It’s all about balance. And I don’t have any.
This morning, like most Friday mornings, my local cafe chick asked expectantly ‘what’s on for the weekend?’. Her boss and I exchanged the kind of incredulous look that only two people who earlier that morning had given thanks for surviving yet another week would know. ‘Nothing much’, I meekly replied, trying to sound aloof and as if I was still wading through my bountiful options. While he made my coffee, her boss and I discussed how we couldn’t even remember the last time when our weekend was bigger than our week. The truth is, most Fridays I almost weep with relief that it’s nearly the weekend. The weekend where I can just work one job a day and slowly put myself back together, ready to do it all again the next week.
Like a lot emerging photographers who still work two jobs I live crazy hours. On a normal week I clock up about 70hrs between two very diverse careers; one right brain and one left. In my own imagination the tango that the hemespheres of my brain dance each week goes a long way to keeping me sane, for now. The two jobs could not be more different if they tried. During the working week I manage a team who look after a complex intellectual portfolio that generates in excess of $100 million per year. Together we leverage the resources of a large organisation and we edit, we negotiate, we soothe, we cajole, essentially doing whatever is required to keep clients happy and get the job done. And we’re good at it. At all hours outside of that I am a team of 1, doing all my own marketing, post production, graphic design, selling, negotiating, web maintenance, counselling, soothing, encouraging and the myriad of other things it takes to run a business on your own.
I know I don’t have a ‘good’ worklife balance; I see the signs. The dishes that pile up, the chores that get ignored, the exercise and nutrition that don’t happen (I know eating cereal for dinner is wrong, ok?). All of which is compunded lately by the tut tutting Bureau of Statistics lady who rings me monthly for the compulsory Government Working Survey I have to do for 8 months. ‘How many hours did you work last week?’, she asks. ‘About 70hrs’, I say. ‘Oooohh, I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but….’, she says, and then I feel like I need to go for a stint in the naughty corner.
I hear the bell tolling, I know I can’t keep living this way forever. And I don’t intend to. It just is what it is, for now.
Behind the lens with Louise 