With all the unemployed people desperate for work, a story about people who are ambivalent about returning to the workplace after lengthy unemployment because of the loss of time with the family or exercise time probably won't gather a lot of sympathy.

Still, it is true that for some who have a severance they can live off or a working spouse who can carry the financial load for a while, unemployment does provide time to shift to a more relaxing gear which a return to work can disrupt.

The Wall Street Journal examines the way a return to the workforce can ruin your groove.

Last July Ben Wallace spent a week at Boy Scout Camp with his then 9-year-old son. The two fished, canoed, sat around the campfire, and bonded with dozens of other scouts and parents—something he wouldn't have had time for if he had been employed.

"It was one of the best weeks we've spent together," says the 40-year-old, who left a vice-president role at an oil-and-gas company in June 2008 to start his own business, just before the economy tanked. During the nine months he was out of an office, Mr. Wallace spent time with his sons and found time to exercise...

... Mr. Wallace, 40, began spending much more time with his two boys while he tried to start his own business—and then when he was interviewing and negotiating for a full-time job. During the nine months he was unemployed, he spent many afternoons hanging out with his sons after school. He also dedicated upward of an hour each day to exercise. He lost 25 pounds and shaved almost 30 points off of his cholesterol level.

But then, in March Mr. Wallace started a job at Penneco Oil Co. in Delmont, Pa., as a chief operations officer. His bank account is fatter—but so is he, having gained back 15 pounds. "I'm finding less time now," says Mr. Wallace, who has traded running and weight-lifting for walking the dog.

 

He also spends less time with his two sons. Less frequent are the after-school driveway basketball games and impromptu walks before dinner. "I get home at 6:15 and they've been home from school for a couple of hours," says Mr. Wallace. By the time he gets home, it's time for a quick dinner and homework—then the boys are off to bed. And he says the boys have noticed that he is less care-free than he was during his time off.

"Care-free" isn't how most parents needing to pay their mortgages and other bills would feel during an extended period of unemployment.

But it's good to know there are people who are so able to turn unemployment into something positive that they feel a sense of loss when they eventually return to work.

It's not hard to imagine that some employers reading this story might rationalize that they're actually doing their employees a favor by laying them off. Most workers would disagree.