My career is taking a back, back seat to everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And I am feeling guilty. I am basically phoning it in at work. Not doing my best work. I think it's nearly impossible to get fired (gov't job), but my mediocre performance is making me feel bad about work generally.
Now that the 2 older kids are school-age, I really feel like I need to be home right at 5 for homework/activities. Plus I have a 2 year old, so I want to hang out with him as much as I can.
So I leave for work at 7 am to ensure a 4:30 departure. So I can't work out in the morning or at night. (Well I could at 8:30 pm, but experience has shown me that I will never, ever do that.) So I go during the work day. Then I do many household tasks at work
- signing up for activities, filling out forms, etc., do I can maximize my 5 pm-8 pm time with the kids.
So I feel like an underperformer at work.
Anyone else feel this way? Anyone have any tips for managing this better?

My taxes are paying for this? Stay at home with your kids - you will be doing the taxpayers and your kids a favor.

[Anonymous]

I can sometimes relate to this, OP, but in my case I'm pretty efficient at work, and have asked for more work, but don't always have enough to fill my 40 hours. So on the days I'm busy, I'm at it 100%, but if I'm not that busy, I use the time to get other things done, like activity signups and bill-paying and workouts.

That said, I also spend plenty of non-work hours at home doing work stuff when I have deadlines. I've gotten pretty good at figuring out when I'm going to have downtime I can use productively and when I'm going to have to give up my home downtime to my job.

I think everyone at my non-government job does the same thing, so I don't feel weird about it. I just assume this is what happens in white-collar jobs - we use some work time for non-work and some non-work time for work because things don't always fall neatly into a 9-5 schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And I am feeling guilty. I am basically phoning it in at work. Not doing my best work. I think it's nearly impossible to get fired (gov't job), but my mediocre performance is making me feel bad about work generally.
Now that the 2 older kids are school-age, I really feel like I need to be home right at 5 for homework/activities. Plus I have a 2 year old, so I want to hang out with him as much as I can.
So I leave for work at 7 am to ensure a 4:30 departure. So I can't work out in the morning or at night. (Well I could at 8:30 pm, but experience has shown me that I will never, ever do that.) So I go during the work day. Then I do many household tasks at work
- signing up for activities, filling out forms, etc., do I can maximize my 5 pm-8 pm time with the kids.
So I feel like an underperformer at work.
Anyone else feel this way? Anyone have any tips for managing this better?

My taxes are paying for this? Stay at home with your kids - you will be doing the taxpayers and your kids a favor.

;

+1. OP if you choose to work for the government, then you choose to work for the people of the U.S. A lot of us resent this attitude.

[Anonymous]

Here's the deal OP, it's up to you to figure this out. Either change your current behavior (i.e. work more at work -- or create more work to do at work), quit your job, or keep on keeping on but do it SILENTLY. Nobody wants to hear your bitching about the fact you get to work out at lunch and get paid for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal OP, it's up to you to figure this out. Either change your current behavior (i.e. work more at work -- or create more work to do at work), quit your job, or keep on keeping on but do it SILENTLY. Nobody wants to hear your bitching about the fact you get to work out at lunch and get paid for it.

Everyone has 1 hour lunch break so nothing wrong with going workout during lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal OP, it's up to you to figure this out. Either change your current behavior (i.e. work more at work -- or create more work to do at work), quit your job, or keep on keeping on but do it SILENTLY. Nobody wants to hear your bitching about the fact you get to work out at lunch and get paid for it.

Everyone has 1 hour lunch break so nothing wrong with going workout during lunch.

Who's everyone? I work through lunch--obviously, I'm in the private sector.

[Anonymous]

OP - here is how you manage it better: QUIT

I'll be sending a $6K check to the government, i.e. YOU, on April 15th this year, in addition to what we've been paying to the government/YOU all year.

Can you tell me why I should be funding your workouts, family chores, online shopping, etc? I doubt you can and either can your fellow low-lifes who have chimed in here in support of you.

[Anonymous]

OP - Are these the kind of habits and morals you are teaching to those darling children you are raising? They must be real winners, just like their mother.

[Anonymous]

It's surprising how much you can get done in a single day if you really focus in on your work for even just 50% of the time you're there. There are meetings, you might fill out a couple forms for your kids' school, you have an hour for lunch, but block out two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon with no mtgs, don't allow yourself to get distracted with personal stuff, DCUM, etc and just really give it your all in that time. You'll get more done than you expect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal OP, it's up to you to figure this out. Either change your current behavior (i.e. work more at work -- or create more work to do at work), quit your job, or keep on keeping on but do it SILENTLY. Nobody wants to hear your bitching about the fact you get to work out at lunch and get paid for it.

Everyone has 1 hour lunch break so nothing wrong with going workout during lunch.

Who's everyone? I work through lunch--obviously, I'm in the private sector.

The federal workday, like a lot of jobs, is 8 hours, with 0.5 hour lunch. If you work through lunch, you can't leave earlier, but if you take a longer lunch (either entirely eating, or go shopping or exercise or whatever), then you stay longer. It's not unusual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal OP, it's up to you to figure this out. Either change your current behavior (i.e. work more at work -- or create more work to do at work), quit your job, or keep on keeping on but do it SILENTLY. Nobody wants to hear your bitching about the fact you get to work out at lunch and get paid for it.

Everyone has 1 hour lunch break so nothing wrong with going workout during lunch.

Who's everyone? I work through lunch--obviously, I'm in the private sector.

The federal workday, like a lot of jobs, is 8 hours, with 0.5 hour lunch. If you work through lunch, you can't leave earlier, but if you take a longer lunch (either entirely eating, or go shopping or exercise or whatever), then you stay longer. It's not unusual.

Private sector people don't work through lunch because they want to leave early. They work through lunch because **they have work to do.**

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the deal OP, it's up to you to figure this out. Either change your current behavior (i.e. work more at work -- or create more work to do at work), quit your job, or keep on keeping on but do it SILENTLY. Nobody wants to hear your bitching about the fact you get to work out at lunch and get paid for it.

Everyone has 1 hour lunch break so nothing wrong with going workout during lunch.

Who's everyone? I work through lunch--obviously, I'm in the private sector.

The federal workday, like a lot of jobs, is 8 hours, with 0.5 hour lunch. If you work through lunch, you can't leave earlier, but if you take a longer lunch (either entirely eating, or go shopping or exercise or whatever), then you stay longer. It's not unusual.

Private sector people don't work through lunch because they want to leave early. They work through lunch because **they have work to do.**

NP here. You can't really compare fed to private on this one. Feds are hourly and the .5 hour lunch is considered unpaid time so you're technically not supposed to work during that time although a lot of feds I know do.