Tag: teaching

The Work Life Balance

Hamar Williams1 Comment

It’s a modern take on an age old struggle. How much are we capable of experiencing life and can we do this with the perfect amount of work. As is simple called, the work life balance. Although I’m sure I came across this before, my first real memory of being told I was about to experience a thing called a work life balance came when I was an English teacher in Athens. Teachers, like nurses, when passionate about their job have to give up far more of their time than the work manual suggests. There are people who like certain subjects and teach, and their are teachers who teach certain subjects. There’s a bit of a lazy cliche or moment of romanticism in there, the ideal of the passionate teacher, but I have experienced people who were born for the job. I recognised this because while I love teaching, that style wasn’t for me. While I needed work; I found myself with perhaps twenty-five hours a week spread evenly over six days. Throw in another ten hours for the planning and marking, more like three, and I should have had plenty of free time but somehow I didn’t. A morning class and then a few evening classes manages to take over your life. My work life balance was nothing more than an abstract concept.

Part of the training in the first week of term was on finding the perfect work life balance and what followed was a school run with what appeared to be the express intention of dismantling everything they had recommended. I was exhausted, I liked my students generally, but not the school and subsequently experienced Athens in a way that made leaving easy. Now I am experiencing a similar battle with this work life balance and am back to finding the whole concept bizarre. I’m working a lot and I’m exhausted but what I’ve realised is that what is ridiculous about the idea is that it creates a divide between the two realms of work and life. I have had some awful jobs over the years but people are capable of finding jobs they enjoy, they become part of their life. It doesn’t have to be the job itself, it could be the people you work with or even be your own business that you put your soul into. I see people working seven days a week and this is their life it’s not work anymore. They clearly don’t have a balance in the sense that would be idealised but they also clearly do have one for them. It would be too obvious to say that we just need to find something that suits us but it feels more likely that we evolve into or adapt to what becomes normal, we embrace that particular balance more than designing it to what we already know is good for us. I also know that’s entirely my perspective because I say that without a clue what would be something to aim for but there will be people out there who understand their needs enough. For me I just quite enjoy experiencing different versions of work life existence. I won’t be doing this forever and I’m sure I’ll stumble onto something one day. In the meantime I’ll just continue enjoying seeing the world through another persons eyes.

Work Life Balance Bullshit

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I was discussing with a friend / taking the piss out of the concept of the work life balance today. He owns his own company which means either there is no such thing as a work life balance or that he has created one he has to be comfortable with. I remember doing a training session for a new teaching job a few years ago in Athens and we had to do a one hour session on the importance of finding a work life balance. It is fair to say it was mocked widely as we went through it and this became clear why when the job seemed to take up six of the seven in my week shortly after, with very little reward. Now my mate works six out of seven days and this is normal for him but for me it was a travesty of existence. I had been used to working whenever I needed to and I would do it in a way that consisted of giving up on life for a month or two before giving up on work for the following six. I have worked on christmas tree farms, at language camps, picking fruit and so on. All pretty exhausting jobs but ones which as long as you’re willing to just work intensely allow you to save a little before finding somewhere interesting to enjoy life.

These days I have started to look beyond that despite it’s obvious benefits and am willing to find something I enjoy and which I would be happy to spend more time doing over the course of the year but far less intensely while doing it. People often don’t know what to do with themselves when they’re not working but I always enjoy my own company. I realised recently that my problem, if you want to look at it negatively, is that I treat life like a series of hobbies, let’s just say I’ve put far more value on life than work over the years. But that is me, not somebody else and it is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. The chef who goes into his restaurant on his day off so he can experiment and cook something for the pleasure is potentially finding the balance that suits him. My six months of pleasure were great but I always hated the extreme nature of dropping everything and disappearing into work mode somewhere random. There was a balance but it also felt like living two extremes.

Clearly there is no formula you can teach someone and people have to find their own way. We must also recognise the futility of it when we’re working six days a week in jobs we dislike but need, especially when our manages then proceed to lecture us on the importance of finding balance. There is something almost perverse about capitalism heartless joy in that respect but everyone at every level needs to hit their figures. That is the reality of the work life balance. The man at the bottom works so the guy at the top can enjoy his life. Two very different types of figures. I wonder how long that can last. In the meantime it does make disappearing away into the forest sound rather appealing.