to ask for experiences of any support from your employer?

[Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow]

Sorry to post for traffic. Have hit a wall today!

DH is key worker. We have three youngish kids. I am a part time accountant for a large financial services company. My job requires close work and a lot of concentration.

I’m struggling. I’m increasingly exhausted, trying to catch up when I can. I know I should work at nights but by the time I have juggled all day (including meetings whilst kids are zooming around/doing their work) - by 1900 I’m bust. I’m up at 0600 to walk the dogs and work early. I find looking after the house, kids, feeding, shopping, checking on older relatives a full time job in itself. I’m doing some good work around this eg first thing, when DH gets home, evening etc but when with the kids,helping with work I turn into shouty mum on the verge of tears.

I feel increasingly burnt out. I had a virus and can’t shift it - wake up achy frequently. One of our older kids ran away on Monday and we didn’t even notice until we found him in the local park.

My manager is offering no support and won’t talk about it. My team are lovely but no one has kids or they have a SAH parent.

I know I’m lucky to have a job but it’s not much good if I crack up. Should I beg for furlough? We can’t afford unpaid leave unfortunately.

What has your work said to you on this issue? Is my work the norm?

Yes I would 100% ask for furlough in your shoes, you poor thing.

Talk to them. Are they approachable? Tell them that work from home is not working with the children and ask them to consider furlough. Be aware that we don't know how long furlough is going to last.
Can your dh help out more doing some of the dog walking/ shopping/ kids

Thanks and appreciate that.

They aren’t approachable and I think I’m bad at standing up for myself. I tried a couple of times with my manager and was told I chose to have kids (I’m assuming as a joke).

The company is actually ok - says the stuff - our department is badly managed by strange people which sets an odd tone. I should have left years ago but my part time hours are gold dust. They don’t pay me well but know I do a good job part time so it has worked ok both sides but I do a good job because of my team.

My DH is another one. I need to get him to step it up. The issue is subtle. He will just ignore the kids and work (hence us losing a child last week!) he just wouldn’t walk the dogs or do a decent breakfast. Subtle role patterns from years of entrenched behaviour.

What ages are your DC? You are part time already so could you temporarily reduce your hours further? It does se unfair on your employers that part of the reason you are struggling so much is because of your ‘D’H.

What is a decent breakfast? My DC are just grabbing cereal for themselves while I work. Can you do your PT hours flexibly when DH isn’t working, at the weekends maybe? Can the DC watch TV or play independently?

I know it’s really tough at the moment but it sounds like your problems predate the current situation.

Can you put in a call to your HR department. They should have someone who is a little more understanding/socially adept than your line manager - who sounds weird and in appropriate after that ‘you chose to have children’ comment.

The HR advisor/manager will be able to give you advice on what they can offer.

Yes they are fair points and what I have done so far but I’m still broken. Getting shopping for elderly parents at weekend and just some family downtime. I could catch up at weekends but we do meetings etc in working hours.

DH is actually at his workplace at least one day a week (my day off in fact) so it’s not as simple. He then also does long hours generally.

I guess what I’m saying is that I managed it all and now I’m broken by it and the family is struggling. Even if I logged in on a Sunday, I now just stare at a screen feeling utterly overwhelmed and shattered and wanting to see my family properly before Monday starts again.

OP, you need to speak to your employer either way, even if it means taking unpaid leave or using some of your leave at the moment for a break.

Your employer has a business to run and needs someone to do the work. You really need to speak to them and work out if there are any other options. If taking unpaid leave so they have the funds to employ someone else temporarily, perhaps they might be able to let you take some of your holidays now for a break or to reduce your hours at the moment. Also, talk to your husband, he can only do so much working fulltime, but might be able to help a bit more with the kids, house, phone calls to relatives (even if they're on your side).

If I go to HR it will backfire on my manager who despite being a weirdo has given me unpaid leave in the past for a school holiday. He has been ok to me.

I just don’t know which way to go.

I might just ask my GP to sign me off. I have never done this in my 25 year career - but I feel like I’m heading for a breakdown

meant to add 'isn't an option' after temporarily

We can’t afford unpaid leave and I’m saving my annual leave for the summer holidays.

I thought about asking for furlough although this hasn’t been generally offered to anyone

Subtle role patterns from years of entrenched behaviour.
I'm not spotting the subtlety in him doing sod all and getting away with it!

I'd honestly have to say that I suspect your manager was not joking when he said that you chose to have kids. It's not an uncommon attitude, and on a "technical" level, it is also true. I manage a staff team in an organisation that is "technically" family friendly (I mean by that, that it isn't always as friendly as it claims, and some areas of the organisation are better than others). In order to make the lockdown even remotely work for the women in the team who have children (none of the men do yet anyway) I have had to invent "rules" that I am not even going to share with my rather nice line manager! So I have flexibilities on the flexibilities, and then some. And the women with children are still creaking under the lockdown (and their husbands are a sight more useful than yours appears to be). I then have to balance that with being fair on the other staff - just because they don't have children doesn't mean they don't have other needs.

My point is, I don't see this as (a) entirely the employers problem, although they could be a little more sympathetic if they wanted to, and (b) your husband either needs to step up and share the load, or he needs to accept the loss of your income. Unless your organisation has a lot of people on furlough, they aren't likely to want to set it up for one or two people, and since there is work for you to do, and it can be done from home, technically it shouldn't be a furlough situation.

To be honest, I think that lockdown is only exacerbating the issues that you have all the time in your home life. You cannot work and do another full time job on top of that. Even when the lockdown ends, who will walk the dogs, take the kids to school, clean and cook.... It's you, isn't it? That is the problem. It's not going away after the lockdown.

I’m aware I sound pathetic! I’m just struggling with the impact on the kids, ignoring them, my stress levels, feeling like I literally want to run away and anger at my employer who I just need to be a bit kinder to me and perhaps acknowledge it’s hard and ask me to do my best.

To be fair it works ok when we aren’t on lockdown. DH commits to pick ups two days a week so I can work late. We share the cooking. Are lucky to have a cleaner and dog walker on our long days. I take the brunt of everything else but I work shorter hours. I’m ok with that.

I need to muddle on I guess 😢

Can the children go to school/nursery? Even part time, this would give you some respite.

My friend had to ask for furlough, her business managed to stay open as a essential service, but the local nursery and pre school didn’t agree... she was WFH full time with a 3 year old and she’s a single parent, it just wasn’t working at all! She’s now furloughed and said she’s so glad she asked, although she can’t wait to get back after this long in lockdown with just a toddler to try and make conversation with 😂

I completely feel your pain and have spent much of this week in tears. My organisation talks a lot about being family friendly and helping parents through this but I am not sure how they are actually doing this, or how they would. My biggest gripe is with our school and the rather haphazard approach to sending things through in no logical order and I have found trying to deal with that and catch up on it has largely tipped me over the edge. It isn't nice and it isn't fair but I don't know what the answer is unfortunately

I’m saving my annual leave for the summer holidays.

Maybe it would be better not to do this. While I'm sure that would be lovely you need that time off now. Who knows what will happen over the summer anyway. For example travel will probably still be unlikely (not sure if you wanted annual leave for a family holiday) and you may be able to find alternate childcare then more easily than now. Even if not you'd have some time and it may be possible to save something to enable you to take paid leave in 4/5 months time

maroon it’s maybe a good point. I guess working from home in the summer will be easier as no school work for kids.

You have given me another option I hand my thought of which is alternate mondays off to spend with the kids.

I always save holidays for summer as kids clubs for seven weeks is too much. I guess that won’t apply this year.

jakey I feel like you and I know how you feel. You aren’t alone. Maybe we need a MN thread for tips on how to cope? I have been doing 20 mins yoga in the morning before starting work which makes me feel so guilty but it seems to help my feelings of feeling overwhelmed.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow sounds good