Jaylanae Ashman  0:00  
As you travel home from your eight or 12 hour shift between every honk as you sit in traffic. Your only peace of mind might be the fact that you can spend the rest of your day relaxing, knitting, playing with your children, getting a massage, and then you realize the pace this traffic is going, you might just make it home in time for that work video call that you have this evening. It becomes apparent now that the lines between your time at work and your free time have started to blur. By the time you've made dinner for your family and showered, you might only have enough time to sleep so you can get energized enough for your day at work tomorrow. I'm your host Jaylanae Ashman and this is the first episode of The Confessions of a Workaholic podcast. Diandria, a labor and delivery nurse was inspired, by the creativity of her mother to hold space for her own art and upcycling projects. In the midst of her busy schedule.

Diandria Wright  1:04  
I've always been a creative person, my mother is an interior decorator of sorts she makes potpourri, bedding, things like that. She used to handpaint souvenir items as well. So that's something that I grew up seeing. I always kind of wanted to be involved when she was doing items for her business. As I got older, there was utility in for me as well, because as a student you're trying to kind of find items for your home, your first apartment and things like that. And using thrifted items were was an option for me to be more kind of cost effective with that. So that definitely helped a lot. But it was also fun for me to kind of think of an idea or think of something that I wanted to do and then make it happen. I am the type of person that likes crafting, refinishing furniture, that kind of thing. So one of the things that I used to do was to find old things that I found on the curb outside or I would frequent thrift stores a lot and find furniture pieces that I could refinish and use for myself and some of them if I could do them for myself, and I just wanted the challenge of doing it, I would resell it to someone else. And recently, recently, like the last couple of years, I have been hand painting with acrylic paints, ink, and things like that on different surfaces to create some home decor items that I've started to sell.

Jaylanae Ashman  2:47  
She doesn't have as much time as she did when she was younger. But she continues to nurture her passion, creating and selling art on her online storefront, as she says that it helps her to alleviate stress

Diandria Wright  2:58  
In the area that I work in sometimes it takes a lot out of you. Sometimes you have good days, sometimes you have bad days. Some days are busy, some days are more on the relaxed, but not relaxed, but less busy end of things. So a lot of the times I would use kind of these creative, creative things that I do to de-stress, I guess from work, it is a challenge. When if it was something that I did on like a smaller it is a small scale. But if I was only doing kind of like a one off thing, it would make it easier. But now that I've taken to kind of creating more of them and starting to sell the items that I have been doing, balancing that has been a bit of a challenge. And sometimes because I'm exhausted from work, I'm going to be honest, it kind of falls to the wayside as I try to rest. So that balance is hard, but I do make time for it because it helps me to kind of clear my mind and also not stress too much about the activities of my quote unquote nine to five.

Jaylanae Ashman  4:07  
To be able to go home completely detached from work, might to some sound kind of like a luxury. While Diandria has managed to find time for self care. Other people who work with the University of Waterloo calls, antisocial hours, have a different experience. Their varying, unconventional hours can cause them to have difficulty creating time for friends, family and recreational activities. The University of Waterloo related this to poor health and stress. Edith Pencil, a human resources manager at an automotive company says that when employees have no free time or can't manage their work, it's time for management to step in.

Edith Pencil  4:45  
We all you know obviously have jobs for you know, to earn a livelihood, so I've seen that with some employees like work, you know, they make work and their everything, that they don't even have, you know, hobbies that they do outside of work, or they don't have any type of extra curricular things that they're doing. For actual employees, we should make sure that you know that we we are intentional about how we're, how we're managing our work. If we, if we feel that the work is too much, and it's it's unmanageable, then we need to speak with our managers so that managers can manage the workload and maybe reassign or hire additional staff to manage workload, because if the workload is, is mounting to the point where, you know, you're you end up working 50 hours, you were scheduled for 40 hours, but you end up working to 50 hours or more a week, then you know, that there's a product that there's a workload issue that needs to be addressed.

Jaylanae Ashman  5:47  
Edith also says that if managers want to see healthy work habits from their employees, they need to be sure that they're modeling that kind of behavior themselves.

Edith Pencil  5:55  
As a leader, you need to make sure that if you're encouraging your employees to manage their work life balance, and ensure that you know that they're they're managing their time at work and are prioritizing their self care in their time away from work, that, as leaders, they are also leading, we're also leading by example, we can't be telling our employees to do one thing, but then, you know, we're actually not managing our work life balance ourselves, because then we're not sending a consistent message.

Jaylanae Ashman  6:28  
Data from Statistics Canada showed that the average hourly wages rose 5%. But the price of consumer products such as gas and groceries rose faster. While many people may consider approaching their bosses or managers for assistance, in decreasing their workloads, to improve the balance between their work and their life, and facilitate self care. They may also have concerns about job security, in a time when wages are not rising as quickly as the prices of products.

Edith Pencil  6:57  
I think work life balance is something that all employers should be talking about, you know, investing in maybe webinars or having resources available to employees so that they understand what work life balance is, and different mechanisms or ways that they can achieve that work life balance. And making sure that employees feels open to talk to their managers about work life balance, because I think, for employees, they feel that, you know, that work life balance might be something that's not might not be widely accepted by their managers, because, you know, they might have the perception that management just is only concerned with productivity and getting worke done, even if that means working long hours.

Jaylanae Ashman  7:46  
Kira Liss, a social worker currently working in family birthing, acknowledges that there's no universal approach to performing self care, since people have different interests, incomes, schedules and priorities. She also states that institutions need to take an active role in encouraging self care of their employees.

Kira Liss  8:06  
I don't believe that working 40 hours a week is sustainable for most human beings. The way that capitalism is set up, is not supportive of people's ability to like, thrive and have balance in their lives. So it's not that person's fault. You know, if they're struggling and to sort of remember that the world right now is like not set up in a way to support people in thriving. That said, are there tiny, tiny little shifts that could be supportive to them?

Jaylanae Ashman  8:46  
While Diandria has managed to conquer the anti social work schedule of a busy requested nurse, many people still strive to achieve this in their own lives. As a human resources manager, Edith recognizes the shared role of employers and their employees in promoting employee well being. She suggests that employers meet their staff with understanding and support to help ease their workload and promote healthy work habits. Kira Liss recognizes that many workplaces do not prioritize promoting self care among staff. She also states that it is not the employees fault if they haven't developed self care strategies on their own. Kira recommends that people find small ways to positively impact their self care that are within their means and helpful to them. This has been the first episode of The Confessions of Workaholic podcast, and I'm your host Jaylanae Ashman.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai