Does anyone else have a job where work doesn't stop once you

[kayakjenn]

Get home?

i'm in sales. I spend most of my day driving in the car from account to account. In between there are a ton of phone calls to return and I can get to some emails but basically every night there is about 2-3 hours of follow-up work that needs to be done. I've been doing the job for 8 years and now I'm finding myself coming home and shutting down, thinking I'll get to it in the morning. Nope, not happening.

it piles up and I end up sacrificing weekends trying to get caught up. Eventually it all gets done but it's happening at the last minute before a deadline or after the customer reminds me they didn't get their literature or whatever. 

I know teachers face this all the time. How do you maintain the balance between work and home and keep up the momentum to get things done once you've come home and closed that front door?

By the end of the day I'm just DONE and that's not how this job works. 

[cinnamoncox]

Yup. Real estate agent. There's really no on/off. However the work flows I have to go with it. I might be working like a dog then have two days down time, only to start the crazies again.
It sucks because time is of the essence in this business of contracts and deadlines etc, so I can't just say screw it I need from ten pm to bedtime to relax, I'll take care of it in the morning. I have to attend to things right away.
I wish it were different and I often fantasize about a job where I leave work at work.

[Saint Monica]

Yes

[luckyval]

I used to have a job like that. I'd have to leave dinner parties to go into work. Nights, weekends, holidays...all that. The biggest stress was missing bedtime. Some nights I'd run home so I could put the baby to bed and then head back to the office for the rest of the night.

The wake up call for me was during a marriage counseling session when H said my job was putting a strain on us. When we left and I turned on my cell phone there were multiple text messages about a work emergency. And that's when I knew I needed to find a new line of work.

[tdk2]

Yup. Ours consumes our life a lot and there's not a lot of truly off time. Luckily ours does have a slower time of the year (still on all the time, but it's not as hectic).

We know this won't be our lives forever though.

[schitzengiggles]

I don't but DH does. He is an IT Marketing Technologies Supervisor, with some overseas team members. So they are working when he is not, and he ends up answering emails and texts from them.

[yourmother]

I'm in a similar position, except that my day is identical to yours when I travel (which can be anywhere from 1-3 weeks out of the month). While I'm in my office, I have more traditional 9-5 schedule.

I will say that I send myself to-do calendar alerts for things that need to be done on that same day. This takes a lot of the guesswork on what I need to do in a certain time period and sets the expectation up front of things I MUST do on that day.

[Deleted]

Yes. I'm constantly dealing with work issues that have to be dealt with immediately. O and I get home at 5:30, and I basically do everything with her until she goes to be at 7:30. I consider that my break time, essentially. I've just scheduled my time as much as possible, like I know I need to send at least 5 emails by 8:30 every night, so it's just sort of lumped in with my evening duties like laundry, cleaning the kitchen, jogging, etc.

ETA: I also am in the office by AT LEAST 6:30 every morning. I can get so much work done before the office gets full, it really helps clean my plate. 

[katfco]

I don't work right now, but Dh's job is like that. He runs the websites for several newspapers, and even when someone else is technically in charge of it, he still checks to make sure things get posted and is constantly having to deal with emails and other releases. It's better now that winter is over, but during winter he would spend hours posting school closings and dealing with all of that stuff.

[Deleted]

In a word...yes.

To quote my boss, "It's not a 40-hour work week!"

[janegold]

Work never ends for me. Some things I can deal with the next day and some I can't. But I can't just ignore anything.

[blanca]

I don't anymore but a few years back I was in a managerial position where I was basically on call all the time. I only lasted 9 months

[noodleskooze]

I'm a teacher and feel this way. I have a lot of papers to grade, and I find it hard to give them thorough attention at work. I usually spend a good 20 minutes grading each paper, but I've had to cut that down just based on the amount of time I have after school.

[hymen]

Another teacher here. I try to get as much done at school but grading and lesson planning inevitably comes home at least a few times a week. Right now it feels weird not to have any school work to do since I am on maternity leave.

[joenali]

Another teacher. I usually take a load of stuff home on the weekend to plan for the next week so I don't take work home during the week. Sometimes I stay pretty late to get caught up on things during the week, but usually I'll spend a few hours on Sunday prepping for the week.

[flex]

Yes I do. Basically I'm "on-call" for my peeps. I'm salaried so I'm not paid OT. Not many of them have my cell phone number (there's a reason for that lol) but I keep in touch at night and on the weekends via e-mail.

[IndiaInk]

I'm a farmer, and own another small business, so that would be a resounding "yes". During the spring/summer/fall I get home at whenever it gets dark and we work most weekends too. Maternity leave - what's that? Haha! At least I can have my baby with me, and I LOVE what I do. If I didn't love my job, I would never work this much.

[IndiaInk]

This reminds me that I heard on the news yesterday that France has passed a new labor law forbidding work emails/calls after 6pm.  Lol.  I guess France can kiss the global economy goodbye!

www.engadget.com/2014/04/09/french-labor-law-work-emails/

[flex]

Apr 11, 2014 9:08:48 GMT -5 IndiaInk said:

This reminds me that I heard on the news yesterday that France has passed a new labor law forbidding work emails/calls after 6pm.  Lol.  I guess France can kiss the global economy goodbye!

www.engadget.com/2014/04/09/french-labor-law-work-emails/

It's not a law--more like  proclamation.

[Deleted]

Yup I'm a recruiter and have to work around physician schedules.