Saturday 15 September 2018
I’ve discovered the
secret of keeping my Parkinson’s under control…
It’s to be on holiday
all the time and not work.
In all seriousness,
when I take a holiday of a week or more, the main problem, which is the
constant fatigue, starts to abate. With this, the various other symptoms like
my softening voice or tremor, start to ease as well.
In short, working makes
everything worse.
Unfortunately, I still
have a few more years to go on the mortgage and, even with my reduced life expectancy, the pension pot still looks too small, but I do earn enough to consider working part time.
At the start of the
year I tried a 90% (4.5 day) working week for a trial three-month period. Unfortunately,
the trial didn’t
really work. I was
effectively still working full time anyway, spending my weekends catching up
for what I didn’t do on Friday afternoons, but not getting paid for it. So, six
months ago I reverted back to full time.
Since then my
Parkinson’s has progressed a little further and I simply can’t cope with
working full time any longer. From next month onwards, I have agreed with my
employer to again revert to a 90% working week. But this time there’s no going
back and I see this as a transition to an 80% (four day) working week starting
in the new year.
Second time around, I
need to make the arrangement work. Because I work for a Professional Services
firm, I’m not paid by the hour so it’s not a simple case of reducing the time I
show up in the office. Rather, I’ve discussed with my boss adjusting my overall
responsibilities to take on fewer clients and have a proportionally lower sales
target.
It will take
discipline to do this. I will have to say no more often, delegate ruthlessly,
and perhaps hardest of all, see my peers (and in due course people who are
today my subordinates) progress ahead of me. Maybe I can still rise further to
the top echelons of my firm, but it seems unlikely.
When riding on the Parkinson’s bus you only get a one-way ticket. In a work context, it would be a miracle if I could do anything other than follow suit.
But I see this in a
positive light as well: working less will hopefully give me more opportunity to
exercise, spend time with my family and bring some enjoyment back to daily life
– something that has been lacking for the past couple of years as I undergo a
desperate struggle each week to make it through to Friday evening.
It’s time to start taking
control.
