There's give and take with all jobs.
When you work in construction, you may have to switch to nights every so often for a project.
If you are a manager, your schedule can change in a blink according to the days demands.
If you're an artist, you may have to settle for your first art show being a featurette and not your own gallery.
It's kind of like a game of tug-of-war. The only thing is that with work you don't tend to feel like you win a whole lot. You more so, feel like you're the one face down in the mud with the pigs.
Being a flight attendant, I am prepared for lots of give and take. It means that, yeah, I may occasionally get three, maybe five, days off at times, but it also means that I might miss my cousins drifting day, I'm in Montana where it's snowing and I'm delayed. Black Friday shopping with my Aunts? I'm in California, sitting on the beach on a twenty two hour layover. My Mom's birthday? Flying over Banf National Park. Most holidays? You'll now find me with a crew eating dinner at the only restaurant open in this podunk town, or in my room, in pajamas, with a glass of wine, Phad Thai takeout, and My Best Friends Wedding on in the background.
Some days all you hear is flight attendants complaining about the schedule causing them to miss out on these moments. Don't get me wrong, it's completely true, it seems like you miss out on a lot. You see pictures of friends on Halloween at the party you couldn't make because you were on a four day and in the middle of nowhere New Mexico. You miss being there. You miss being on a schedule that has any kind of rhythm, regularity, heck, I miss having a kitchen.
Every job has its ups, downs and loop-de-loops. The underlying factor is how much are we willing to give in order to live? It's finding the balance as in every part of life. Balance is what keeps you from breaking the foundation that you're standing on--or in tug-of-war, from having your feet slip under you in the mud. I've worked a job where it felt like I was constantly slipping in the mud, and every time I would get up to try again, I couldn't find my grounding. I know now that when I am holding a new job, what I want out of it. How the quality of life and the firmness that you stand on is actually so important.
In the case of tug-of-war in the work place, it is unlike what we strive for in most areas of life, instead of fighting to get back every time we fall, it's about how to find the rhythm with the other side to keep each other standing, keeping each other outta the mud pit. In work it shouldn't be about how many times you fall and get back up it should be about where you can pull harder and give a little slack to help the other stay grounded.
My biggest question is; in the game of tug-of-war does anyone really win? And is it even worth winning? If you are the guy on the winning side, more times than not ya wind up right smack on your keaster anywho, same as the other dude. Wouldn't the game be more fun if it were a strategy game? More about how to keep the other from pulling too hard, and at the same time, you giving some slack so you don't pull them in?