• Question: Is it easy to balance family life and your work life?

    Asked by ellisk to Amit, Emily, Joanne, Martin, Paige on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Martin Wallace

      Martin Wallace answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      I find it very easy to balance work and social life. I’m lucky at the moment because I have a job where I am not expected to stay at work any later than 5:00. This means I have a long evening every day to do whatever I want with. On Fridays I get to leave at 3:00 which means I get a head start on my weekend.
      I think it is very important to keep time for your family and not to let your work life impact on it. I spend my time realxing with my wife and seeing friends in the evening, also I make sure that any problems I’m having at work I don’t worry about at home. In my eyes I’m getting paid to be at work for 37.5 hours and my own time is my own (but I do still enjoy work when I’m there!)

    • Photo: Emily Bullen

      Emily Bullen answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Yes, very easy. 37.5h a week mean that I work 8-4.30 most days, and tend to leave earlier on a Friday. If I wanted to work different hours I could, and if for example I need to go to the dentist in the afternoon (on one day go to school plays!) I don’t need to take holiday, I can just work those hours some other time.
      Also, I don’t stress about work when I’m home. Interesting problems might trot around in my head sometimes, but I don’t have so much pressure that I can’t switch off.

    • Photo: Amit Pujari

      Amit Pujari answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      ellisk,

      I sometimes find it difficult to balance family and work life. But that is because I am finishing my PhD and also doing a full time job ( 37.5h a week ). But still I dont find it to hard to manage. Evenings and weekends are completely free for me.

    • Photo: Joanne Davies

      Joanne Davies answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Finding balance in my family life and work life has been pretty easy ellisk.

      I work Monday to Thursday and usually I’m home by early afternoon on a Thursday, so that gives me plenty of time to spend with my three grown up children and the rest of my family.

    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      Hi again ellisk!

      I think for me, yes! I try to put my family life first… Family and friends are very important, and in the end, how you treat people is the most important thing you do on a daily basis, not your work.

      Luckily for me, much of my work life is very social – developing relationships with the scientists I interview, talking to motivated and fun high school students interested in engineering 😉 – even my boyfriend is an engineer, so we talk about all kinds of scientific and technical stuff all the time!

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