Working Relationship
I haven’t yet written about what it’s like to work with my husband. Mostly, it’s fun. I’d say that 97% of the time, we get along just fine due to the following reasons (more on the remaining 3% later):
- we have different skillsets
- we have a high degree of trust in the other person’s abilities and intentions
- we have similar working styles - very focused, open to feedback, task and timeline-driven
- in moments of stress, we can usually make the other person laugh
However, being together in the same house now 24×7 with two kids 2 years old and under does present challenges. We have to remember to carve out time for the two of us that is not related to work. So far we don’t do this enough. We were going to schedule a date night every other week but at the most we’ve managed to take a break and watch a half hour of TV twice in the last month. Our Tivo is running out of room to save any more unwatched Daily Shows and Colbert Reports. But we do have a babysitter lined up for this Friday’s Warriors-Wizards game — combining our first night out with our first feet-on-the-street marketing event! We made up some baseball-style trading cards to hand out.
The other big issue right now is that our son has figured out that Daddy is upstairs and if he cries loud enough, he’ll eventually come down. No slight to Jason, but this behavior is driven equally by wanting one-on-one attention from anyone and wanting Daddy in particular. So we’ve got a bad cycle going here — Jason isn’t used to hearing the kids cry very much and therefore responds too quickly, and our son is crying more than he used to because he gets a reaction. The good news is that Jason and I have talked about the need to nip this early before it becomes established habit, and I think given a couple more days, we’ll all be comfortable with the new routine.
I will admit that while I enjoy working on Ballhype more than any other (paid) job I’ve ever had, there are times when I’m really tired, or wish that we could just be like *normal* people and eat dinner, put the kids to bed, and watch a movie or sit around and talk. And if I’m cleaning up at such a moment and Jason is back at the computer, then a fleeting thought crosses my mind: Did he ask me to do this start-up with him so that I couldn’t complain about him working all the time?
Posted by Erin 
17.Mar.07
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