<p>Mythmom–I did write a book while working the full-year job, and had a couple stories published, but it took forever! I was surprised by how hard writing was when I went back to teaching–teaching (especially paper grading) seems to sap all available time. But overall, I like it better than the job i had, which was making me crazy, so this teach-work-crazy-hours for eight-plus months followed by 3-4 months off still seems like a better deal.</p>
<p>I have to work for medical benefits. Ugh.</p>
<p>MOWC–My H and I have been passing back and forth responsibility for benefits. We’d move and both do part-time jobs if we could, but can’t give up the health bennies. </p>
<p>Definitely Ugh.</p>
<p>I love my job. If I won the lottery I’d continue working; I would just hire someone to clean and cook. Lol.</p>
<p>Never! I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I don’t like to work. I’ve been retired for one year, and I love how relaxed and unstressed I am. I’m also a “nester”, so I derive great pleasure in keeping our home clean and well maintained, something I could not do while working.</p>
<p>I do have a side, online business that I do “just for fun”. I like being my own boss and the thrill of buying low and selling high. The other conclusion I have come to is I don’t like being told what to do, especially when I think I have a better idea. Running my own business allows me to do it “my way”, right or wrong. So many times I hear this little voice in my head that I pretend is the conglomeration of all the bosses I worked for. That voice tells me all kinds of things that I should be doing so that, on paper, it would look like my business is really thriving. However, my business model follows the “making money while I’m sitting on my a$$” model. I make more money per item, so therefore my items don’t sell as fast as another sellers would. Again, I don’t like to work hard, only efficiently.</p>
<p>Just yesterday I cut a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my garden, and posted a picture of them on Facebook. Several people commented about how I have a green thumb, and don’t I love being able to bring my flowers inside. My response? Before I retired, I didn’t even have time to stop and “smell the roses” in May, let alone bring them indoors!</p>
<p>I hire someone to clean but not to cook. I wouldn’t like someone hanging around me everyday.</p>
<p>I stopped working some years ago. I am a bit OCD and I love that I don’t have to cut corners anymore to save time. A lot of “me” time, I love every minute of it.</p>
<p>I’ve been retired from my day job for almost a year. I will, however, be working again from Sept to Dec…I’ll let you know sometime in the fall if I like working when I don’t have to! I do miss the work, and am looking forward to this temporary position. </p>
<p>Gotta say, though…I have NO TROUBLE filling my time with meaningful and meaningless activities when not working!!</p>
<p>Absolutely not. I only wish I could have been an at-home parent when my kids were young.</p>
<p>Garland: Congratulation on the publication of your stories!!! I teach six writing intensive courses. I have done so for 28 years, so I have paper grading down to a science. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it!</p>
<p>I am the kind of person that will always be working, but I would never be employed if I didn’t have to be. I love being active and busy, but I hate the inflexibility, because I am constantly sick and freaking out that I am going to miss too much work and lose my job, and climbing the career ladder really doesn’t do anything for me. I’d rather be taking care of my family (in a different way) and volunteering. I have the option to work from home making more than I do now and be able to set my own hours and choose my own workload, but I haven’t taken it because it doesn’t provide benefits and I need those until we get married… once we’re married, his benefits are better anyway, so I’ll be able to choose. I’ll keep working a conventional job for a while to help save for the house and to pay for whatever remodeling we need to do, but after that we have arranged our finances such that I will be able to choose how much I’ll work, if at all. We’ll see what I decide when the time comes. The idea of having enough time to take care of all the little things that pile up and keep us from having time to spend together is certainly appealing.</p>
<p>FYI - a lot of firms allow people to put their domestic partner on their health insurance now. You don’t have to be married to be declared as a “dependent” for benefit purpose.</p>
<p>No, I haven’t worked at a paying job since I was pregnant with my first. My H and I juggled working and putting each other through school (married very young) so we didn’t have children until we had been married 13 years. I did enjoy my work, but I enjoy being home more.
I’ve been involved in a lot of volunteer work over the years, and there are a lot of things I enjoy that I wouldn’t have time for if I were employed. Now that the kids are out of the house, I do feel a little bit like I “should” be working even though we don’t need the income, just because my time really is my own and my DH still has to get up and go to work every day. We’re hoping he can retire in about five years so we can do more traveling together and he can enjoy some time without work responsibilities—but I wonder if HE will be happy not working. I think it takes some adjustment.</p>
<p>I mostly like working, but I’m my own boss. I’ve occasionally fired clients I didn’t like. Health insurance comes from my husband. I’d always assumed I’d work forever, but I recently became involved in two projects that reminded me of why I’d originally thought I’d be a history major - one was helping out with an oral history of the older residents of our town, the second was writing the 100 year history of the art association I belong to. Someone should write the history of the arts in our town, because we had just an amazing collection of residents especially in the 1920s. Almost all the regular cover artists of the big magazines lived here.</p>
<p>I used to work for this very intense guy, he would bark at us whenever he got mad, and he was alwasy impeccably dressed. This guy’s schedule was completely packed, it would take me weeks to get an appointment with him, unless I wanted to wait around when he was finished with his day. He retired last year. His wife sent us a picture of him, wearing a flannel shirt and old jeans, standing in front of a pickup truck. She said they were driving (not flying) from the NE to Florida to help his brother paint his house. The guy looked really happy, hard for me to believe he knew how to paint, and I wondered if he had a shot gun in his truck.</p>
<p>I don’t have to work for the money. Off and on during our marriage, I’ve worked part time for the satisfaction, but always stayed home with the kids unless they were in school. I will never understand the idea of being bored. Have always filled my days with things that entertained and gave me great satisfaction without being paid to do so. I am eternally grateful that my husband has always supported whichever route I chose. Sure, more money would have come in handy, but I was always able to save much more by shopping carefully and not living an extravagant lifestyle than the salary and the stress I would have gotten from trying to juggle both. My sisters have not had that supportive spouse and I believe their family life has suffered for it.</p>
<p>My greatest joy in life has been the time that I have spent with the kids and look forward to being able to supply my grandchildren with an equally attentive grandmother. That reward will far outweigh any career satisfaction I could have received. And if I decide now that I want a career, I can always go back. I cannot, however, go back and refocus on the kids.</p>
<p>As a single mom since forever, I have to work. For first years, I worked in a great hospital with terrific people. I worked part time for them and private practice. I went back to work for others a few years ago, and it was brutal. Hour drive each way, never allowed to keep doctor appointments, etc. my son was in college at the time, but the contrast between the two work environments was incredible. </p>
<p>Now I’m back working for myself, paying incredible amount on health insurance. It is a welcome compromise. I finally get to be involved in 2 volunteer groups. I would definitely like more “me” time, but I will work as long as I can. It would be nice to write again; I haven’t published anything since early 30’s. I also do not want to move. I like my house, yard, neighborhood, and location.</p>
<p>Yes, I probably would. But I won’t tolerate Tigerboss. I fired them. :D</p>
<p>Iglooo, I wouldn’t want someone hanging around every day, either. I’d just like the person to come in and prepare the evening meal, or even prepare it and deliver it to my house. </p>
<p>It’s not gonna happen, but I can dream. :)</p>
<p>Oldfort, you’ll be making a big move soon, right? I suspect you’ll be super busy when that happens, and you start your new job, and your D is transitioning to school. I say enjoy your time! I wonder if you are one of those people who really gets their energy from others, and from working and doing a good job at work. I have a friend like that, who feels a little bereft on her days off, even though she so deserves a break, and who went back to work early from both of her maternity leaves, because she so missed work and the interaction at the office (she’s a PA). I so admire people like that. They’re what makes the world go 'round. </p>
<p>I work very very part time now after a long time working like a dog and having call on top of regular hours. When we moved here five years ago there was not a partnership track job available, so I started filling in as a “floater pediatrician” for the clinic where my husband works. It turned out to be great, since the kids had a hard time with the move, and I’ve found that being around for teens is actually more important in my mind than being around when they’re little (I agonized in guilt over working when they were small, but had to admit I would have been a bad SAHM). </p>
<p>My husband jokes that I’m in “pre-retirement” since I sometimes work very little, enough to keep my clinical skills up and have some fun patient time. But I don’t miss the grind of a practice, and I so so so love not being on call. But I’m a bit of a slug and I can sit around happily on my butt for hours, reading. I’m a voracious reader and will probably read 80 books this year. That makes me happy as a clam. But I suspect you are not as lazy as I am. You deserve to take a little break for yourself. Enjoy!!</p>
<p>jaylynn - I think you probably called it pretty well. I didn’t go back to the office early when I was on a maternity leave, but I did have a whole office set up at home so I could continue to work. I am lucky that H never made me feel guilty about focusing on work so much. The funny is thing is that when girls were growing up, as busy as I was, I was still the go to person at night when they got sick (like throwing up). They would stand over my side of the bed until I woke up (which was normally withing seconds), but never over H side of the bed. During the day, if they had problems, they would track me down no matter what I was doing.</p>