Get(ting) the balance right...

Almost the name of an early Depeche Mode song (a favourite band over the last 20 years I confess..), the opening lyrics of which are:

There's more besides joyrides,
A little house in the countryside,
Understand, learn to demand,
Compromise and sometimes lie (get the balance right, get the balance riiiiight... )

Back when I just thought this was a cool song to throw shapes to (although in fairness that was never really the point with DM tracks - I just liked the music and didn't really 'get' the darkness, eroticism or satire of any of their stuff until, ooh, last year :)) I didn't realise quite how relevant these opening lines would become later in my life.

Now I'm in my mid 30s and "successful" in my chosen career, with three children and a wife that puts up with me pretty well, I am finding myself assessing the work/family balance more often than ever before.

So, about those lyrics...

Back in the day, I was a bit of a joyride kind of chap. Not the stealing cars kind of joyride (although in the part of Birmingham I grew up in, it was indeed a very popular pastime..), but certainly the kind where "my wheels" were very important to me, and I tended to gauge which rung of the success in life ladder I was on by the speed and snazziness of my motorised transport. I can still remember being absolutely gutted inside when my wife (at the time my brand new girlfriend) asked if my Alfa GTV V6 was "some kind of sports car?". I mean, it did 0-60 in about 6 seconds, had a V6 engine that sounded like it ate small children and, well, back then it was one bloody sexy car to have. Those words were perhaps the first sign that life would change in a manner that would render the number of horses under the bonnet rather less important than the number of seats in the back!

We are in fact about to take delivery of a new "car". This description is perilously close to breaking various goods description laws I am sure, but it does have four wheels and it drinks diesel and, well, it kinda resembles a car. With a small village inside it. The "people carrier" behemoth will arrive in a few weeks time, and with it the certain knowledge that my speed induced joyriding days are over.

Still, this is something I am happy to "give up" because what has come in the place of fast cars and motorbikes is a family that makes even the most sedate drive to the shops a joyride in itself. Even when there are not comedy moments like the "Nottthiiiing" episode going on, just knowing that my growing collective of great little people are (probably up to no good) in the seats directly behind me makes me smile inanely to myself. I look like a bit of a loon when I am driving you understand.

The little house in the countryside.... Well there's something that would be nice actually! That said, the kind of house we live in is rather less important to us these days than where we live. Proximity to playgrounds, parks, kindergartens, schools, shops and of course Starbucks are of paramount import. When all of these things turn up in the middle of the countryside, that little house is a done deal!

Understand, learn to demand... Nothing changes one's ability to understand different points of view like moving in with a partner, and then having kids. Many years ago, it took me a long time to understand why my discarded socks lying on the lounge floor for two days (or more if I am honest!) annoyed my soon to be wife, although I eventually got to grips with her viewpoint.
Now I find myself regularly jabbering after the kids about discarded clothing and they make NO EFFORT to understand my view! Honestly, kids today. I blame the parents. Anyway, my understanding of just about everything in life has changed exponentially in the last decade; I'm happy to have had my perspective broadened by the kids in the latter part of this, and will strive to make sure that I do really understand their viewpoints when I ground them for bad behaviour in the future :)

Demanding things has never been my strongest point, at least not in an outright sense. I think in the early days of our relationship I probably demanded quite a bit of patience from my wife (see sock issue above for example!), but overall I am generally demanding by behavioural omission rather than by requisition. This has begun to change, as I find myself demanding that Gummisen's teeth be brushed or demanding that I get signoff for recruiting a new team member at work. Perhaps due to my lack of practice in the pastime of making demands I do tend to find that I am thus far rather ineffectual at it. The kids being able to wind me round their little fingers is clearly not a help on the home front! It is a work in progress...

Compromise is something that has had to feature regularly on the agenda in my household over the last decade too, sometimes as a result of my not being good at making demands, and sometimes due to the everyday stuff that comes with a busy family life.

Of late, I have been rather pushed around on a professional front despite trying to demand otherwise; this has led to my family having to compromise a lot of the time, with me spending more and more time on work related matters and spending increasing amounts of time either in the office or typing like buggery on the damn crackberry. Compromise is actually meant to be a concession by both sides, so where my family gives up seeing me for dinner or kids bath and bedtimes a few nights a week, my employers should return the favour by allowing me to start late a few days a week so that I can have breakfast with the kids and take one or two of them to kindergarten / playgroups. Needless to say, I am working on the rather unfulfilled latter part, not aided by the current environment in the banking world and my relatively recent promotion to global Spot monkey herder (which apparently has to consume at least 16 hours of your life every day or you are not doing it right!).

Lie? Me, well, I have been known to fib on occasion but generally I try to avoid this behaviour. It would probably make my life easier sometimes, certainly on the working front, but I find it makes me feel quite uncomfortable and weary. I recently was forced into some pretty duplicitous behaviour in my work role, and found it to be extremely stressful and unpleasant. Some managers evidently find this a relatively easy behaviour to live out - perhaps I'll always be limited by my unwillingness to do it, who knows?

Where this whole post leads is to the balance (Daniel San, I want to add when I hear that expression - Karate Kid is scarily one of my most oft-quoted movies...). Right now, my balance-o-meter is pointing firmly in the favour of the work part of my life. Granted, the aforementioned promotion was expected to carry with it a certain amount of extra workload; my predecessor and good friend Somnam was always in the office later than most people, and I know he took a fair chunk of work home with him too. However, banking circles have changed a lot in the last year and there is now a great possibility that the bonus payments which used to make the level of commitment demanded by this kind of role more acceptable are no longer on the table.

The crunch point I guess is whether the balance is right when you consider the equation :

time spent working plus remuneration (and sense of professional pride) minus time missed with family = happiness? or?

I'm definitely enjoying certain aspects of my expanded role, and generally prefer to be challenged in the workplace. Challenges are certainly not hard to find at work right now; I am juggling more issues than I care to think about too closely at this just-before-bed hour!
I also enjoy all aspects of being with my family, and definitely prefer to be involved and present whenever possible. Spending a week in Asia recently with another one to come and various other "absolutely necessary" trips during the next quarter makes a big dent in the family part of my life, and I am struggling to convince myself whether the equation will ever be properly balanced up by my employers. Maybe I am lying after all, to myself....

I could do with Mr Miyagi stopping by for a quick lesson on finding the balance, UDH San....