LIve to work or work to live?

Read a nice little feature in the Sunday Times "Style" magazine this week about weighing up life and work.

Traditionally  this has been about parents (mostly mothers) fighting to get flexible time at work to spend more time with their families.
Now though it seems some businesses are embracing this but on a different level.
Encouraging parents to work from home, understanding that sometimes great work is produced at 9pm after the kids are in bed, letting people learn to enjoy their jobs again.

Because lets face it, once you have a family your 9 to 5 job can seem like  an 8 hr a day prison, stopping you from getting on with things like LIFE, and really, when you have kids, a lot of stuff happens between the hours of 9 and 5.
Parents evening, sports days, assemblies, Dr and dentist appointments, not to mention all the after school stuff as well.

Anyway, I was thinking that this was all very well but didn;t apply to me, until today.

Now the kids are all finishing at 3.15 instead of 2.30 me and Kim have time to ride out in the afternoon when he comes home.
So we're riding home about quarter to three and pass a guy working on one of the new houses and smile and wave hello.
We receive a surly grunt and slight sneer.
Its obvious what he is thinking.
"Bloody horse riders, very nice for them to be able to play on ponies in the middle of the day while I'm WORKING."

Well yes.. we where enjoying the early afternoon sunshine (and why not? we get precious little of it!) but at 6 pm when he is slumped in front of the TV for the night we are still working.
We had the two youngsters to lunge and school (and Ollie had to have his lesson) then all the yard work to do. Right now its 9.30 pm and we are just about to go out and feed up the stabled horses.
While that guy is wandering round town on a Saturday morning we will still be working, and on Sunday when he gets his lie in we will be up at 6 am like we are every morning.
No we don't work 9 to 5 but when you add up the hours spent working with other peoples horses, barefoot trimming, breaking and schooling the babies and all the yard and field work that goes with that we do as much of not more than the guy on the building site.

The hours suit us.
Its all about compromise.
We get to pay in the afternoon but we might have to work on a Sunday.
We get to attend school functions and pick the kids up from school, rather than having them bused to after school club, but we have to sometimes work late at night.
The point is the flexibility suits us.
Its a job we love.

Mr 9 to 5 might not want to give up his Sunday lie in, and that's fine, but maybe he should remember that not everyone works to a prescribed formula.

And not everyone wants to.