What Elmer taught me about work-life balance

The year will have been 1998. I know this because in 1999 I became an analyst, having excitedly tapped an email in response to a job specification from Bloor Research, following a couple of glasses of wine (how fitting that I should have applied for the job as myself, not as the person I wondered if I should be, but I digress).?

Rewind 6 months and imagine the scene. The Forte Posthouse chain of ‘perfectly adequate’ hotels preceded the Premier Inns and Travelodges we now see the length and breadth of the UK, supporting families, football fans and stag-and-hen nighters at the weekends, and road warriors—sales people, contractors and consultants—on week days.?

There I was, in my room, making the best of the hotel half-light (why is it they can’t ever just have lights that, you know, actually light the room?), facing into the wall at the narrow desk, painting a wooden elephant.?

No ordinary wooden elephant, this. I had cut it by hand from two sheets of plywood with a fine-bladed saw, taking as a pattern the cover of one of my children’s favourite books, Elmer. I can’t remember what brought it on other than the occasional adult foray into craft: founded no doubt in a desire to relive my Airfix modelling teens, when I would cut myself off for hours building plastic model aeroplanes, tanks and other machinery of war.?

But there I was, nonetheless. Somewhere along the way, I had decided not just to make a wooden elephant, but to have the legs and trunk moving; as per the book, one side would be decorated just as the multi-coloured Elmer, whilst the other was elephant-grey, just as his disguise. The mechanism was created from dowels and string: I have no idea how I knew whether it would work, but it did.

I had been visiting this, particular Forte Posthouse, on the outskirts of Colchester, for a couple of years. The first year I was there, it was Euro 96: I’d joined the ensemble of t-shirted fans to watch Greece go all the way to the final and win. During the day I was advising keen young software engineers in how to build applications; at night, there was literally nothing to do but drink beer and watch TV.?

To say it sapped my soul would be an understatement. Colchester was 175 miles from home, requiring London to be circumnavigated en route: sleeping in my own bed was not an option. My senior manager had just shrugged and said I had to go where the work was, fair enough were it not for the fact I was leaving a wife and two young children all week, every week.?

Fast forward 24 months, and it was a hollow shell of a dad being waved away on a Sunday evening by three, sometimes crying faces. That night I would probably drink alone before bed; the following morning, bleary yet resigned, I’d be back in the office, replacing a chunk of my psyche with task lists and meeting agendas.?

But, back at my room, would be Elmer, along with several pots of acrylic paint. When painting I wouldn’t drink (though I might go down to meet a colleague, Malcolm, for a pint after); I would also therefore avoid at least some of the comfort eating. Above all, I would find myself in a zone where nothing mattered, beyond the quantity of paint on the end of a brush. My mind could wander, and as it did, bring together slim tendrils of thought about what it meant to be myself.?

A bit of a leap, you might think. Suffice to say that the act of doing something with my hands was gently, yet intensely freeing for my brain: for an hour at a time, I was able to take myself off the tracks that seemed to be controlling my every act (even when at home, life was constantly in catch-up), and allow me to be me.?

Elmer was an epiphany, causing a lightbulb moment that even the poorly lit room couldn’t suppress. His creation kicked off a series of decisions, not least to remove myself from a work situation that would place me at the other side of the country from my family. Above all, Elmer taught me to embrace a principle I have stuck to ever since: that the job must never come before the person.

I’m not saying the following years were immediately easy, but my employment decisions ever since have followed this, work-life balance version of “put on your own oxygen mask first.” Over twenty years later, it’s something I have been able to advise others – for sure, as one gets older, concerns about making it higher up the slippery pole diminish considerably, but the principle is one I learned in the thick of a consulting career.?

Of course we need to earn our wages, deliver value, and do the things we are paid to do. We can all excel in the workplace, and should strive to do so. But always ensure that, of all the sacrifices you make for the nine-to-five, the one thing you never give up is your soul. As the old adage goes, nobody is ever going to look back on their life and think, “I wish I’d spent more time in the office.”?

And, if you do find yourself in a dark place, far from home, remember there can always be an Elmer to help turn your light back on.?