Being flexible

Today is April 10th, and would have been my first day back to work, had I elected to take a full year of maternity leave. There are a few reasons why I chose not to – most important among them, the chance to ease Liam into daycare by only working every other day. Would I do it again? – well, not in hindsight. Liam took to daycare really well, but I certainly didn’t expect that to be the case when he was six months old and would start crying at a family reunion if someone looked at him the wrong way. From a work perspective, I didn’t feel really in tune with office goings-on until I was back full time last week. Sporadic attendance leaves you always wondering what happened yesterday, and it takes some time when you come in in the morning to remember where you left off two days prior. From a work-life balance though, it was heavenly to know, in the midst of a long day away from Liam, that the next day we’d be together.

Which is why I’m happy that my employer has latched onto the work-life thing, and is offering flex hours for the summer. For a conservative company such as mine, this is a huge leap forward, and it couldn’t come at a better time. Under this new plan, I will work an extra hour a day from Mon-Thurs, and leave early (3 p.m.) on Friday; the following week, Mon-Thurs is a repeat, and I get every second Friday off altogether. Originally I thought I wouldn’t want to do this, since I thought I would feel that extra hour a day away from Liam more than I would enjoy the time off. But if I shorten my lunch to ½ hour (which means no more going home – sorry, Captain) and make up the other ½ hour by coming in early, I think it might work. (Granted, I may need to be reminded of the benefits when I am stumbling out of bed at 5:00 rather than 5:30 each morning…) The other great thing about this plan is that in a company where there are only two seasons, summer and winter, the summer flex plan runs from April to October – almost half the year.

I may wind up deciding that the new hours don’t work for me after all, and revert back to my regular schedule. But I’m going to at least give it a shot. Every other weekend will be a long weekend, and Chad is working flex hours too, so we’ll have some kick-ass family time on a biweekly basis. We’ll save 10% on our daycare costs. Even getting off work at 3 p.m. on a summer afternoon sounds like a bonus; I’ll have time to take Liam to the park before heading home to make dinner. Better yet – I’ll have time to take Liam to the park before Chad grills dinner for us.