🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <tommy.724214172@hilbert> tommy@hilbert.att.com (Tom Reingold) writes:
>I'll be at the January Usenix in San Diego.  Since my company pays my
>airfare, I figure I'll take my family.  It's a good time for a vacation...

The theory is good.  The practice is that Usenix (done right) is not a
vacation and can't be treated as one.

>If they stay for the entire period of the conference, they won't see me
>anyway since I'll probably be totally busy the whole day, every day.
>If, when I get to the hotel after a day of "conferring", she'll ask for
>a break from the kids which I will be unable give her since I'll be too
>tired.

Indeed so.  There is no remedy for this, really, unless you deliberately
decide that you're going to skip a substantial fraction of the conference.
You have to plan on the assumption that attending Usenix is *work*, and
work with unusually long hours at that.  It may not feel like it to you,
but this is the way it works from your family's viewpoint.  Successful
planning has to start with realistic assumptions; if you're going to
be busy all day and tired afterward, and your wife thinks you're going
to be available to help with the kids, there is trouble ahead.

The only good approach is to take your vacation before (or after).  Come
a week early, vacation vigorously, and either see them off homeward before
the conference starts or have them do something which doesn't need you.

>But if my wife comes at or near the end of the conference, she somehow
>has to take the kids on the plane by herself.  They will be aged one
>and four.

This is problematic, to be sure.  I don't have personal experience with
such situations (no kids), but it looks to me like if you assume no air
travel without both adults along *and* no outside help with the kids
during the conference *and* you attending the conference full time,
it just isn't going to work as a pleasant vacation.  You need to
find some way around at least one of those assumptions.  If one-adult
air travel definitely isn't practical, then your wife needs relief
somehow:  professional babysitting, cooperation with other attendees
with the same problem, or you taking some time out in the middle.

>I know some people bring families.  How?

The one case I saw close up (a friend of mine), they came early for
vacationing, he included her and the kids in his activities when
possible (e.g. having them along for dinner with friends), she had
some help (my girlfriend went touristing with her and the kids one
day), and I think he took significant time out too.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry