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One of the most difficult
aspects of owning your own business is convincing those close to you that
you actually work for a living.
There is a general public
consensus that self-employed people put up a monumental struggle to survive,
working long hours for what they hope will be future reward. But
unfortunately, that consensus does not always extend to spouses. Especially
those spouses who stay at home with young children.
"So, what did you do today?"
asked my wife, Fidelity, as I trudged through the door of my home the other
night after another grizzly stint at my business.
I detected the usual note of suspicion in
her voice, but I tried to ignore it. "I don’t know," I replied,
wishing to change the subject. "Lots."
"Like what?"
I had been gone 10 hours. I knew I had
accomplished many valuable tasks, but as usual, I was having trouble
recalling exactly what they were.
"You know, the regular," I
said. "This and that."
Fidelity wasn’t sure whether to press
further. But the look on her face told me that once again I had failed to
convince her of my invaluable contributions to the day-to-day operations of
my company.
"All right, you got me," I
said, slightly perturbed. "I got to work and Ms. Ferguson (my loyal
office manager) had already spread the blanket across the office floor. Then
she opened the wine, laid out the cheese and crackers, and we spent the day
having our usual picnic!!!"
"Oh," replied Fidelity as she
folded the laundry. "Lucky you."
This, of course, is not a problem
associated solely with the self-employed. With marriage firmly defined as a
competition in suffering, almost all spouses battle over who had the
toughest day and deserves the most sympathy.
My problem is that I always lose.
Fidelity, who have up her budding career as an environmental consultant to
be a full-time mother, stays home with a 2-year old and a 3-year old.
I can say without equivocation that I
would rather dig ditches for 14 hours a day than trade places with Fidelity.
But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up the battle for sympathy. That would
be suicidal.
I’ll continue to struggle to find a way
to adequately describe what I do. A truck driver can come home and report
that he did 800 miles. A bank teller can wave her paycheck and boast that
she put in 12 hours of overtime.
Me? I get no paycheck and all I can
report at the end of the day is that things are continuing to run somewhat
smoothly and I think I had something to do with it.
But I’ve got to come up with more
details. Otherwise, I’ll be faced with more incidents such as last week,
when smack in the middle of my busy work day, Fidelity stopped by and
dropped the kids off.
"Fidelity!" I cried. "This
is a business. It’s not a place for little kids."
"It will just be for a couple of
hours," she replied, giving me that look that clearly inferred I was an
insensitive slob for thinking my inconsequential piddling around the office
was more important than spending time with my children.
"Don’t leave me!" I wailed as
the 2-year-old eagerly headed for my desk drawers and the 3-year-old began
to dial Moscow on my phone. "I’m really busy, I swear."
"I’ll be back as soon as I
can," she chirped, closing the door.
She returned 2 hours, 12 minutes and 32
seconds later. It was the longest 2:12:32 of my life. My office was
ransacked, the floor a sea of scribbled drawings and paper clip trains. I
had tried to get some work done but had been interrupted every, oh, 3
seconds or so.
"How did it go?" asked Fidelity
upon her return.
"Wonderful," I lied. "The
boys were great." I couldn’t resist a little honesty. "It was a
little tough getting any work done, though."
It was exactly what Fidelity was looking
for. "See how hard it is," she replied.
The battle had begun again. "Hey, my
job is tough, too," I said, "I’ve got tons of miserable things
to do that can’t be interrupted by playing daddy during the work
day."
I cringed, knowing it was coming, knowing
I would lose again.
"Like what?" asked Fidelity.
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