Personally, I love the snow. Professionally, it’s one big headache.
Nagging worries begin when I first see a snow sky. By the time flakes start falling, I’m just short of an anxiety attack.
My car doesn’t have four-wheel drive, so I stay as much as I can on flat land. But my fears aren’t about driving. They’re about working.
We hear all the time how Hurricane Katrina exposed vulnerabilities of the urban poor, as though no one ever noticed that living in poverty doesn’t include a safety net.
I know it’s absurd to compare working parents scrambling on a snow day to the disaster of Katrina. In a very small way, though, the vagaries of a Northwest winter expose how all the planning in the world sometimes isn’t enough.
So anyway, I pretty much knew Sunday night that my second-grader’s school wouldn’t keep its regular schedule on Monday. I’ve learned since moving west of the Cascades from my native Spokane that even a few inches of snow is enough to cancel school. And transportation was a mess Sunday, particularly north and east of Everett.
My 8-year-old normally goes to an after-school program at his school until I get off work. I do have a backup plan. The private, home-based child care where he spent weekdays this summer is usually open during school closures.
Except on Monday morning, the day-care provider wasn’t sure she’d be open. She didn’t know if any other children needed her services. Looking out the window in my neighborhood, I saw her point. Kids up and down the block were out playing, many with their parents. They were building snowmen and sledding on the slushy slope of a nearby yard.
Am I the only one who has to work? Sometimes it feels that way.
I waited an hour, until 9 a.m., and learned that yes, indeed, the day care would be open – but only until 2 p.m. That gave me half a day at work, enough to dig out from a holiday weekend’s worth of e-mail, plan my week, and do some writing.
In a pinch, I could bring my daughter to work when she was little, and she’d read a book. I could bring my older son, and he’d quietly use a paint program to make pictures on a computer.
Child No. 3? Nope. My co-workers have been lucky enough to meet my high-energy, highly social little boy. They’d be quick to tell you they don’t need him around the office.
Friends? I know there are friends who’d say yes if I asked them to watch over my son for a day. I hate to ask, knowing he’s not an easy kid to watch.
People ask me all the time if I work from home, or even assume that I do most of my writing at home. I suppose that’s a reasonable assumption in this age of home offices and online communications.
I have worked from home. A few months ago, The Herald newsroom lost power. With my son at school, I went home and finished a column within a couple of hours. I can write, check work e-mail and voice messages from the desk in my dining room.
It’s not my habit, though. I get distracted at home. There’s so much to do there – start dinner, throw laundry in the dryer, take out the trash, talk to the dog.
Is it still work if you walk the dog around the block? Around four blocks? If I get the same amount of work done at home as in the office, why do I feel guilty about it? I don’t feel guilty when I waste 15 minutes sitting at my desk at work.
While wasting time at work Monday morning, I checked the Web site for the Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane. The lead story was about a snowstorm followed by freezing conditions. Weather was blamed for more than 170 traffic accidents Sunday night and early Monday in Spokane County.
Out of curiosity, I looked at a site listing school closures in the Spokane area. Two rural districts had two-hours delays Monday, but otherwise Spokane schools were open. I remember very few no-school snow days from my childhood there.
Over here though, snow brings chaos. It’s only November, not even winter yet. I’m worried about using all my vacation days before Christmas.
I’m worried, and I’m going home – to work.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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