Perks of Working With Your Spouse

I never, ever thought that my husband and I would work in the same place. This is largely due to the fact that I married a nurse, and, on principle, I avoid hospitals at all costs.

But then, last August, we both ended up in a job that we never could have envisioned at the beginning of our marriage: we both became ESL teachers, teaching different grades at the same school. The coworkers who settled us into the office said that maybe it would be more convenient for us if our desks were right next to each other, and they set us up with two computers at two desks in the same room. We work very closely!

Arriving on campus together, bright and early! You can see the "school bus" in the background, behind the hedge.

In reality, because the actual work involved requires teaching classes in all of our different classrooms, we spend good chunks of the work day in our separate teaching buildings--him with his Senior 2 students and me with my Senior 1 students.

Here are the benefits we've found from this lifestyle:

1. Transportation is so efficient! In Michigan, when we first got married, we had two cars--he had a half-hour drive to work, and I had a 40 minute drive to university. We spent so much time in our separate vehicles just commuting! Here, we wait at the bus stop together, and hop onto the school bus for teachers along with our coworkers. If we did have a car, we could get away with owning 1 instead of 2, because we don't have to be in far-distant places at the same time!

2. We wake up for work at the same time and work on the same days. Well, sort of. I wake up a bit earlier than he does, but we leave at the same time. When we first got married, Angel worked 7 pm-7am. After a year and a half, he switched to day shift, but when he was on days, I was in school Tuesday-Saturday, while he had frequent Sunday shifts, so our schedules never meshed well. It's pretty amazing to have the same days off, all the time.

3. It's really easy to line up a substitute teacher when you're married to one. Two times this past year, I've asked Angel to pick up a class for me because I was feeling miserably ill. Technically, we are allowed to have sick days, but I never want to take one, because my students have so few opportunities to interact with English speakers as it is. Most of our classes don't overlap, so it's easy for Angel to take over one of my periods, or me to take over one of his, and that way, students don't miss out on having Conversational English Class and I don't stress about missing work, so I can actually rest and get better.

4. We divide and conquer. Our coworkers notice that we have very different personalities and skills. Angel is the one they ask when they want to gather players for a basketball game after work. Sometimes he joins in on teacher vs. student soccer games, and has even been helping with coaching/drilling some of the students in soccer skills after school. I don't have the ability to make friends via sports, but his affinity for athletics have opened up a lot of doors for great relationships for us. His team won all of the teachers' tug-of-war competitions, and now, a hilarious picture of Angel pulling furiously on a rope is displayed prominently on a school bulletin board. I, on the other hand, as the resident nerd, am the one that teachers know to pull aside if they want someone to proofread their PowerPoint slides, or brainstorm class activities and homework assignments with. The two of us have very different skills, and I think we both benefit from presenting a united front at work and contributing our best talents to the entire teaching team. Angel's better at sportsmanship and normal camaraderie, while I'm quieter and non-athletic, but extremely useful on the academic side of things.

5. We get to help each other get our work done. Teaching English at two different grade levels that are so close together involves a lot of overlap. There's plenty of times when we've built off the same basic lesson plans to save on busy work, and have just altered activities to fit our own classes' abilities and personalities. We jointly led after-school English corner last semester--and let me tell you, when you're getting 50-100 teenagers to participate in organized games outdoors, having an extra pair of hands helps immensely. I love that my closest partner at work is a man I can trust to do an excellent job and never let me down on doing his part of the preparations.

6. We have the same friends. We've always told each other stories from work, I'm sure that's normal! But I met Angel's coworkers 2, maybe 3 times at most, during his 4 years at the hospital, and I never got great at keeping names straight. "Wait, who's having a baby? I thought she just had one? Oh, that was someone totally different? Okay, never mind." He also rarely came into contact with anyone I was in beauty school with. By contrast, here, we find it fun that we work with the same people and can give updates on friends that our spouse actually knows: "Hey, I went to Coco's office today to chat with her..." "I ate lunch with Snow today and I asked her how common C-sections are for pregnant women in China." {Poll: Please, please guess which one of us, Angel or Rachel, was asking questions about C-sections at lunch. I have a feeling you'll be right.}

I love working with my husband. It's fun to be in a position where we can help each other be excellent in our everyday jobs. I'm glad that we have come to love the same school--we're proud to be teachers at our school, and we're privileged to spend more time together than we ever have before.