April 10, 2026

That’s a Day I Work in Person

What a privilege to be able to work remotely even part of the time and to make my own schedule for the most part at one of my part-time jobs. This is obviously a first world problem, but it’s one of those inconveniences for the Sandwiched who work outside of the home.

When one of my four children, or one of my parents has or I have an appointment to go to, I have to recite the two days of the week when I work outside of the home during the college school year because (while not impossible) it is very difficult to switch my schedule of if I cannot come to work on those two days when the university is open and I am there all day and have many days when my schedule is packed tightly with face to face meetings. As a contractor at this particular job I do not get paid if I am not at work to do the job that I am contracted to do. I can switch to another day of the week and have done so a few times, but it’s often challenging for the students to switch and meet with me on a different day because their schedules are not always the same on the other day.

And the days of the week I work at this job in person are consecutive so the scheduler at the doc offices or hair place or car place or vet or pet groomer etc tend to think that I said that I cannot do days that for them go together like Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday or they think that I said a CAN do the days that I am explaining are the two days I am unavailable. So it’s pretty often that I am repeating what does not work for my schedule more than twice for the benefit of each place I am calling for an appointment.

I think I am managing my expectations and getting ready to self-regulate, but it is also true that when it takes quite a bit of time from the moment I call and am on hold to when we finally choose a day of the week, date, and time that works, I’ve about had it by then and am not looking forward to the next call.

And then there’s my husband who likes to try to insist that I schedule ALL appointments (except of course his) when I can handle them without involving him because he is the one with the full-time career and in theory less flexibility than I have and he wishes I wouldn’t work so much so I can take care of more related to home and I am doing my best to shift us into more of a team mindset as I enjoy the work I do and want to continue growing an expanding into different roles professionally.

But in the Sandwiched season it is tough to find all of the flexibility needed to get everything done for everyone while working. Thankful on one hand that we can get by without me working full-time but on the other hand I worked hard to be where I am and want to continue to take advantage of more opportunities, but everything that needs to be done for the home and multi-generational family only seems to increase. My husband is doing more, but doesn’t want to be and our parents pitch in in certain ways but at the core of it is this is the assumption that it mine (a lot of it) unless I find a willing person to help out, not so much that it all belongs to us and we are figuring it out together.