Sorry I have to skate :)

[sk8lady]

My husband used to complain bitterly about the time and money and energy I put into skating. Then he started playing hockey. I never heard another complaint again after I said, "You're going to play till 11:30 tonight with a bunch of kids half your age even though you're not sure if your knee is healed?? Oh, okay."

[hanca]

One my old skating friends stared calling non-skaters 'muggles' because there was seemingly nothing we could to to help them understand the attraction of the sport. "You WANT to get up at 6 am on Saturday morning to go do WHAT?"

If only at 6am! I am getting at 4.40am six times a week, including Saturdays and Sundays! :lol:

[mgobluegirl]

I feel like I live in two different worlds. The people who inhabit my skating world don't understand my school world. They don't get why I can't skate more than I do or why I have to study a lot, etc. The people who live in my school world don't understand why I get up at 6am every morning to practice and why I can't come out with them on Monday nights. They also don't get where all the awesome bruises come from haha.

But once I explain it, most of them are really supportive :)

[Aussie Willy]

We lost our morning sessions at the rink. It wasn't affordable for the rink to keep running them.

Disappointing as I really enjoyed them but also I am not really interested in skating the evening sessions. However to get a reasonable quota of skating in during the week I will need to make the effort to go to at least one. Wednesday evenings I go to our nice new rink because they have a freestyle session there which is really good. And I also don't have to race from work to get there as it is about 7.45pm

[Rusty Blades]

I have been skating early morning sessions for 3 years: up by 4 a.m., out of the house by 5, at the rink by 6, and on the ice at 6:30 or 7 (depending on the day). MOST people clue in that it means bedtime comes early but a few didn't get it until I started returning their calls at 4 a.m. :eek: That solved the problem!

At work management didn't get it and would schedule a meeting that interfered with my skating - skate later/earlier/another time they would say - and I had to impress upon them that it is block ice time (not reschedule-able) and I have a coach who is expecting me and doesn't have time in her schedule to fit me in later/earlier. After showing up late for a meeting or two, or getting up and leaving because it's time to go to the rink, they realized this is not flexible - it is either go or miss altogether.

[Aussie Willy]

You are lucky your work is so accommodating. However I am surprised they actually let you get away with that.

My work is pretty flexible with regards to people coming in later and leaving earlier. They don't mind at all as long as my work gets done. So skating in the morning was not a problem, nor leaving earlier in the afternoon. However they would not be impressed if I was late for a meeting or missed something important because of something I did outside my work time. And they would have the right to tell me it is not acceptable.

I had to miss trial judging at Nationals one year because work wouldn't let me go because of deadlines. I just had to accept it.

[Rusty Blades]

You are lucky your work is so accommodating. However I am surprised they actually let you get away with that.

I am VERY flexible and accommodating and make allowances frequently, but my schedule is posted, everybody knows my hours, and if they schedule something outside of my normal working hours, particularly at the last minute, I feel no obligation to accommodate them. If a system goes down or if network changes need to be made, they know I am here regardless of the hour, day or night, week day or weekend, so when someone schedules a meeting because it is convenient for them but NOT convenient for me, tough.