Part-time

I really like my job.

I can't remember that last time wholeheartedly felt that way about work. Ask Daniel or my friends, I do not live to work. My ambitions in life for career grandeur are fleeting. Quickly replaced by dreams of living in a foreign country, by sabbatical years, by trying my hand at hairdressing, teaching, writing, by summers of hiking the grand canyon and staying home with my babies. My most common experience with work is finding it a nuisance that keeps me from being where I want to be- outside, with time unstructured.

Yet, these days I can honestly say that I really like my job as a senior policy advocate at The Vote Solar Initiative. It could be that I have five very clever co-workers and office mates that make showing up in our unheated, warehouse space worthwhile. It could be that after a year and a half, I have gotten the hang of the complicated solar policy design that we promote. The work I do is anything but rote- the outcomes of solar policy are yet to be proved. Often we are learning as we go or from a small set of experiences. It makes it all very interesting, and challenging. It could be that I only go into the office three days a week. Three days a week is the perfect amount to make the thinking and the completing of tasks a treat.
Part-time is all part of my Grand Plan. The baby was just a stepping stone in the Grand Plan to work part-time. In American working society, part-time employment does not exist in jobs that are interesting, substantive and well-paid. I know I looked for them. Americans are productive. And if you can do something well, your boss wants you to do it as much as you can. That's 40 hours or more. So with the Grand Plan in mind, I spent the first year at Vote Solar as a full time employee. I knew once I had a baby that I would have the leverage I needed to request to move to part-time. And it worked. The recession worked in my favor of requesting less hours and less pay. The less pay is taking some getting used to.
However, part-time now doesn't allow for afternoon bike rides, and all day craft projects. But nonetheless, the result is that I enjoy work more than ever. For most people that's a rare thing, for me even moreso.

Here's the team at Vote Solar. This picture is either our album shot or a police line-up.