I am a single female. I do not have a boyfriend, I do not have children. I do not understand how other staffers on my team can have relationships, have families, and maintain all those relationships. We work long days. When I say we work long days, I mean we work typically about 8.5-9 hours a day not including the travel time to the ballpark. That is just the offseason. As the season approaches, we come to work earlier, leave later, and have weekend commitments as well. Come baseball season, our nights may end at 11:00 pm on weekdays and involve the entire weekend as well when the team is home.
When I am with a partner, I like to be able to spend quality time with them. I am not the kind of girl who always needs to be with their partner, but I do like my time spent with them to be quality time. For me, after I get done at work all I want to do is grab a quick meal, relax on the couch and go to sleep as early as I can so that I get enough sleep for the long work day the next day. I would be a horrible conversationalist and that is not how I would want my relationship to be. This is probably why I am not currently in a relationship. I do not want to do something 1/2 ass. I'm either in it or I am not.
This brings me to having children. Most of our staffers have children. Children require so much effort and work yet between the hours of 7 am and 10 pm during the offseason us MiLB staffers are only home for approximately 6 hours of that. That is 6 hours spent with children that are able to stay up until 10 pm. The younger the children are, the less amount of time we are able to spend with them. This does not even include the season. This essentially means that all the work is put on the partner. How is there not anger on their part towards the staffer for not being there to pull their end? It's not like we're making a ton of money to support them. I can barely even support myself and even then it's a struggle week to week much less a partner and child.
Alright sorry this is a long blog. Just a disclaimer: this blog is not saying that all MiLB staffers are poor partners/parents. This blog is just me saying I do not know how it is possible to do a decent job at doing it. For now, I will just be happy that I am single with no children so I do not have to worry about things like that and can just worry about myself instead.
Jane - I dated a MiLB front-office exec for 4 years, and it was hard at times. I guess we were lucky that I had worked in sports, and had family in sports, so I knew what to expect. It's especially hard during the summer, where I was constantly going to parties/BBQs/etc solo. Sometimes the most we got to see each other on a long home-stand is when I would bring dinner to the stadium.
ReplyDeleteLike any relationship, it will work out if you put some effort into it. If he's really a "partner" to you, he'll do the little things to make your life easier. Just make sure not to take it for granted.
In my case, it didn't work out, but not because of the job.