Family

Work-related travel

We recently pitched a huge piece of business based in a place that is very hard to get to.  We didn’t win, but while we were waiting to find out I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I would do if we did.  How would I manage my life knowing that I would be traveling a lot.  Probably, leaving in the afternoon, spending the night and not to getting home before 11pm the next night and doing this at least once a week. What a mess.

My husband leaves for work at 7:15am.  He has no flexibility; he has 25 criminals, er, sixth graders relying on him. The earliest Emma can be at school is 8am. That means really early mornings for Brittany.  She is pretty cool with our chaotic lives – but getting herself and her daughter to our house at 7am is a lot to ask.  But I would have.

Then there are the evenings.  I would have missed dinner and bedtime two nights every week.  Yuck.  Plus, date night would probably disappear.  Jimmy’s Tuesday night dinner with his friends, gone.  And, Emma would never get a bath.

Finally, there’s me.  I would never get to the gym – except maybe at the hotel I would begin to think of as home.  I would be perpetually tired and behind since I would also be missing two days at the office, which would mean longer hours when I was in town.

So I decided that if we won, I was going to insist that I work from home the day following any trip to see the client.  It wouldn’t solve for everything above, but it would make me feel better about all the time away.

Thankfully, we didn’t win. But it did make me wonder how other women solve for this.

© 2009 Work Life Balance.