old red eye and the underworld

Apparently Jupiter and Pluto are doing funny things to each other today. It's the start of a big new astrological phase of expanding boundaries (Jupiter) and dealing with the unconscious or sublimated aspects of our selves (Pluto). Astrobarry has a lot to say on the matter, and talks of the costs of not initiating change, versus the costs of doing it. This comes as the 'yes please I'd like to go part time in 2008' form sits part filled in on my kitchen table. Funny how even when you think 'yes, I'm going to do it' and read the policy, print the form, later put pen to paper, there is still this urge to keep it small ('oh maybe I can work my exact same hours now but do it in 4 days, that way I wont at least do more than 35 hours a week' - which would mean a reduction in the total amount of work I do plus a day extra of not thinking about it and doing other things) partly because that would also not cut my wage at all - me, despite not caring particularly about having a high income or keeping up with the Joneses still influenced deeply by that sense of 'but you will be GIVING UP SECURITY!!! You will BE EARNING less!" which screams hysterically like the script from some kind of archetypal germ phobic television mother in a nice tailored shirt running in the back of my mind.

Why go part time? (Or as various people at work have said when I've floated the idea "but what would you do on the other day???"). My answer to you guys, but not in this detail to them, is:
- because I have been working really long days at times, and if I am going to do that again next year I would rather only do it 4 days a week not 5, so that I feel better rested and don't burn out and find myself ready to scream "you can all just fuck off, I'm quitting and going to live on an island" (which would be counterproductive as I quite like working there, and know for a fact that islands often have biting insects that I don't like, and anyway, I quite like where I'm living).
- because I would love to have at least one 'work day' where I work on things other than the projects I get to work on through my office job. I'd like to work in the studio, work on my life drawing skills, work on writing things that I think up rather than the things I get asked to write because someone else thinks they need writing, to work on making my local community a more kind and supportive place through getting involved in community projects like mentoring disadvantaged kids or helping set up volunteer programs on peace and ecological issues in Sydney. I'd like to 'work' on my relationships, on reducing my personal ecological footprint through cooking and eating at home and composting my waste, through mending and reusing, through having time to rethink the bigger issues, without feeling like I 'have to' grab another takeaway in a takeaway container because I don't have time to do otherwise. To have time to sweep the kitchen floor and gaze out the back window at the mango tree getting fruit.
- I'd like to reframe things so that my 'work' feels like anything I choose to do that impacts on things around me, whether it pays in dollars per hour, 'pays' me in other benefits, or not. I'd like to redefine my current job from being 'my work' to being 'one of the things I'm working on'/ 'one thing I do', and think of it all as the curent embodiment of my 'life's work'. Or maybe even ditch the whole word with it's 1950's necktie associations and refuse to be told that some things are 'work' and some things are 'play' and think that it is all experience and learning, really it's all just life. I've been to social events that feel like hard work, and had days at work that are sweet and satisfying, so the dstinction seems kind of arbitrary. The cynic in me thinks that work is made out to be very hard and boring to justify the market for fun which is made out to be very satisfying and identity forming (and available for sale). I would rather rethink this distinction for myself.
- I aspire only to be in paid work if it is something I would be happy to do even if I wasn't being paid. This is the 'if I won the lotto would I still go to my day job' type test. That might sound like something that only a middle class educated person in a wealthy western country might have the luxury of saying (if we assume we would only want to do wonderfuly fun and stimulating jobs if we weren't being paid, and assume that only educated and privelidged people have the chance to access jobs like these), but I actually think it's more subtle than that. There are lots of reasons I work, and turn up to work, and money is by no means all of it. I work to try to do something useful, I work to have human contact, I work to help out actual people who would be trying to do it by themselves if others didn't pitch in. I still want to do all of that, and can imagine myself wanting this in all kinds of jobs, not just ones where you get a business card and a desk and your hands stay clean. But... to bring all this waffle back to my actual point - when I apply the 'would I be hapy to do this if I wasn't being paid' question to my job as it has been, I think 'no'. No I wouldn't skip meals and be stressed and get tired doing it. I wouldn't do it for so many hours - it would not be given my attention at the expense of the other things I care about. I wouldn't do projects I'm not interested in. If I had the choice daily of whether to go or not I'd do it, but not for quite so many days, and I'd exert more influence over what things I do while there. Which, paradoxically, is all available to me now, without winning the lotto, but it's so easy to get caught up in 'but its just work, work is like that' mindset.

So... this brings me to - how? What would the part-time set up look like?

Compared to the one I mentioned above, the truly radical option (hey, comparatively) is dropping to 4 days a week and doing only 28 hours (ie not committing to longer days, and taking a pay cut (actually doing only 28 hours would mean 10-15 less work hours a week in practice, but only 7 hours less pay). Or, even more so, dropping to 3 days and doing 28 hours (I find longer days quite useful actually, you get to get a big chunk done, and get some quieter bits of the day when other people go home, and so 9ish hour days seem fine - 12 is not fine, 9 is fine).

Of course either or both of these require that I reduce my pay by one fifth (which I think I can live on comfortably, if a little more frugally), and both require that I establish better boundaries about work and how it interfaces with my other needs (otherwise 3 days would become 4 become 5 become 6 again, 9 hours become 10 become checking work emails from home). But that's OK because I know that getting better at boundaries and being assertive is critical to actually sustaining some kind of career over time (see: island, move to, above).

* Note: job in the mountains before this one was only 3 days, was great, but didn't require any negiotiation and actual exertion of choice on my behalf to make it like that - that was all that was on offer.