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....

The best bit....

Like most things in life, how I feel about travelling changes as I get older and my priorities and outlook change.

As a youngster, the best bit about going on holiday was the anticipation and the START of the trip. Like Christmas eve, I could never sleep properly the day before we went off on holiday, and the excitement of travelling to the airport, and then getting aboard the plane, often seemed to outstrip anything that followed during our week or ten days in Magaluf . I remember being particularly excited about the taxi-ing and warm-up of engines part, rather than the take off itself. Even ear popping on the descent was something I looked forward to!

As time wore on, I began to enjoy the 'middle bit' of travelling most, particularly when my wife and I got married abroad and spent a fantastic few weeks in sunny luxury and the worries of the world were distant. We are fortunate to have been able to travel to a lot of nice places in arelatively short space of time and I cherish the relaxed and romantic memories as travelling with the family obviously changes that to quite an extent!


Travelling with the kids has several especially good bits in fairness - normally the first one is the "aaah... we're finally sorted" part of having arrived at our destination and got the little treasures to bed. Our last holiday had a particularly good part early on in the trip when our eldest girl, having had a sudden and irrational fear of getting into swimming pools that lasted for 18 months, suddenly decided it was brilliant again, and that Daddy and middle girl had to join her at every waking moment. The pride I felt as she thrashed her way along with a veritable assortment of flotation aids attached, shouting "I'm swimming I'm swimming" will never leave me.

Getting home again with the kids is also a triumphant moment, especially if the return trip has gone smoothly, without any projectile vomiting on the plane or tantrums or little people getting lost in the airport. We're blessed (touch wood) with three kids that have thus far been pretty tranquil about travel, so generally we get back to chez UDH feeling pretty happy about the whole experience.

Travelling alone for business has one truly good bit. The coming home bit. I've spent a week or thereabouts away from home now and it feels like a year. I fully expect to find Flisan, my middle one, has dyed her hair green and got a nose ring, and that my eldest Gummis has started dating a kid that plays in a rock band at school. My little boy Gubban, who was 3 and a bit months old when I left a week ago, is probably walking and all of them will have steadfastly forgotten who I am.

Thankfully I had a super-enjoyable last 5 hours in HK, systematically trying to shift some wealth from Germany to HK in the form of credit card obliteration, and the assortment of presents for all will hopefully refresh their memories.

I've missed them all SO much. The best bit is definitely the coming home bit.

So, I finally join the blogosphere...

After many a month spent viewing a number of excellent blogs, I've decided to join the madding crowd and stick a few thoughts into cyberspace and see if they find any signs of life.

My profile says a bit about me, and posts in the future will probably tell you a lot more, if you come back! The official writing on the UDH Boy tin says "Head of spot fx trading for a European bank" on the side of it with "Lucky husband and Dad of three great kids I'd break down walls for" on the front and back. My beautiful family get a lot less of my time than they deserve, but they mean everything to me, whilst my work demands a lot more of my time than I actually get paid for, and I often wish the lotto man would come and make it all go away!

A common issue no doubt and absolutely one of the occasionally droned tones I will come back with presently.

It's not without a decent dollop of apprehension that I start this process - some of the wittiest, cleverest and most liked people on the planet seem to inhabit a very busy and sometimes cliquey-feeling world here on blogspot, and I know that this is just one blog hosting venue among practically gabillions out there on the interweb thingy.
My blogging skills are probably not up to any clever tricks like strikethrough text and photo montages, although I could probably find a youtube clip to show me how to do it... something to do at "work" tomorrow then.

That all said, we all like to be as funny and well liked as the next man...I now generally sit next to an empty seat in my workplace, so with that particular goal well and truly conquered I feel obliged to listen to the self indulgent imp that sits on my shoulder saying "wriiiite something! (and try to make it funny)".

My inital hopes for the blog are actually just to write something that I like, and hope similarly warped others find it interesting, funny, thought provoking or just useful for those bouts of insomnia which even the Nytol won't touch.

My topics of expertise are rare and revolve pretty much exclusively around a couple of pairs of fast moving numbers on an altogether bigger than necessary array of computer screens (* or the results of Birmingham City FC in seasons 1983/84 - 88/89).
My topics of knowing-a-little-bit-about-that are a bit more common and varied and probably, upon reflection, a lot more interesting. Although you are all going to enjoy some lovely nostalgia about the downs and downs of The Blues in my latter formative years. Oh yes you are!! (panto will not normally feature).

I'll sign off now as it is way past bedtime for me, but hope to kick things off aproper tomorrow. Till then, as we Birmingham supporters say, Keep Right On...