Full Time, All the Time
with Britt and Robyn
I'm Britt. I work full time as a mom, wife, blogger and salesperson with a fancy management title. And I'm Robyn. I work as a project manager and between corporate meetings manage to cook a home-made meal every day. This blog is about our experiences of juggling full-time work with family.
Check out our personal blogs:
Miss Britt and Who's the Boss?
When Work Comes First
Categories: balance, mommy guilt, office life, the juggle, working mom
On Sunday night between dinner and bathtime, my boss called with a change in plans. I was going to have to attend a week-long offsite in San Francisco starting at 9am on Monday. As in the next day. While the offsite wasn’t planned last minute, the requirement for my presence was last minute. I needed to make it to the city (about a 2-hour drive from my home in rush hour). I quickly did a mental calculation to determine what time I would have to get up taking into account getting ready for a business meeting, sitting in traffic, finding the office building, and then finding the elusive city parking. It meant a wake-up call around 5:30am.
My boss offered a consolation prize for the last minute notice. She booked a room at a hotel around the corner from the office. I wouldn’t have to commute each day. It was a nice gesture. But I would still have to pack (which of course meant doing laundry), find alternate arrangements for my son’s swim lesson on Thursday afternoon, coordinate drop-off and pick-ups for daycare with my spouse and MIL (my regular back-up), and assess the contents of our fridge to see if my family could survive a week with no home-cooked meals by mom.
Add to that my son decided to use my 15 minute call with my boss as an opportunity for mischief. He emptied the entire tube of toothpaste all over the toilet and bathroom floor. Needless to say I was overwhelmed and frazzled about a week that hadn’t even started yet.
It’s been a long, long time (read: pre-kid) since I’ve had to pack up on a moment’s notice. Since becoming a working mom, I’ve done my best to put my family first. I negotiated to flex my hours and work from home, I sit on my son’s preschool Board of Directors, and I cook a meal every night that I am home. I work hard at being a full-time mom AND a full-time employee. While that often means have little time to myself, most of the time the trade-off is worth it.
Yet sometimes work has to come first. Sometimes is doesn’t matter that I have to reschedule my personal life to make my work life function. Sometimes in the juggle, you have to temporarily put down the other stuff to keep going. Sometimes you have to call in every favor, ask for help, and do your best to forget that your son will be eating canned chili or McDonald’s Happy Meals all week.
I know this week will be over quickly. I know on Friday I’ll love the euphoric rush I’ll get when my son yells “MOMMY” and runs to me for a big bear hug. But right now my “Mommy” hat is off, my “Project Manager” hat is on. I’m trying hard to be Okay with that.
Plus there is room service and a bed that gets made everyday by someone other than me.
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Yes, the room service is my favorite perk to business travel. Hope it all goes well!
Kristin D | July 7th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
[...] When Work Comes First …minute, the requirement for my presence was last minute. I needed to make it to the city (about a 2-hour drive from my home in rush hour… [...]
When Work Comes First | July 7th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
take. the. hotel. room. Imagine how cranky all that commuting would make you. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese kept lots of us alive many a day.
mommyneedsabusiness | July 8th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I once read that balancing doesn’t always mean 50-50. It means that sometime work comes first and sometimes personal comes first but at the end of the week, month year, decade (pick your timeframe), its somewhat even. That’s always helped when situations like this occur or the opposite, when life needs to overtake work. Thanks for sharing. It’s always nice to know I’m not the only one facing these situations.
Stacey | July 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
You know, the more I think about it, the more the “mommy” hat and the “project manager” hat are sort of the same. You manage resources from lots of different places, you keep track of where each part of the project is at any given time, you try to anticipate the next need and be ready for deviations from the expected path, you’re almost never on budget…
Sometimes work does come first. Sometimes the family comes first. If you keep the bigger picture priorities in mind, it really all sorts itself out in the end. I look at it as less than a “balance” issue and more a symbiotic relationship.
Kelly O | July 13th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Kristin - Never had a chance to enjoy the room service. But the in-room Starbucks coffee grounds to make my morning coffee was so NICE.
Mommy Needs a Biz - There were a couple of co-workers that looked mighty fried by the end of the week due to the commute. I was happy to have the hotel room. With the heat wave in the Bay Area, it was nice to live in air conditioning for a week.
Stacey - you are right, balance isn’t always 50/50.
Kelly O - great points. Sometimes it feels like the only difference between my mommy hat and PM hat is that I can dish out time outs at home.
Thanks for the comments!
robynroark | July 14th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
[...] all spent countless hours in front of our laptops. We’ve all lost time with our families, nights, and weekends to ensure that we were successful. It’s wonderful to get appreciated for the hard work. It’s great that we get to go outdoors [...]
Mommy-Guilt Rearing its Ugly Head… Again - Full Time, All the Time - Work It, Mom! | July 25th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I love your blog, and am a new mom myself (4 month old). How do you balance all this? I used to be excellent at what I do, and I think an excellent wife and friend. But now, I can’t seem to find a way to be excellent at all the roles I now have: my job, being Mom, being a wife and being a friend. On any given day, I can get maybe 2 right. Help!
Steph in ATL | July 30th, 2008 at 3:41 pm