In today's episode, Laura and Sarah chat live, answering listener questions about a variety of topics! Topics include:
- all about the podcast itself (the time it takes, division of labor, etc)
- advice for returning to work part time
- dream travel destinations
- thoughts about future child care arrangements
- ways to address loaded questions at work after mat leave return
- where do all the episode / blog post / writing ideas come from!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in mid July of twenty twenty four.
We're going to be doing an all mail bag episode,
and as we've done with some previous mail bag episodes,
Sarah and I are actually sitting here right together, this
time in my office in a suburb outside of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So welcome to the Philadelphia Regions. Thank you so much.
I love coming here.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And this time I was super excited to maybe get
a break from the heat, and then I got none.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. So it is ninety four degrees today and very humid.
I went outside this morning thinking I'd have a nice,
pleasant cup of coffee with the cool era in the morning.
And I was quickly dispused of that notion. It was
like already eighty plus degrees and like ninety percent humidity,
So I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What could I say?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It was no worse than I'm used to, so that's good.
We went running this morning along the Schoogle, and I
think a lot of the natives were unhappy, and we
were like, this is business as usual.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, this is nothing unusual for us.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
A train for a marathon in this sort of weather,
I guess. But yeah, you so you're visiting your parents
as you often do for the Fourth of July and
any sort of festivities you guys did while here.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So yes, this is our third consecutive visit during this
time of year. The first though, where Josh came along
with us. I think he was on call. The last two.
We went to the zoo yesterday and that was pretty
much it. We spent a lot of time hanging out
with my knees. She's super cute, the age where she
can really play with everyone. We just like destroyed all
the toys in her face. I mean not destroyed. We
(02:06):
made a mess in her basement.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
It was great.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, mostly just kind of hanging out. Short trip, but fun.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, well, and currently our husbands are entertaining our children
in my pool and hopefully that is going well.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
There were I have to say, I had put away
the water guns in.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
The storage area, thinking maybe it was a lot of
kids in the pool, maybe the water guns would have
added to the chaos, and then they were immediately found.
My kid went in to find something else and all
of a sudden, out they came.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So here we are.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think they're going to have a great time, and
we are going to make this episode as long as
we can.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Just getting avoiding the pool and all that is associated
with it right now. I mean, it's a good day
for the pool, but it's also also good day to
not be in the pool.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So all right, So we're doing a mailbag. These are
questions and send it and by listeners.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
As always, if you have a question that you would
like to send in, feel free to email it to
me Laura and Laura Vanderkam dot com. You can post
it on either of our blogs. We got some questions
as well from our Patreon community, which we'd love to
how people join, but we will go ahead and.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Dive right in.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So first question, how much time do you spend on
the pod in a given week, and that means outlining, recording,
coordinating with guests, your Patreon community, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So, Sarah, what about you. It's hard to calculate.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
If I had a time log, I could probably answer
this more accurately, because it really does vary a lot
from week to week. Some weeks are pretty heavy where
we might spend I might spend a couple hours like
drafting episodes, and then we're recording that same week, so
we're spending a couple of hours recording. Then there's like
the post recording kind of processing stuff, and then there's Patreon.
So I'm gonna guess it maybe averages to two to
(03:55):
three hours per week. Yeah, probably with the Patreon probably
about three.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and some of the Patreon community time. It's more like,
you know, you're just on an Internet forum and it's
kind of fun to do. Like it's another social media
type thing that's not as terrible as some social media
and so as being a closed community, it's kind of
more fun. So it's the sort of thing that I
feel like I might be participating in any way, even
if I weren't doing it as part of our podcast.
(04:25):
So yeah, I'd say three hours is about it. I
fun fact, I don't really break stuff out on my
time logs like categories of work. Sometimes I do, but
it's not comprehensive, like I might just say what I
was doing, but I have I tend not to really
add it up by different categories. But yeah, an episode
tends to take about an hour between recording and the
(04:50):
sort of starting and ending stuff around it. The notes
for an episode can take about an hour, but we
trade off on those ads take some time. Patreon takes
some time, but given that it's one episode a week,
you know.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
And then there's this sort of organic back and forth
when we come across a good idea, like I'll just
text Laura, ooh that seems cool, or we'll get a
pitch on email and we kind of send that back
and forth, and that's sort of just in the background
a lot, but it's it's generally fun.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So yeah, I say, I'm not like adding up all
the time I've spent texting with Era, and then like,
you know what, I separate out what is me showing
her my funny Fourth of July outfit versus what should
we do about this guest? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, and then ad recording is another. The ad recording's
funny because that's probably one of the least flexible aspects
of it, because sometimes you do have a more specific deadline,
so that can be harder to plan around than some
of the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But we get it done. Yeah, we get it done.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And so then there's a follow up question of how
best of both world is structured and how we decide
who will do what tasks, what percent of the overall work.
Has that changed over the years as Sarah's career has evolved.
How do we split revenue? I mean the revenue is
fifty to fifty. That's pretty straightforward answer. It's just pretty simple.
(06:10):
We split anything we make down the middle. We do
have like kind of our own tasks that we generally do,
like when we record afterwards, I like put the notes
up and I put everything on this app that we
use to communicate with our sound team. If it's a computery,
I feel like I'm more doing it. If it's like
business y, Laura's doing all of it.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
And Laura does the blog post every week on her
website and definitely does about two thirds of the Patreon.
Although I keep trying to like I need to increase
my Patreon. I'm working on it.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I love doing it, and I tend to do it
on Thursdays and then yeah, but you have so much
to say, You're like Monday, Tuesday, and then sometimes there's
something on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I'm like, wait, where is this all coming from? This
font of discs? Points? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Now, and as for who does what on different things,
like with guests, it tends to be either who found
the person who is interested in the topic, if somebody
hasn't done one lately, so because sometimes that happens that
somebody's done three in a row, and then we try
to trade it off because we're trying to roughly keep
it equal with that. Yeah, I would say it's more
(07:23):
like who's interested in the topic or person.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I mean, not that the other person isn't interested.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
If somebody's like, wait a minute, why did you interview
that person?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Then I tend to take the doctors because it's like, oh,
I think I'll be able to think of kind of
backstage things to ask them that are fun, and I
feel like you take more of the writers.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I probably do more of those, but yeah, there's
no rule to it. We're very flexible and back and
forth on a lot of different things. All right, So
this question is that this person is always impressed by
the amount of writing and ideas that both of us
produce weekly in the form of blogging, newsletters, podcast topics.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Both of us have two podcasts.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
She says, I'd really be interested in you talking doing
some sort of dive into how you manage to come
up with your ideas and execute on them. So, Sarah,
maybe you can talk through between blog best laid plans,
like where's it coming from?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, I have no system. You have no system. Okay,
that was our answer, all right.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
No, I mean if I have an episode, do somehow.
I generally am able to come up with something. Sometimes
write when I need to. I mean I do write
out when I'm going to say for both podcasts. So
it's not like I'm talking off the coff into a
mic and haven't prepared. But I will say there is
something too knowing you are recording on a given day
and need to come up with notes to make the
(08:46):
ideas flow. I think that our listeners come up with
awesome ideas. So we're always getting things from the Patreon,
from our blogs, from comments or I have some friends
that tend to listen to the podcast, and we'll text
me suggestions and I do so that two and sometimes
we just text kind of back and forth. Plus when
we go on vacation, like little not vacations, our little
(09:08):
work trips, we tend to like brainstorm a whole bunch
of things at once, and then we can kind of
use that treasure trove for a little while.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, and we've definitely gotten better at it, I would say,
as we're coming up on seven years of doing the podcast,
like the first time, you know, when we started off,
we'd be like, let's do an episode on childcare.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
We're like, okay, we'll do an episode on childcare.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And then we realized, like a couple of years in,
like that is not a topic that is like a
bad Yeah, No, that's just like, I mean, it's a topic,
but it's not an angle, like you need some sort
of angle that makes it more interesting. Whereas like this,
a couple of weeks ago, we did one that was
like summer Challenges, and then there were like four b challenges, right,
(09:47):
I mean, that's more of a podcast episode title. And
so we've gotten better about thinking of what would truly
be a compelling podcast. I think in the course of
seven years of doing this, the guests, a lot of
people write to us and say they'd like to be
on the show, and we're always happy to have those.
(10:09):
I mean, we're definitely interested in real people. Again, if
there's some sort of interesting, counterintuitive, offbeat angle to what
you're talking about that is a particularly compelling story for us.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
We always like that we.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Look ahead and see who has books coming out or
a podcast that might want to do some sort of
swap with us. Those are how we get those kind
of guests, just looking forward with those And.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
To be clear, we don't take every pitch be yet
Lars like, they're always happy to I mean, we are
always happy to.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Look at them.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And actually sometimes we'll see something and then later on
think of, oh wait, what about that person, So that
definitely happens, and then there are plenty of things that
were like this is great, but we've had very similar
things on it already, so we'll think of something else.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, I mean, And also just like reading a lot,
like if you're walking around the universe and reading things
or reading other blogs or reading people's posts on stuff,
or seeing what people get excited about or what's a
problem in your life. Those are all ideas, and I
just keep lists. I keep running lists. That's how I, yeah,
come up with stuff like that other podcasts too. I
(11:18):
definitely sometimes riff off of or something like One of
the most potent things is if you disagree with something, yeah,
and you find the passion coming out because somebody's saying
something there like wait a second, I have my own
take on that. Then that is a natural title and
topic for your own podcast. I feel like I do
that a lot on Best Laid Plans, maybe less on here,
but sometimes we do that.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Sometimes we do that too.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
But you organize everything and like in what format, well
do you'll come out with I come out with a
lot of content.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You come out with even more content, So best of
both worlds.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I have a running spreadsheet that is the official schedule,
and I try to have that done at least a
couple weeks ahead of time, with different topics that I
have come up with that I think would be an
interesting angle. Same thing I mean with vander Hacks, I'm
about a week and a half ahead. That's my substack newsletter.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I just brainstorm ideas when I am planning my upcoming week.
I'm often sitting there writing ideas, and if I have
more than five, then I can push stuff forward to
the next week if I think they're all usable.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I feel like ideas come they helped generate themselves. Like
if you think of like I always need to be
coming up with ideas, then you start coming up with
more ideas because your brain is just in that mode.
It's open that first spreadsheet you mentioned you meant before breakfast, right, Yes,
I'm sorry. I was like, is there a secret, secret
spreadsheet that I didn't tell sir about? There needs to
(12:37):
be more of a slow spreadsheet for our upcoming episodes.
I do have a low sort of spreadsheet in Apple notes.
I wouldn't totally call it a spreadsheet, but okay, I'm
sorry I misspoke, but yes, the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
There should be one too. All right, Well, we're going
to take a quick ad break and we'll be back
with more of our mailbag. Well we are back.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
We are talking all things mail bag here. We've got
a lot of listener questions that came to us. So
this next one, what travel destinations do you hope to visit?
In the next one to two years. Well, so that's
kind of an interesting quite one to two years because
I bet one year is mostly set for you or.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah, I think we should answer this question, but I
think we should also answer longer term, and we should
tell listeners how we like track these ideas.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yes, I think that's a fun thing to talk about.
All right, how about you next year?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Okay, next year? Actually, I haven't totally decided for next year.
I think we're going to do some kind of ski trip,
but maybe Pocono East Coast, which we haven't done something
like that. The variable is we need to make sure
there is really good ski instruction for Genevieve in particular,
because without that, I don't think it would be that
fun of a trip. And then we do want to
(13:59):
do our first European family trip next summer, so we've
actually started talking about destinations. Josh is really big on
Denmark fun, which I think would be yeah, really fun.
And again, as always, we're like, where is it cool? Yeah,
because we want to leave the heat. So I've also
had the fun idea of maybe taking Iceland air so
we can do like a prolonged lay over in Iceland
(14:19):
and they do actually fly to Denmark. It looks like
as well, so we'll see if that ends up being
our summer and then you guys have a cruise, Well
this is summer twenty twenty five. Yeah, I'm getting way ahead,
like cause it's that's a whole year. And yeah, we
have a cruise in spring of twenty twenty five. Yeah,
but that's just like a chill friend trip. That's like
we're going nowhere. We're going to like Disney Islands.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's not that far for you guys.
It's like it's like being in a boat down the
school kill for us.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Like literally we leave out of Fort Lauderdale and then
we go to like the two private islands, which are
probably like a couple I mean, it's not it's more
of an extended friend plateing with beaches, with beaches and.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
A boat, a very big boat, guys. Next one to two.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Years, all right, so we are figuring out Christmas and
spring break for the next year. It's possible there will
be Hawaii and Costa Rica are the two destinations that
are currently the front runners for those. There is a
good chance that Jasper and I will be going to
France in June of twenty twenty five, because that is
(15:23):
a choir tour that we.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Will be going on together, So that would be fun.
That is so fun. Yeah, I love that, Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
But looking forward from that, we have a couple things
that are on the list. I definitely want to go
to Japan with Sam because that is something he has
been interested in for a long time, and so I
think we will do that before he leaves the house.
(15:52):
I personally want to go to Germany and do a
bach tour, go to Leipzig and the other places around there.
Maybe I'd do that over I mean it might be,
you know, Europe's better in the spring and summer. But
on the other hand, I want to do the Christmas markets.
Like It's sort of a long story, but we went
(16:13):
to Germany in winter of two thousand and eight to
sort of two thousand and nine, like around Christmas then,
and I wanted to go to the Christmas markets, and
we kept spending too long at places and not leaving
in time into the markets would be closed, like when
I when we got to the town where they would be,
and so I wouldn't really get to go to them.
(16:34):
So I would like to rectify that, and maybe that
involves traveling by myself so that my plans can't get
derailed by people staying too long at other sites. You
could spend hours.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I could spend hours at the Christmas and Christmas Martha.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It might be a trip by myself or maybe a
friend who also likes these things. I probably will not
be other members of my family, let me just put
it that way.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Probably some good beer too, that's true. The beer.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Leave everyone else at the pub and I go do
the Christmas markets.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
So yeah, yeah, those are a couple of ideas that
I want to do. The National Parks in Utah.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Oh yeah, I've seen photos of those and they look amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
They look amazed.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The rock formations that are just wild, and you.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Can hit a couple, like if you were there for
like two weeks, I think you could hit several of
them if you timed it right and got your reservations done.
You'd probably have to plan this like a year out
in order to make that work, But if you wanted
to do that as a trip, then you could totally
do that. So that's on my list as well.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
We also going further out from one year definitely want
to do Hawaii for our twentieth wedding anniversary, this time
with kids, but we did go there on our honeymoon,
so it's kind of meaningful to plan on going back.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, excellent, Well those are that's a lot of places.
I guess we got to get ordergotized on office.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So how do you track this? Do you have any.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, the problem is, I mean it's hard to look
out more than twelve months. I tried to have a
general sense of what we're the different vacations over the
next twelve months because we tend to only travel when
the kids are off school, and so if I wind
up traveling somewhere cool for work or whatever, that's kind
of a bonus. But the family vacations, it's Christmas spring break.
(18:17):
I mean, you could do February that we get a
fairly long President's Day, but it's not like a full
week or anything. It's just it's like four days. So
we have done stuff. But I don't know if we're
going to try to do that again because it's challenging.
But so Christmas spring break, try to maybe do two
things in the summer that tends to be how it goes.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
One thing that I am learning now is that certain kids'
activities and sports are shockingly strict about when they prefer
you travel and when they not. There is language in
our new gymnastics team that is like, you may not
travel more than three consecutive days from this month to
this month. So and I remember friends with older kids
(18:58):
telling me this and me being like, whatever, I'll just
ignore it.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And then you're like, oh, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Because if you've committed to something, then you don't want
to be especially if it's a kind of team thing,
because then it's like, oh, I the one messing everybody up,
or for soccer where they have tournaments, et cetera. So
I actually am finding it much more fun to travel
as the kids have gotten older and a little bit
more complicated.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Although again, like Christmas tends to be good because you know,
most people aren't going to make you do stuff on Christmas.
But then again, the problem is is when everyone else
is traveling. I mean, this is always the issue. It's
yes we can travel over Christmas, and yes we can
travel the week before Easter, but that is when literally
everyone else is also traveling.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So I'm pretty resigned to that piece. I will say
I've had some Christmas trips that were like shockingly chill,
like going skiing over Christmas. It was jolly, it was lovely,
and it wasn't terribly crowded.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, sometimes it's weird, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Sometimes it's like things you think would be crowded aren't
so we I mean, this is like a not a
big trip. But on the fourth of July, we decided
to do a family bike trip at Valley Forge, right
because there's a loop there with the bike trails, and
I was sort of thinking, I don't know that this
is a good idea, Like if Valley Forge is gonna
be crowded at any day, like I think the fourth
(20:14):
of July, like Valley Forge National Park, we're gonna go see.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Where George Washington.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Like if you're thinking, oh, where can we go on
the fourth, that like seems to be a place that
people might go.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And yet it really wasn't that bad. Honestly, was not
that bad at all.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I mean it was a little crowded around the visitors
like Visitors Center, but once you got about half a
mile away from that, I guess nobody walks further than
half a mile.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
We're just like not that many people, So it was
pretty cool. I think that everyone is down the shore. Yeah,
maybe everyone's down the shore.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
That's been my arms every time we come. I'm kind
of like, it's not too busy right now. I'm like, oh,
they're all in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Well, it's funny that you say down the shore because
we found everyone goes south to Cape May and Avalon
and Ocean City and that's we go straight east.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
So the store, you go east. You can't stay down there.
And I guess I wouldn't be down the shore, would it.
Philadelphians always say down the shore.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I know, but we're not going down You're right like
you're going up to Yeah, slightly up and do east.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So so funny. All right, moving on from that one.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
All right, So, Sarah, this person is wondering recommendations or
tips for making your in office days count. And you
have some experience with this because obviously you know your work.
Some days you're in the office and other days you're
doing something completely different.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, other days I'm like, consider myself like completely separate
from the office. I think it's just very important to
cultivate those relationships while you are there, make sure you
do the lunch and say yes to be in person
meeting and stop by somebody's colleague's office and ask how
they're doing. Like it's the time to do that, softer piece,
because when you're at home, like that's not going to
(21:55):
come very naturally. I mean avoiding going to meetings in
person whenever you can, even if there's an option, even
if it involves like walking to another building, depending on
what you do, can be worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You mean going to them, Yeah, going to them.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's how you said avoiding No, No, like going going
to them, going to them physically and not zooming.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yes, don't zoom when you're in person.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yes, now, I think and even sort of having in
mind that your days in the office are social, because
I think sometimes people still have it here. They're like, oh, well,
I need to get my work done, so shit chatting
with a colleague is separate. But it's like no, no,
when you're at your home office, you can do your
(22:37):
stuff like then you can put your nose to the grindstone,
do all your individual deliverables, all that your days in
the office. Ideally you are not showing up just to
call and email people in other places like that makes
no sense, and I'm sorry if your employer is making
you go in to do that like that. There are
very strict guidelines on when you have to go in,
but if you have some flexibility with definitely thinking of
(23:01):
those in office days as more social, like make sure
that you are booked for lunch, make sure that you're
planning on meeting somebody for coffee, or at least have
an idea of who you might ask, so that you're
making the most of those in person connections.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
If there's anything that needs brainstorming, in person is so
much better. For some reason, I feel like it's so
much easier to play off of other people's ideas when
you are together.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Hence why we talked about earlier.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Laura and I like to like plan out our season
when we can actually see each other and talk face
to face. So think of your in office days as
like idea generating connections.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So another career related question, this person says, I may
be going back to part time contract work shortly after
a break from work. Any tips or tricks on how
to start well in a new role, but also word
off burnout from the beginning. So yeah, I think the
thing with part time work and certainly what you've discovered, Sarah,
(23:57):
I mean, you really want to be clear on your boundaries.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yes, extremely clear, and those boundaries include time and scope.
So it's like I work these days and I'm responsible
for these activities because I do think you know, one
of the things we warn against with part time is
you just become very vulnerable to doing a full.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Time job and getting part time pay.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And that is not going to be a recipe for
avoiding furnout since that's what you're looking to do. So
being very clear about those things, even having them, I
don't necessarily know, if you know, it depends on the culture,
et cetera, whether that would be appropriate to put in
writing to somebody else, but at least put him in
them writing to yourself, so you have an idea of
what your goals are. And if there's some way of
(24:37):
chatting with whoever hired you to make sure, like, oh,
we're all in agreement about X, Y and Z, then
that will be very helpful. And if you can get
them to put that in writing, probably even more so.
And the fact that you're a contract employee, this might
be realistic because they hired you to do a specific thing.
They didn't hire you to be a piece of the
corporate machine. They're hiring you to do that thing that
(24:58):
you're expert in. With that said, since you chose to
take this position, make sure what you are spending your
time doing are those super valuable things. Then I'm sure
they're excited about you bringing to the company. And if
you find yourself being asked to do things that are
not things you love to do, not are things that
are your valuable skills, then you may want to be
(25:18):
careful about that and try to address them explaining that hey,
you're here to do XYZ.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And you're not going to be able to accommodate AP
and C.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, and this person maybe it may have an hourly
rate associated with that, in which case I think that's
actually a very fair way to compensate people in this
kind of work, because then you're tracking your hours and
if they are asking you to do more than the
scope of what you agreed to do, then guess what
you're getting paid more and then you can decide if
that's worth it a long term with this gig, but
(25:48):
that would be great, and if it's not that, then
maybe try to keep track of that on your own
so there's some record of how much you are actually working.
I think it'd be very good to bill your time,
even if you don't officially bill your time on that,
but also make sure that you are doing cool stuff
outside of work. I think one of the best ways
to ward off burnout is to have a cool life.
(26:09):
I mean, we draw energy from meaningful things. And the
opposite of burnout isn't like it's engagement, right, Like, it's
being engaged in your life. And so that's great if
your work feels engaging and wonderful, but if this is
also just a way to make some money, which is
totally cool, make sure you've got some other cool stuff
(26:30):
going on in your life as well, whether that's joining
the softball team, playing pickleball every Thursday with a picklebar partner,
or whatever it is. But just that you have other
cool stuff going on in your life in the hours
that aren't work will also help ward off burnout.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yes, because you are choosing to be part time at
a cost right like you could have been full time,
So make sure you're making those hours worthwhile. That doesn't
mean not to rest, it doesn't mean not to pack
in every little thing, but again, I like that. Make
sure you're and things that feel really fun and worthwhile
to you.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
All right, Next question, this person says, I am headed
back to work soon after having twins, who are her
last kids? Having had twins, she has four children ages
five and under. She says she lives in a part
of the world where many mothers either go part time
or stay home with young kids, so she knows she
is going to be a serious exception I guess at
(27:23):
her workplace and in her general community.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
She is bracing herself for that somewhat.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Looted question that she will probably get people saying, oh, well,
you know they're only young once, or some male colleagues
saying things like, yeah, my wife didn't go back to
work after we had ex kid because child care costs
more than what she made. What is a good way
of answering those comments. She is especially worried if they
might come from some of her supervisors who say things like, oh, well,
(27:52):
this is such a special time, just enjoy it. Why
are you in a rush for a promotion? Oh my goodness, Sarah,
what do.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
You think about this one?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Oh? I feel so bad for anyone that has to
face that, But I know it is a reality in
some cases. I mean, I think emphasizing that you really
enjoy your work and you're happy to be there. I mean,
if I had a supervisor say that, I'd be like,
I am enjoying it, and I'm also enjoying being here.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
This project is really fun.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I don't know this, this is super super carb, but
I think I would emphasize how much I was happy
to be back.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, and you don't have to answer the question that
is asked. We've been on the receiving end of this
as people who are interviewing other people that it is
entirely possible to pivot to say, oh, that's such an
interesting question, and that's such an issue, and like, have
you considered this.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
When you say something that is totally.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Different from what they ask, right, And when you're interviewing
someone this is really really annoying. But if you are
just making polite conversation, which presumably is what everyone is doing,
then you have to I think you just pivot and
be like, oh, yeah, the kids are amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
There's someonet of a did you see their picture? Oh,
they're so cute, and this is a great project. Can
I tell you my ideas for this right, It just
like move on right, like move on from it.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I actually think the barrage of kid pictures might be
a perfect way to do it because it would do
two things. A Like, they're never they're gonna learn because
they're not gonna really want to see the barrage with
good pictures most likely. And number two, if you show
them the pictures from the weekend where you're like, look,
this is us at the pool and this is us
at the blae it's like, oh wait, okay, I guess
they are spending a good amount of time together and
maybe it would pin the back of their brain that's like,
(29:39):
maybe she doesn't want to do that every single day
Monday through Friday. I mean, I guess it depends on
your line, I know, but I would also. I mean,
this is something you might want to think about long term.
If you truly are getting sort of paternalistic kind of
things from your supervisor about why are you in a
rush for a promotion, which is a nicer way of
(30:00):
saying working moms don't.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Get promoted around here, I.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Think you might want to be putting some feelers out
for other managers you might want to be working with.
Let's just put it that way, and that sucks, but
it may be the case. All Right, we're gonna take
another quick ad break and we'll be back. Well, we
(30:29):
are back talking all things mail bag and we are Sarah,
you moved away from the question. I we're here, live together.
Sorrys in charge of the notes, and all of a
sudden the notes disappeared, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Thinking about adding another question, but we'll see if it
gets I think we're good by the way. I think
listeners should know that a little ping popped up with
like clearly was like pictures of videos of our children,
our children, I mean daredevil stunts off of the diving board.
But we haven't heard any screams, no no been.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
No spas.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
So yeah, well, well, just if it dings again, there's
nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I don't know how to turn it on.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I mean, obviously do not disturb somewhere on here, but
we have to be on the internet, so I gotta
figure that out anyway. Okay, last question, is there a
next step once kids are bigger beyond nanny age for
either of you that you have considered? So, Sarah, I
mean at the point where kids can be home by themselves.
I mean, maybe your oldest is even driving, Like, what
(31:27):
do you think that would would look like?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, I mean we I guess just a review. We
do currently have a full time nanny who doesn't really
work full time hours most weeks. Some weeks she comes
close if there's a really loaded activity schedule or days
off from school or things like that, but a lot
of other weeks we don't really need anybody in the
morning currently most days. Next year is going to be
(31:51):
a very weird year because we have one kid at
one school, two kids at another school, and I think
that's going to weed to increase complexity. That's going to
be get definitely important to have full time coverage, But
I do wonder about some kind of shift after that,
particularly if we end up putting all three kids in
the same school again, then there may be other options.
(32:14):
I would personally love to have our same nanny. I
just wonder if there may be a point when we
do something a little bit different with the hours, if
we can find an arrangement that everybody that works for everybody,
Because she.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Does a lot of household stuff for you, right, like, yeah,
that she cooks, she does laundry, she cleans, up.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Correct, she cooks, she cleans, she does a lot of
that stuff. Well not clean, it's not like heavy duty cleans,
but there's definitely plenty of household stuff. However, my kids
are getting to the point where they can help with
some of that. It's less of that complete and utter
chaos that we had when the kids were little.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
I do think about it wouldn't be for next year,
but like whether there might be a slightly different arrangement
that would make sense a year and a half from now.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, I mean, we still have young kids too, and
it's as the kids get older, you wind up needing
help with the driving a lot. And I think people
wind up not having full time care often too soon.
Like they they're like, oh, well the kids are in school,
but you're only in school from like nine to three,
and it's one hundred and eighty days a year, whereas
(33:20):
a work here is like two hundred and forty days,
and kids get sick and kids, you know, there's random
half days and you might travel for work, in which
case like that doesn't really work if both of you
are out of town and somebody needs to be around
because there's a random half day or whatever, and you
can create a really complex schedule, but it also is
(33:42):
very helpful to have another person who is available for that.
So just cautioning people not to give up the coverage
too soon, I think we've seen a lot of people
transition to more of a like household manager role that
somebody can do a lot of the things. Like you know,
if you're going to do that bathroom renova, maybe you
don't want to manage it. That would be something that
(34:02):
somebody could take on or organize the house, get rid
of all the stuff, the baby clothes that need to go,
or repair the mailbox that got knocked over, or you know,
make dinner, do laundry, whatever. So lots of different things
that could still be done, and that's often helpful to
not have to have either you or your partner do
(34:25):
it if you're both working more than full time hours.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Do you think you guys will make any kind of
shift at any point.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
I mean, you know, I do I think we'll need
full time coverage when Henry is like fourteen, No, and
he's the only kid at home. But on the other hand,
he wouldn't be able to stay home by himself, so
for like overnight night yeah, so, I mean, you'd still
need to figure something out for that, but we'll see
how long Michael's doing what he does or you know.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
I can't picture our youngest ones home. Well I think
about that a lot, actually, because I'm like, oh, right,
Genevieve entering high school will be an only child at home,
assuming everybody follows the conventional path to college, and that
is kind of wild. It's also like, I don't know,
you have to be careful with that math because then
you realize like, it isn't that far away, which is.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Why we're enjoying it a lot now, right, Lots lots
of fun with the kids, lots of adventures, I mean definitely.
I mean with that last question, I think they're only
young ones, yes, and we are enjoying all of it
while still doing our full time job, so there's no
contradiction there whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
That's the whole message of best of both worlds one
hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, All right, Well, this has been our mailbag episode.
We are sitting here in my home office outside Philadelphia,
where Sarah has joined me and our kids are hopefully
still in the pool, but we will be back next
week with more on making work in life fit together.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in mid July of twenty twenty four.
We're going to be doing an all mail bag episode,
and as we've done with some previous mail bag episodes,
Sarah and I are actually sitting here right together, this
time in my office in a suburb outside of Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So welcome to the Philadelphia Regions. Thank you so much.
I love coming here.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And this time I was super excited to maybe get
a break from the heat, and then I got none.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. So it is ninety four degrees today and very humid.
I went outside this morning thinking I'd have a nice,
pleasant cup of coffee with the cool era in the morning.
And I was quickly dispused of that notion. It was
like already eighty plus degrees and like ninety percent humidity,
So I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What could I say?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It was no worse than I'm used to, so that's good.
We went running this morning along the Schoogle, and I
think a lot of the natives were unhappy, and we
were like, this is business as usual.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yes, this is nothing unusual for us.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
A train for a marathon in this sort of weather,
I guess. But yeah, you so you're visiting your parents
as you often do for the Fourth of July and
any sort of festivities you guys did while here.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So yes, this is our third consecutive visit during this
time of year. The first though, where Josh came along
with us. I think he was on call. The last two.
We went to the zoo yesterday and that was pretty
much it. We spent a lot of time hanging out
with my knees. She's super cute, the age where she
can really play with everyone. We just like destroyed all
the toys in her face. I mean not destroyed. We
(02:06):
made a mess in her basement.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
It was great.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, mostly just kind of hanging out. Short trip, but fun.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, well, and currently our husbands are entertaining our children
in my pool and hopefully that is going well.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
There were I have to say, I had put away
the water guns in.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
The storage area, thinking maybe it was a lot of
kids in the pool, maybe the water guns would have
added to the chaos, and then they were immediately found.
My kid went in to find something else and all
of a sudden, out they came.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So here we are.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think they're going to have a great time, and
we are going to make this episode as long as
we can.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Just getting avoiding the pool and all that is associated
with it right now. I mean, it's a good day
for the pool, but it's also also good day to
not be in the pool.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So all right, So we're doing a mailbag. These are
questions and send it and by listeners.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
As always, if you have a question that you would
like to send in, feel free to email it to
me Laura and Laura Vanderkam dot com. You can post
it on either of our blogs. We got some questions
as well from our Patreon community, which we'd love to
how people join, but we will go ahead and.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Dive right in.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So first question, how much time do you spend on
the pod in a given week, and that means outlining, recording,
coordinating with guests, your Patreon community, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So, Sarah, what about you. It's hard to calculate.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
If I had a time log, I could probably answer
this more accurately, because it really does vary a lot
from week to week. Some weeks are pretty heavy where
we might spend I might spend a couple hours like
drafting episodes, and then we're recording that same week, so
we're spending a couple of hours recording. Then there's like
the post recording kind of processing stuff, and then there's Patreon.
So I'm gonna guess it maybe averages to two to
(03:55):
three hours per week. Yeah, probably with the Patreon probably
about three.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, and some of the Patreon community time. It's more like,
you know, you're just on an Internet forum and it's
kind of fun to do. Like it's another social media
type thing that's not as terrible as some social media
and so as being a closed community, it's kind of
more fun. So it's the sort of thing that I
feel like I might be participating in any way, even
if I weren't doing it as part of our podcast.
(04:25):
So yeah, I'd say three hours is about it. I
fun fact, I don't really break stuff out on my
time logs like categories of work. Sometimes I do, but
it's not comprehensive, like I might just say what I
was doing, but I have I tend not to really
add it up by different categories. But yeah, an episode
tends to take about an hour between recording and the
(04:50):
sort of starting and ending stuff around it. The notes
for an episode can take about an hour, but we
trade off on those ads take some time. Patreon takes
some time, but given that it's one episode a week,
you know.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
And then there's this sort of organic back and forth
when we come across a good idea, like I'll just
text Laura, ooh that seems cool, or we'll get a
pitch on email and we kind of send that back
and forth, and that's sort of just in the background
a lot, but it's it's generally fun.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So yeah, I say, I'm not like adding up all
the time I've spent texting with Era, and then like,
you know what, I separate out what is me showing
her my funny Fourth of July outfit versus what should
we do about this guest? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, and then ad recording is another. The ad recording's
funny because that's probably one of the least flexible aspects
of it, because sometimes you do have a more specific deadline,
so that can be harder to plan around than some
of the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
But we get it done. Yeah, we get it done.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And so then there's a follow up question of how
best of both world is structured and how we decide
who will do what tasks, what percent of the overall work.
Has that changed over the years as Sarah's career has evolved.
How do we split revenue? I mean the revenue is
fifty to fifty. That's pretty straightforward answer. It's just pretty simple.
(06:10):
We split anything we make down the middle. We do
have like kind of our own tasks that we generally do,
like when we record afterwards, I like put the notes
up and I put everything on this app that we
use to communicate with our sound team. If it's a computery,
I feel like I'm more doing it. If it's like
business y, Laura's doing all of it.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
And Laura does the blog post every week on her
website and definitely does about two thirds of the Patreon.
Although I keep trying to like I need to increase
my Patreon. I'm working on it.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I love doing it, and I tend to do it
on Thursdays and then yeah, but you have so much
to say, You're like Monday, Tuesday, and then sometimes there's
something on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I'm like, wait, where is this all coming from? This
font of discs? Points? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Now, and as for who does what on different things,
like with guests, it tends to be either who found
the person who is interested in the topic, if somebody
hasn't done one lately, so because sometimes that happens that
somebody's done three in a row, and then we try
to trade it off because we're trying to roughly keep
it equal with that. Yeah, I would say it's more
(07:23):
like who's interested in the topic or person.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I mean, not that the other person isn't interested.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
If somebody's like, wait a minute, why did you interview
that person?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Then I tend to take the doctors because it's like, oh,
I think I'll be able to think of kind of
backstage things to ask them that are fun, and I
feel like you take more of the writers.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, I probably do more of those, but yeah, there's
no rule to it. We're very flexible and back and
forth on a lot of different things. All right, So
this question is that this person is always impressed by
the amount of writing and ideas that both of us
produce weekly in the form of blogging, newsletters, podcast topics.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Both of us have two podcasts.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
She says, I'd really be interested in you talking doing
some sort of dive into how you manage to come
up with your ideas and execute on them. So, Sarah,
maybe you can talk through between blog best laid plans,
like where's it coming from?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, I have no system. You have no system. Okay,
that was our answer, all right.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
No, I mean if I have an episode, do somehow.
I generally am able to come up with something. Sometimes
write when I need to. I mean I do write
out when I'm going to say for both podcasts. So
it's not like I'm talking off the coff into a
mic and haven't prepared. But I will say there is
something too knowing you are recording on a given day
and need to come up with notes to make the
(08:46):
ideas flow. I think that our listeners come up with
awesome ideas. So we're always getting things from the Patreon,
from our blogs, from comments or I have some friends
that tend to listen to the podcast, and we'll text
me suggestions and I do so that two and sometimes
we just text kind of back and forth. Plus when
we go on vacation, like little not vacations, our little
(09:08):
work trips, we tend to like brainstorm a whole bunch
of things at once, and then we can kind of
use that treasure trove for a little while.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, and we've definitely gotten better at it, I would say,
as we're coming up on seven years of doing the podcast,
like the first time, you know, when we started off,
we'd be like, let's do an episode on childcare.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
We're like, okay, we'll do an episode on childcare.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And then we realized, like a couple of years in,
like that is not a topic that is like a
bad Yeah, No, that's just like, I mean, it's a topic,
but it's not an angle, like you need some sort
of angle that makes it more interesting. Whereas like this,
a couple of weeks ago, we did one that was
like summer Challenges, and then there were like four b challenges, right,
(09:47):
I mean, that's more of a podcast episode title. And
so we've gotten better about thinking of what would truly
be a compelling podcast. I think in the course of
seven years of doing this, the guests, a lot of
people write to us and say they'd like to be
on the show, and we're always happy to have those.
(10:09):
I mean, we're definitely interested in real people. Again, if
there's some sort of interesting, counterintuitive, offbeat angle to what
you're talking about that is a particularly compelling story for us.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
We always like that we.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Look ahead and see who has books coming out or
a podcast that might want to do some sort of
swap with us. Those are how we get those kind
of guests, just looking forward with those And.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
To be clear, we don't take every pitch be yet
Lars like, they're always happy to I mean, we are
always happy to.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Look at them.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And actually sometimes we'll see something and then later on
think of, oh wait, what about that person, So that
definitely happens, and then there are plenty of things that
were like this is great, but we've had very similar
things on it already, so we'll think of something else.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah, I mean, And also just like reading a lot,
like if you're walking around the universe and reading things
or reading other blogs or reading people's posts on stuff,
or seeing what people get excited about or what's a
problem in your life. Those are all ideas, and I
just keep lists. I keep running lists. That's how I, yeah,
come up with stuff like that other podcasts too. I
(11:18):
definitely sometimes riff off of or something like One of
the most potent things is if you disagree with something, yeah,
and you find the passion coming out because somebody's saying
something there like wait a second, I have my own
take on that. Then that is a natural title and
topic for your own podcast. I feel like I do
that a lot on Best Laid Plans, maybe less on here,
but sometimes we do that.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Sometimes we do that too.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
But you organize everything and like in what format, well
do you'll come out with I come out with a
lot of content.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You come out with even more content, So best of
both worlds.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
I have a running spreadsheet that is the official schedule,
and I try to have that done at least a
couple weeks ahead of time, with different topics that I
have come up with that I think would be an
interesting angle. Same thing I mean with vander Hacks, I'm
about a week and a half ahead. That's my substack newsletter.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I just brainstorm ideas when I am planning my upcoming week.
I'm often sitting there writing ideas, and if I have
more than five, then I can push stuff forward to
the next week if I think they're all usable.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I feel like ideas come they helped generate themselves. Like
if you think of like I always need to be
coming up with ideas, then you start coming up with
more ideas because your brain is just in that mode.
It's open that first spreadsheet you mentioned you meant before breakfast, right, Yes,
I'm sorry. I was like, is there a secret, secret
spreadsheet that I didn't tell sir about? There needs to
(12:37):
be more of a slow spreadsheet for our upcoming episodes.
I do have a low sort of spreadsheet in Apple notes.
I wouldn't totally call it a spreadsheet, but okay, I'm
sorry I misspoke, but yes, the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
There should be one too. All right, Well, we're going
to take a quick ad break and we'll be back
with more of our mailbag. Well we are back.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
We are talking all things mail bag here. We've got
a lot of listener questions that came to us. So
this next one, what travel destinations do you hope to visit?
In the next one to two years. Well, so that's
kind of an interesting quite one to two years because
I bet one year is mostly set for you or.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah, I think we should answer this question, but I
think we should also answer longer term, and we should
tell listeners how we like track these ideas.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yes, I think that's a fun thing to talk about.
All right, how about you next year?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Okay, next year? Actually, I haven't totally decided for next year.
I think we're going to do some kind of ski trip,
but maybe Pocono East Coast, which we haven't done something
like that. The variable is we need to make sure
there is really good ski instruction for Genevieve in particular,
because without that, I don't think it would be that
fun of a trip. And then we do want to
(13:59):
do our first European family trip next summer, so we've
actually started talking about destinations. Josh is really big on
Denmark fun, which I think would be yeah, really fun.
And again, as always, we're like, where is it cool? Yeah,
because we want to leave the heat. So I've also
had the fun idea of maybe taking Iceland air so
we can do like a prolonged lay over in Iceland
(14:19):
and they do actually fly to Denmark. It looks like
as well, so we'll see if that ends up being
our summer and then you guys have a cruise, Well
this is summer twenty twenty five. Yeah, I'm getting way ahead,
like cause it's that's a whole year. And yeah, we
have a cruise in spring of twenty twenty five. Yeah,
but that's just like a chill friend trip. That's like
we're going nowhere. We're going to like Disney Islands.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's not that far for you guys.
It's like it's like being in a boat down the
school kill for us.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Like literally we leave out of Fort Lauderdale and then
we go to like the two private islands, which are
probably like a couple I mean, it's not it's more
of an extended friend plateing with beaches, with beaches and.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
A boat, a very big boat, guys. Next one to two.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Years, all right, so we are figuring out Christmas and
spring break for the next year. It's possible there will
be Hawaii and Costa Rica are the two destinations that
are currently the front runners for those. There is a
good chance that Jasper and I will be going to
France in June of twenty twenty five, because that is
(15:23):
a choir tour that we.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Will be going on together, So that would be fun.
That is so fun. Yeah, I love that, Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
But looking forward from that, we have a couple things
that are on the list. I definitely want to go
to Japan with Sam because that is something he has
been interested in for a long time, and so I
think we will do that before he leaves the house.
(15:52):
I personally want to go to Germany and do a
bach tour, go to Leipzig and the other places around there.
Maybe I'd do that over I mean it might be,
you know, Europe's better in the spring and summer. But
on the other hand, I want to do the Christmas markets.
Like It's sort of a long story, but we went
(16:13):
to Germany in winter of two thousand and eight to
sort of two thousand and nine, like around Christmas then,
and I wanted to go to the Christmas markets, and
we kept spending too long at places and not leaving
in time into the markets would be closed, like when
I when we got to the town where they would be,
and so I wouldn't really get to go to them.
(16:34):
So I would like to rectify that, and maybe that
involves traveling by myself so that my plans can't get
derailed by people staying too long at other sites. You
could spend hours.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
I could spend hours at the Christmas and Christmas Martha.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It might be a trip by myself or maybe a
friend who also likes these things. I probably will not
be other members of my family, let me just put
it that way.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Probably some good beer too, that's true. The beer.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Leave everyone else at the pub and I go do
the Christmas markets.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
So yeah, yeah, those are a couple of ideas that
I want to do. The National Parks in Utah.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Oh yeah, I've seen photos of those and they look amazing.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
They look amazed.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
The rock formations that are just wild, and you.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Can hit a couple, like if you were there for
like two weeks, I think you could hit several of
them if you timed it right and got your reservations done.
You'd probably have to plan this like a year out
in order to make that work, But if you wanted
to do that as a trip, then you could totally
do that. So that's on my list as well.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
We also going further out from one year definitely want
to do Hawaii for our twentieth wedding anniversary, this time
with kids, but we did go there on our honeymoon,
so it's kind of meaningful to plan on going back.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, excellent, Well those are that's a lot of places.
I guess we got to get ordergotized on office.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
So how do you track this? Do you have any.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, the problem is, I mean it's hard to look
out more than twelve months. I tried to have a
general sense of what we're the different vacations over the
next twelve months because we tend to only travel when
the kids are off school, and so if I wind
up traveling somewhere cool for work or whatever, that's kind
of a bonus. But the family vacations, it's Christmas spring break.
(18:17):
I mean, you could do February that we get a
fairly long President's Day, but it's not like a full
week or anything. It's just it's like four days. So
we have done stuff. But I don't know if we're
going to try to do that again because it's challenging.
But so Christmas spring break, try to maybe do two
things in the summer that tends to be how it goes.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
One thing that I am learning now is that certain kids'
activities and sports are shockingly strict about when they prefer
you travel and when they not. There is language in
our new gymnastics team that is like, you may not
travel more than three consecutive days from this month to
this month. So and I remember friends with older kids
(18:58):
telling me this and me being like, whatever, I'll just
ignore it.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And then you're like, oh, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Because if you've committed to something, then you don't want
to be especially if it's a kind of team thing,
because then it's like, oh, I the one messing everybody up,
or for soccer where they have tournaments, et cetera. So
I actually am finding it much more fun to travel
as the kids have gotten older and a little bit
more complicated.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Although again, like Christmas tends to be good because you know,
most people aren't going to make you do stuff on Christmas.
But then again, the problem is is when everyone else
is traveling. I mean, this is always the issue. It's
yes we can travel over Christmas, and yes we can
travel the week before Easter, but that is when literally
everyone else is also traveling.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So I'm pretty resigned to that piece. I will say
I've had some Christmas trips that were like shockingly chill,
like going skiing over Christmas. It was jolly, it was lovely,
and it wasn't terribly crowded.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, sometimes it's weird, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Sometimes it's like things you think would be crowded aren't
so we I mean, this is like a not a
big trip. But on the fourth of July, we decided
to do a family bike trip at Valley Forge, right
because there's a loop there with the bike trails, and
I was sort of thinking, I don't know that this
is a good idea, Like if Valley Forge is gonna
be crowded at any day, like I think the fourth
(20:14):
of July, like Valley Forge National Park, we're gonna go see.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Where George Washington.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Like if you're thinking, oh, where can we go on
the fourth, that like seems to be a place that
people might go.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And yet it really wasn't that bad. Honestly, was not
that bad at all.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I mean it was a little crowded around the visitors
like Visitors Center, but once you got about half a
mile away from that, I guess nobody walks further than
half a mile.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
We're just like not that many people, So it was
pretty cool. I think that everyone is down the shore. Yeah,
maybe everyone's down the shore.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
That's been my arms every time we come. I'm kind
of like, it's not too busy right now. I'm like, oh,
they're all in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Well, it's funny that you say down the shore because
we found everyone goes south to Cape May and Avalon
and Ocean City and that's we go straight east.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
So the store, you go east. You can't stay down there.
And I guess I wouldn't be down the shore, would it.
Philadelphians always say down the shore.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I know, but we're not going down You're right like
you're going up to Yeah, slightly up and do east.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
So so funny. All right, moving on from that one.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
All right, So, Sarah, this person is wondering recommendations or
tips for making your in office days count. And you
have some experience with this because obviously you know your work.
Some days you're in the office and other days you're
doing something completely different.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, other days I'm like, consider myself like completely separate
from the office. I think it's just very important to
cultivate those relationships while you are there, make sure you
do the lunch and say yes to be in person
meeting and stop by somebody's colleague's office and ask how
they're doing. Like it's the time to do that, softer piece,
because when you're at home, like that's not going to
(21:55):
come very naturally. I mean avoiding going to meetings in
person whenever you can, even if there's an option, even
if it involves like walking to another building, depending on
what you do, can be worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
You mean going to them, Yeah, going to them.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's how you said avoiding No, No, like going going
to them, going to them physically and not zooming.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yes, don't zoom when you're in person.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yes, now, I think and even sort of having in
mind that your days in the office are social, because
I think sometimes people still have it here. They're like, oh, well,
I need to get my work done, so shit chatting
with a colleague is separate. But it's like no, no,
when you're at your home office, you can do your
(22:37):
stuff like then you can put your nose to the grindstone,
do all your individual deliverables, all that your days in
the office. Ideally you are not showing up just to
call and email people in other places like that makes
no sense, and I'm sorry if your employer is making
you go in to do that like that. There are
very strict guidelines on when you have to go in,
but if you have some flexibility with definitely thinking of
(23:01):
those in office days as more social, like make sure
that you are booked for lunch, make sure that you're
planning on meeting somebody for coffee, or at least have
an idea of who you might ask, so that you're
making the most of those in person connections.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
If there's anything that needs brainstorming, in person is so
much better. For some reason, I feel like it's so
much easier to play off of other people's ideas when
you are together.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Hence why we talked about earlier.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Laura and I like to like plan out our season
when we can actually see each other and talk face
to face. So think of your in office days as
like idea generating connections.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So another career related question, this person says, I may
be going back to part time contract work shortly after
a break from work. Any tips or tricks on how
to start well in a new role, but also word
off burnout from the beginning. So yeah, I think the
thing with part time work and certainly what you've discovered, Sarah,
(23:57):
I mean, you really want to be clear on your boundaries.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yes, extremely clear, and those boundaries include time and scope.
So it's like I work these days and I'm responsible
for these activities because I do think you know, one
of the things we warn against with part time is
you just become very vulnerable to doing a full.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Time job and getting part time pay.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And that is not going to be a recipe for
avoiding furnout since that's what you're looking to do. So
being very clear about those things, even having them, I
don't necessarily know, if you know, it depends on the culture,
et cetera, whether that would be appropriate to put in
writing to somebody else, but at least put him in
them writing to yourself, so you have an idea of
what your goals are. And if there's some way of
(24:37):
chatting with whoever hired you to make sure, like, oh,
we're all in agreement about X, Y and Z, then
that will be very helpful. And if you can get
them to put that in writing, probably even more so.
And the fact that you're a contract employee, this might
be realistic because they hired you to do a specific thing.
They didn't hire you to be a piece of the
corporate machine. They're hiring you to do that thing that
(24:58):
you're expert in. With that said, since you chose to
take this position, make sure what you are spending your
time doing are those super valuable things. Then I'm sure
they're excited about you bringing to the company. And if
you find yourself being asked to do things that are
not things you love to do, not are things that
are your valuable skills, then you may want to be
(25:18):
careful about that and try to address them explaining that hey,
you're here to do XYZ.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
And you're not going to be able to accommodate AP
and C.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, and this person maybe it may have an hourly
rate associated with that, in which case I think that's
actually a very fair way to compensate people in this
kind of work, because then you're tracking your hours and
if they are asking you to do more than the
scope of what you agreed to do, then guess what
you're getting paid more and then you can decide if
that's worth it a long term with this gig, but
(25:48):
that would be great, and if it's not that, then
maybe try to keep track of that on your own
so there's some record of how much you are actually working.
I think it'd be very good to bill your time,
even if you don't officially bill your time on that,
but also make sure that you are doing cool stuff
outside of work. I think one of the best ways
to ward off burnout is to have a cool life.
(26:09):
I mean, we draw energy from meaningful things. And the
opposite of burnout isn't like it's engagement, right, Like, it's
being engaged in your life. And so that's great if
your work feels engaging and wonderful, but if this is
also just a way to make some money, which is
totally cool, make sure you've got some other cool stuff
(26:30):
going on in your life as well, whether that's joining
the softball team, playing pickleball every Thursday with a picklebar partner,
or whatever it is. But just that you have other
cool stuff going on in your life in the hours
that aren't work will also help ward off burnout.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yes, because you are choosing to be part time at
a cost right like you could have been full time,
So make sure you're making those hours worthwhile. That doesn't
mean not to rest, it doesn't mean not to pack
in every little thing, but again, I like that. Make
sure you're and things that feel really fun and worthwhile
to you.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
All right, Next question, this person says, I am headed
back to work soon after having twins, who are her
last kids? Having had twins, she has four children ages
five and under. She says she lives in a part
of the world where many mothers either go part time
or stay home with young kids, so she knows she
is going to be a serious exception I guess at
(27:23):
her workplace and in her general community.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
She is bracing herself for that somewhat.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Looted question that she will probably get people saying, oh, well,
you know they're only young once, or some male colleagues
saying things like, yeah, my wife didn't go back to
work after we had ex kid because child care costs
more than what she made. What is a good way
of answering those comments. She is especially worried if they
might come from some of her supervisors who say things like, oh, well,
(27:52):
this is such a special time, just enjoy it. Why
are you in a rush for a promotion? Oh my goodness, Sarah,
what do.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
You think about this one?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Oh? I feel so bad for anyone that has to
face that, But I know it is a reality in
some cases. I mean, I think emphasizing that you really
enjoy your work and you're happy to be there. I mean,
if I had a supervisor say that, I'd be like,
I am enjoying it, and I'm also enjoying being here.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
This project is really fun.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I don't know this, this is super super carb, but
I think I would emphasize how much I was happy
to be back.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, and you don't have to answer the question that
is asked. We've been on the receiving end of this
as people who are interviewing other people that it is
entirely possible to pivot to say, oh, that's such an
interesting question, and that's such an issue, and like, have
you considered this.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
When you say something that is totally.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Different from what they ask, right, And when you're interviewing
someone this is really really annoying. But if you are
just making polite conversation, which presumably is what everyone is doing,
then you have to I think you just pivot and
be like, oh, yeah, the kids are amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
There's someonet of a did you see their picture? Oh,
they're so cute, and this is a great project. Can
I tell you my ideas for this right, It just
like move on right, like move on from it.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I actually think the barrage of kid pictures might be
a perfect way to do it because it would do
two things. A Like, they're never they're gonna learn because
they're not gonna really want to see the barrage with
good pictures most likely. And number two, if you show
them the pictures from the weekend where you're like, look,
this is us at the pool and this is us
at the blae it's like, oh wait, okay, I guess
they are spending a good amount of time together and
maybe it would pin the back of their brain that's like,
(29:39):
maybe she doesn't want to do that every single day
Monday through Friday. I mean, I guess it depends on
your line, I know, but I would also. I mean,
this is something you might want to think about long term.
If you truly are getting sort of paternalistic kind of
things from your supervisor about why are you in a
rush for a promotion, which is a nicer way of
(30:00):
saying working moms don't.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Get promoted around here, I.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Think you might want to be putting some feelers out
for other managers you might want to be working with.
Let's just put it that way, and that sucks, but
it may be the case. All Right, we're gonna take
another quick ad break and we'll be back. Well, we
(30:29):
are back talking all things mail bag and we are Sarah,
you moved away from the question. I we're here, live together.
Sorrys in charge of the notes, and all of a
sudden the notes disappeared, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Thinking about adding another question, but we'll see if it
gets I think we're good by the way. I think
listeners should know that a little ping popped up with
like clearly was like pictures of videos of our children,
our children, I mean daredevil stunts off of the diving board.
But we haven't heard any screams, no no been.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
No spas.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
So yeah, well, well, just if it dings again, there's
nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I don't know how to turn it on.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I mean, obviously do not disturb somewhere on here, but
we have to be on the internet, so I gotta
figure that out anyway. Okay, last question, is there a
next step once kids are bigger beyond nanny age for
either of you that you have considered? So, Sarah, I
mean at the point where kids can be home by themselves.
I mean, maybe your oldest is even driving, Like, what
(31:27):
do you think that would would look like?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, I mean we I guess just a review. We
do currently have a full time nanny who doesn't really
work full time hours most weeks. Some weeks she comes
close if there's a really loaded activity schedule or days
off from school or things like that, but a lot
of other weeks we don't really need anybody in the
morning currently most days. Next year is going to be
(31:51):
a very weird year because we have one kid at
one school, two kids at another school, and I think
that's going to weed to increase complexity. That's going to
be get definitely important to have full time coverage, But
I do wonder about some kind of shift after that,
particularly if we end up putting all three kids in
the same school again, then there may be other options.
(32:14):
I would personally love to have our same nanny. I
just wonder if there may be a point when we
do something a little bit different with the hours, if
we can find an arrangement that everybody that works for everybody,
Because she.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Does a lot of household stuff for you, right, like, yeah,
that she cooks, she does laundry, she cleans, up.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Correct, she cooks, she cleans, she does a lot of
that stuff. Well not clean, it's not like heavy duty cleans,
but there's definitely plenty of household stuff. However, my kids
are getting to the point where they can help with
some of that. It's less of that complete and utter
chaos that we had when the kids were little.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
I do think about it wouldn't be for next year,
but like whether there might be a slightly different arrangement
that would make sense a year and a half from now.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, I mean, we still have young kids too, and
it's as the kids get older, you wind up needing
help with the driving a lot. And I think people
wind up not having full time care often too soon.
Like they they're like, oh, well the kids are in school,
but you're only in school from like nine to three,
and it's one hundred and eighty days a year, whereas
(33:20):
a work here is like two hundred and forty days,
and kids get sick and kids, you know, there's random
half days and you might travel for work, in which
case like that doesn't really work if both of you
are out of town and somebody needs to be around
because there's a random half day or whatever, and you
can create a really complex schedule, but it also is
(33:42):
very helpful to have another person who is available for that.
So just cautioning people not to give up the coverage
too soon, I think we've seen a lot of people
transition to more of a like household manager role that
somebody can do a lot of the things. Like you know,
if you're going to do that bathroom renova, maybe you
don't want to manage it. That would be something that
(34:02):
somebody could take on or organize the house, get rid
of all the stuff, the baby clothes that need to go,
or repair the mailbox that got knocked over, or you know,
make dinner, do laundry, whatever. So lots of different things
that could still be done, and that's often helpful to
not have to have either you or your partner do
(34:25):
it if you're both working more than full time hours.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Do you think you guys will make any kind of
shift at any point.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
I mean, you know, I do I think we'll need
full time coverage when Henry is like fourteen, No, and
he's the only kid at home. But on the other hand,
he wouldn't be able to stay home by himself, so
for like overnight night yeah, so, I mean, you'd still
need to figure something out for that, but we'll see
how long Michael's doing what he does or you know.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
I can't picture our youngest ones home. Well I think
about that a lot, actually, because I'm like, oh, right,
Genevieve entering high school will be an only child at home,
assuming everybody follows the conventional path to college, and that
is kind of wild. It's also like, I don't know,
you have to be careful with that math because then
you realize like, it isn't that far away, which is.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Why we're enjoying it a lot now, right, Lots lots
of fun with the kids, lots of adventures, I mean definitely.
I mean with that last question, I think they're only
young ones, yes, and we are enjoying all of it
while still doing our full time job, so there's no
contradiction there whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
That's the whole message of best of both worlds one
hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, All right, Well, this has been our mailbag episode.
We are sitting here in my home office outside Philadelphia,
where Sarah has joined me and our kids are hopefully
still in the pool, but we will be back next
week with more on making work in life fit together.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
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