The Downside of Flex-Time

Contributed by Bailey McCann

We all work too much, that’s a given. But in our quest for work-life balance are we actually causing our own balance problems? For example, my firm is more flexible than most when it comes to telecommuting and other flexible work solutions. I enjoy these options as much as our working parents do, even though I don’t have kids. I can wait for the plumber or the UPS man and not have to coordinate days off. But I am also beginning to notice the trade-offs that go along with the pervasive quality of flex-time. The separation of “office hours” and “off hours” is becoming smaller and smaller.

When I’m working from home, I often find myself working through lunch. If I only have to pop over to the kitchen and grab something out of the refrigerator, it takes as long as a bathroom break. The half hour I used to relish because it got me out from behind the desk for a little bit has disappeared. Do I take off a half hour earlier? Hardly. In fact, I’m finding myself working longer hours. Why? Some of my colleagues with children start their days later, thanks to flex-time. While it may help them with their morning rush, it kills my evenings. They’re emailing and IMing me well past the dinner hour and expecting responses.

I don’t mind staying late and coming in early, but I have started to wonder whether or not all of this flexibility is fair, or even good for overall productivity. I start my day earlier, and by late in the evening, my productivity is diminished. I’m on brain overload. Yet, my colleagues are catching up after putting kids to bed and not having to sit in a room with Baby Einstein in the background. They are focused and they are looking for a response. As weak as it may sound, at that point, I’m no longer focused. I am ready for a break, I am tired of responding.

In a business world that often demands 24/7 availability, parents have taken active steps in trying to reclaim their right to family. I support and fully understand this desire. However, I get the feeling it would be perceived as taboo, if not completely whiney, to ask for the same type of understanding if I’d like shut down after a 12 hour (or often longer) day just because I don’t have kids in the background.

Children are demanding. They get up early, stay up late and require lots of attention. Even when they get to school, the demands on parents’ time are high. This is why working from home, flex-time, and day care are all must haves for the working parent or parents, as a dual income house-hold is a often a necessity for leading a middle class life in America. No one doubts this, except for maybe the old guard executives and bean counters. Yet where does that leave employees like me? Is it selfish to want to see my significant other for more than ten minutes at night before we both go to sleep? No it’s not a soccer game, chicken pox, or a priceless childhood memory-building moment, but its kind of important to me all the same.

In an episode of the much-loved TV show Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw once addressed a similar dilemma. Fed up with buying gift after gift for the weddings and baby showers of her procreation-minded friends, she asked, “When is it time to celebrate my life choices?” She solved the problem by sending out invites to her self-wedding to a particularly insensitive friend, and informing her that she had registered at her favorite shoe store, Manolo Blahnik. If only the rest of us could find such an elegant solution to the problem of getting our employers to celebrate, or at least acknowlege our life choices.

It’s kind of hard not to resent the flex-time parents at these moments. Their personal choices are limiting mine. There is also no manual about how to approach these situations, at least not one that I have been able to find. So I’m curious: when is it appropriate to say no? What if you don’t have the choice not to respond because you’ve been waiting all day for their response? How do non-parents assert their right to work/life balance too?