The last two weeks my schedule changed and I’m going to work an hour earlier. The problem is that I’m not a morning person in terms of my ability to interact (live) with people first thing in the morning. Yeah I’m ON when necessary but in terms of style and preference I’d rather ease into the day and really pump it up after everyone is gone for the day. Yes I can get out of the bed early but I’m not much for a whole lot of moving and talking. Thinking, writing and a little morning exercise is my preference. The thing is all of this thinking, writing and exercising in the morning before work was getting me there later and later and later every day. Fortunately I was given pretty massive flexibility in terms of my schedule. What was flexibility however, turned into abuse (later and later and later). That I will cop to, even though my time spent met or exceeded what is the norm.

We’re living in tough times. Where I work we’re facing a budget shortfall, and as such we’ve had our wages frozen and have had to make some drastic cuts in improvement projects. There is an electricity of fear in the air. People are afraid of losing their jobs and don’t want to do anything that would give an excuse/reason to be let go.  Some of that electricity caught me.  I’m not fearful of losing my job, but became increasingly aware of the perception that I was getting away with something that others could not.  Sure, I’d been given a flexible schedule (that I was flexing to the extreme) but I work in a culture that permission to do something other than the norm is frowned upon.  Everyone is particularly troubled by what everyone else is doing and when they are troubled enough, the murmuring about it turns into a roar.  I wanted to stop the roar.

So now, it is all about appearance and visibility. Am I where I’m supposed to be when everyone else is? Yes. Do I like it? No not particularly because it really doesn’t fit my body clock, nor my work style.  Adaptation was the key I had to learn to live with a schedule that I didn’t particularly care for. Once I got over that hump I realized that the new schedule, made me more available to answer questions early in  the day, that it would keep my blackberry from blowing up before I got there, and would ease the nerves of my boss, which of course made my nerves better.  On a personal level, the earlier schedule gave me more freedom in the evening. I’m able to get to the gym earlier, have time to cook more during the week and get to leave work every day in the light, instead of the dark.  I realized that in this case, doing something that was not fond of (going to work earlier) was actually beneficial to other and to me. Something this simple got me thinking about more changes that I can make in other areas of my life, which may not be comfortable but have the potential of opening new areas of opportunity.

Is there something or someone gnawing at you that may require a change of appearance, a change in style, a change in habit? If so, don’t ignore it. Try it, you make like it and it may benefit others as well in spite of your initial misgivings.