第1047期:The Perfect Schedule

Rory: So I was thinking about my current job.

Abidemi: Uh-hmm.

Rory: And I think like my work schedule is so good.

Abidemi: Yeah.

Rory: I work Monday and Tuesday, then I have a day off. Then I work Thursday and Friday, and then I have the weekend off. And I get five months holiday, yeah.

Abidemi: Wow.  Sign me up.

Rory: So I mean, what’s a good work schedule for you?

Abidemi: I think what you’ve just described sounds really good as well. When I was younger actually, I don’t know where this idea came from but my ideal work hours were 9:00 until 2:00.

Rory: Okay.

Abidemi: Not 9:00 until 5:00 like you usually hear in a lot of Western countries, but 9 o’clock to 2 o’clock.

Rory: Right.

Abidemi: I don’t know. So maybe for me, if I could do it, if I could find something like that, it would be really good because you can sleep in until maybe 7:00 or 8:00, go to work, finish at 2:00, still come back and have a good chunk of that day to do other things. So…

Rory: Yeah. So my previous job was quite – I started at 9:30 and I finish at 12:30. I worked five days a week but it was great because work was finished by lunch time. I had the whole day free. And that was a good job.

Abidemi: And you still got a full time salary?

Rory: And that was a full-time salary, yeah.

Abidemi: Wow. Sounds even better than this one, maybe.

Rory: Yeah. In the past – I mean, I’ve worked in restaurants where you work only in the evenings. So I’d start at 5:30 and work until around midnight. I didn’t like that as much because all day, I was thinking, “I’ve got to go to work later.” So I think I prefer working in the morning and get it behind me as soon as possible.

Abidemi: I think maybe I’m the same way as well. I prefer to get it down and then have the rest of the day to enjoy. Also, I had a job where I was working during the weekend. And I would have Mondays and Tuesdays off. And I didn’t really like that. I missed seeing friends on the weekend and then going out. So I don’t think I would like anything like that.How about not working? Do you think – how long do you think you could go without not having to work?Rory: Well, it’s funny because this job now I have really long vacations but I’m not happy when I’m not working. Like my wife gets very frustrated with me because if I have nothing to do, I tend to be a bit annoying around the house, just getting depressed, just arguing all the time.But I don’t need much work. Like if I could just do like an hour a day, I think that would be enough to make me happy.

Abidemi: Okay. How long could you go would say? A week or two without having to touch work?

Rory: I could probably go a couple of months.

Abidemi: Okay. Without having to work at all.

Rory: Yeah, if I have other things to do, you know.

Abidemi: All right.

Rory: So if I had other projects like if I was doing a lot of training for running or if I was studying, if I had a good book then I could probably go quite a long time.

Abidemi: Yeah. I get pretty restless myself, too. I think after three, four days of not having anything to do, I just want – I really need something. Maybe, like you said study or learn or go out and do something, have a project, have a goal. I think, yeah, my personality type needs to constantly do something, produce. Yeah.

Rory: Yeah. When I worked in Europe, I used to do – I used to teach for one or two weeks intensively, and then have three or four weeks off. And it was quite nice because I had lots of free time but after two or three weeks of free time, I was quite looking forward to the next block, the next block of teaching.
But teaching these intensive blocks can be quite – it can be quite tough as well. Like I have to – I did a six-week block in Russia once, and after three weeks, I just wanted to go home.Six weeks was too long.

Abidemi: Wow. I see.

Abidemi: How intensive was it?

Rory: Well, the job in Russia was really intensive because I was living with the students in a residential university. And so we had breakfast together and then I taught them from half past eight in the morning until half past six in the evening.

Abidemi: Wow.

Rory: We had lunch together, and then we had dinner together in the evening.

Abidemi: Wow.

Rory: And there was one bar in the university, and we all went to the same bar in the evening as well.

Abidemi: And you had the same group of students?

Rory: The same group of students.

Abidemi: For six weeks?

Rory: For six weeks and it was six days a week of teaching.

Abidemi: Wow. I can – if you the teacher felt like that, I can only imagine how the students must have felt. They must have wanted a break badly.

Rory: Yeah. We all wanted a break.