Most academics that I know work all hours: evenings, weekends, bank holidays - no time off is sacred. According to email time-date stamps, many are evidently online very early; most seem to work late. The job has a quasi-self-employed nature. Many academics that I know identify themselves so closely with their work that the idea of 'time off' is an alien concept: they can no more take time off from their work than they can time-travel.
At times this is wonderful: it's a blissful alignment of being and working -- all-consuming and satisfying. At other times, it's a dreadful, obsessive and selfish way of life that can accommodate only one person. It's anti-family, anti-social and it can be counter-productive: what's research about if it's not collaborative and outward looking? What's life about if we don't got love?
So I'm grateful to my husband who is far more down-to-earth about what his research job entails, which I think is something about doing lab work instead of ivory-towers humanities stuff. Monday to Friday, 9-ish to 5-ish. (OK, make that half 10 to half 6.) Evening and weekends are not for working.
Initially, I found his insistence on work/home delineations quite frustrating -- it was one of the biggest compromises when we moved in together -- but these days I'm glad of the discipline. The working day begins and ends around The Boy's nursery hours, and we can share the start and finish to give one another a bit of extra space. I'm grateful every day that we have each other: I genuinely don't know how single mothers (or fathers) do it.
And the feeling of waking up and realising it's The Weekend... Ah. Bliss.
At times this is wonderful: it's a blissful alignment of being and working -- all-consuming and satisfying. At other times, it's a dreadful, obsessive and selfish way of life that can accommodate only one person. It's anti-family, anti-social and it can be counter-productive: what's research about if it's not collaborative and outward looking? What's life about if we don't got love?
So I'm grateful to my husband who is far more down-to-earth about what his research job entails, which I think is something about doing lab work instead of ivory-towers humanities stuff. Monday to Friday, 9-ish to 5-ish. (OK, make that half 10 to half 6.) Evening and weekends are not for working.
Initially, I found his insistence on work/home delineations quite frustrating -- it was one of the biggest compromises when we moved in together -- but these days I'm glad of the discipline. The working day begins and ends around The Boy's nursery hours, and we can share the start and finish to give one another a bit of extra space. I'm grateful every day that we have each other: I genuinely don't know how single mothers (or fathers) do it.
And the feeling of waking up and realising it's The Weekend... Ah. Bliss.
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