TORONTO, ON – The difficulty of balancing work life and family life led local businessman Ricky Canker to quit his family of three children and one wife last Tuesday, in order to devote more time to working as a junior vice president of consulting.
“Sometimes you have to make tough decisions,” said Canker, clearing his office of family memorabilia. “Luckily, concentrating on myself and my career ambitions was an easy one to make.”
Canker told reporters he had been focusing on his family for the last 15 years, moving up from husband to father after two years of marriage, a promotion that he refers to as, “really not worth it.”
“The hours were longer, and with no extra compensation,” he said.
But it was the birth of his third child last Monday that solidified Canker’s decision to quit his family role.
“I was missing so many important work moments already,” Canker said. “I knew I would look back, years later, and regret not being there for the first day the company went public.”
Canker continued, “And newborns, you know, they’re especially time-consuming things. Staying up half the night feeding it and such wouldn’t be conducive to my goal of becoming the company’s senior vice president of consulting.”
Canker also said he feels “really terrible” that he had to miss several defining moments at the office due to his home family, such as the time he wasn’t there for junior VP Mike Allen when he lost an important client to a competing firm, or the time Rob Elswick in marketing finally asked out Mindy Shaffers from PR.
Canker mentioned one event that was particularly stressful. After leaving work early to take his son to the hospital for a broken leg, Canker missed a birthday celebration for accounting intern Cindy Mathews.
“Someone bought a nice Black Forest cake that day,” Canker said. “There were no slices left for me, though, and chocolate cake is my favourite.”
While discarding family photos and replacing them with pictures of colleagues, Canker went on to describe the time he had wasted attending parent-teacher meetings, reading Goodnight Moon to his kids before bed, and hosting annual birthday parties.
Canker will now increase his workweek to fifty hours, rather than forty. He has also bought an apartment directly across the street from his workplace, reducing his commute distance from twenty-two kilometers to “about thirty steps.”
“This way I can keep a close eye on my company and make sure I’m always nearby if it needs me.”
Canker’s ex-wife, Janet, wishes Ricky the best and said she is currently interviewing for a replacement husband.
