Sometime over the weekend, I came down with the flu. Between two papers that are due for school and legislative season at nonprofit job, I simply can’t afford to fall behind. Due to the wonder of technology, nonprofit job allowed me to work from home since most of my duties are web-based, and I can access my PC at work through remote desktop.

Yesterday, I was simply too sick to work. I tried it, and the mental haze only made matters worse. This morning I woke up early, set up an office in the dining room and have attempted to reason things out. It sucks to work, but at least I can wear my pajamas, and my bed is only a room away.

It made me laugh today while reading Vol Abroad’s post about maternity leave. Thankfully, that’s a concept that I’ve never needed to consider nor will need to for quite some time. However, this comment almost made me spill my green tea over my keyboard.

Although as a professional I usually work quite a bit more than my mandated 35 hours a week - but if you’re an American reader - I’d bet good money I don’t work as much as you do.

Understatement of the day. Here I am, a full-time graduate student with the flu and a fever, and I’m working from home to meet a deadline at my part-time job. By nature I’m a workaholic, just like McGuyver Dad, but living in DC has made the matter worse. I was IMing a co-worker last night, and she was still at the office at 9 p.m. trying to meet her own deadline (there’s a new web site that’s supposed to go live today.) Not only are we workaholics as a nation, but this city is packed with type-A overachievers who put way too much importance into their careers. It’s a crazy cycle that is easy to get trapped in. How else do you explain the 20% marriage rate here?

I’m betting that Washingtoninans largely don’t take their vacation time and work far more than 40 hours a week. One nice thing about being hourly is that I’m forced to go home at some point. Once I get a salaried position, that’s it. Heaven help me if I give in and get a BlackBerry once I graduate.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 3:40 pm and is filed under nonprofit job. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.