I’m going back to work in October, DS will be 10 months old. I’ll do 3 days a week, all from the office as no one is WFH at our company anymore.
I’m really dreading it. I don’t hate my job at all but it can be stressful, with lots of deadlines to meet and if things go wrong they have to be frantically fixed ASAP. I don’t like the idea of being stressed out and then coming home to look after a young child. I like the people I work with but really don’t like my manager and try to keep away from him and out of his radar as much as possible. He contributes to the stress of the job (and my colleagues all feel the same, but that’s another story).
I’ve thought about quitting my job and finding something else part time, something ‘light’ with not too much responsibility. But then I worry about setting my whole career backwards. There’s not really any room for progression at my current job either though, especially if I go part time, I doubt I’ll ever see a pay rise ever again! But I’ve been there over 2 years so I don’t have to worry about things like maternity leave for any future pregnancies. Whereas if I got a new job I’d be starting from scratch in terms of what I’m entitled to, and I want to try for another baby in a few months.
I have some future goals but it will take me a while to reach them. I’m doing a WSET qualification (plan to pass my level 1 exam and start level 2 by the time I go back to work). The full qualification will take a good few years, and I probably wouldn’t try to find a job in the wine industry until I’ve a) passed level 3 and started level 4 (or possibly passed level 4 and started level 5) and b) finished having children.
DH is self employed and we could get by on just his salary but it would be tight, and that’s just with one child. Luckily DS will only need to go to nursery once or twice a week as DM and DMIL can help out (they both do shift work so have time off mid-week).
So that’s it really, I don’t really know what to do short term. I’ve got my long term goals as mentioned, but it’ll be a while before I can put them into practice. So shall I just suck it up and continue at my current job if I don’t care about progression because I know I want to switch careers eventually (even if it will take years)?