{"id":2570,"date":"2009-02-19T06:45:25","date_gmt":"2009-02-18T22:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=2570"},"modified":"2009-02-19T06:45:25","modified_gmt":"2009-02-18T22:45:25","slug":"work-its-never-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/02\/19\/work-its-never-ending\/","title":{"rendered":"Work? It’s never ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-2004 One of those little things I really appreciate of Ling is that she tries to make sure we go to and come back home from work together every day. Throughout the day too we keep in touch with MSN messages and SMSes. Yep, all those cute \u2018kissie\u2019, \u2018pokie\u2019 messages that you normally akin to courtship LOL.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of those little \u2018couple-time\u2019 things. In the morning trips to work, we\u2019ll brief each other on what will be happening on our respective days at work, and on our return trips home, we\u2019ll debrief, and she\u2019ll also get my capsule versions of news from The Straits Times.<\/p>\n

One thing I ask her often on our return home journeys though is whether she\u2019s got work to do tonight, and she\u2019ll usually reply with a heavy sigh \u201cYa\u2026 work is like never ending.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is one of those things which I\u2019m adamant about though: work should not be brought home<\/span>. For me, answering urgent work emails from home is ok, but not things like marking or lesson preparation materials outside exceptional circumstances. There\u2019s a reason why the Ministry of Manpower has a statutory maximum of 44 working hours per week<\/a> (breaks roughly down to 9 hours a day): it\u2019s work-life harmony, a.k.a. maintaining your sanity, physical and mental well-being, and not getting exploited by your work place.<\/p>\n

OK, so the economy isn\u2019t doing so great now and we all have to work harder to keep our jobs. But if you\u2019re going to work yourself to death, burn-out, go postal because you\u2019ve not had any time to yourself, it\u2019s not worth it then.<\/p>\n

The earlier years of marriage were tough in this respect. I was upset to see Ling bring home tons of scripts, lesson preparation, and text-books every night. After dinner and her quick shower, she\u2019ll be at it from 7:30 pm to 11 pm, often later, and every night.<\/p>\n

Then there was that chain of letters and articles to the forum and mainstream media last year about how difficult being a teacher in Singapore these days, and especially in terms of workload and student discipline and administration.<\/p>\n

What was even funnier was that those letters were invariably written not<\/em> by the teachers themselves, but by their husbands and if I remember rightly, in one instance by the teacher\u2019s parents <\/em>even. Were the teachers themselves all suffering in silence, or were they under embargo not to comment? Either way, I couldn\u2019t agree more with those letters, especially looking at what Ling has to go through.<\/p>\n

What I remark to Ling is that if equilibrium can\u2019t be reached between her mountain of work and a 44 hour \/ week cycle, then something\u2019s deficient. Period. Either the rate of processing work is too slow or inefficient (e.g. spending too much time agonizing over an answer), or the work is excessive vis-\u00e0-vis the 44 hour cycle. If it\u2019s the latter and it\u2019s persistently happening, then it\u2019s a systemic<\/em> problem that the work place must address.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s been small improvements. About a year ago Ling was at a low point trying to finish her work, and turning in at 1 am just trying to finish marking; that was the juncture when I finally got her to making resolutions to at least put aside some time on evenings for us to do things together, and leave whatever she can\u2019t finish in school aside and save it for the next day.<\/p>\n

So, about half the evenings in a week these days, I\u2019ll make her put aside her work and we\u2019ll watch TV (Star Trek Voyager which she\u2019s addicted now to), or play a PS3 game to unwind. Not perfect yet, but it\u2019s a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of those little things I really appreciate of Ling is that she tries to make sure we go to and come back home from work together every day. Throughout the day too we keep in touch with MSN messages<\/p>\n

Read More Work? It’s never ending<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","wpcat-6-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}