saw that I was doing better work under the new arrangement anyway.

Sometimes that requires I work late at home when everyone else is off, but the arrangement works for me and I think everyone has to figure out what works for them. If your employers value you, they should allow you to figure that out.

 

Your thread is very sad because it defines most of us who work 70-80 and get paid for 40. Look, this business is in your blood and you, like most, are ADDICTED to the job. This job is addictive and coupled with the fact the news is a SEVEN DAY A WEEK operation, newspapers have to have people work every single day. The suits know they can get away with it because it's so simple for them to shut up a clock watcher.
If you put 48 to 60 hours a week on your time sheet, let us know how that works. You are going to first get called in by the sports editor, and if you do it again, the executive editor and finally the publisher who will tell you because of your insistence to put 50 hour work weeks, we want to monitor every minute of every day. We want at least text from you every two hours telling us what you are doing so we can also help monitor your hours. You will find out that you are probably just chilling for a few hours on many days before the heavy work kicks in. You'll have to remind them that when you are traveling to get to a game you are actually working and when you fly to a game on game day, then cover the game, yes it's possible you worked 17 hours that day.
Look, the suits have taken advantage of us forever because it's in our blood. And again, just try to put 70 hours on your time sheet for more than one time and see what "happens" to you. Get ready to meet the suits 1 on 1 to discuss "hourly concerns and how you budget your time." You may all hate fredrick but the suits will tell you fredrick speaks the truth.