AIBU to say if I can’t work from home, I can’t work at all?

[CantGetAWFHJob]

Background:

2 DCs with disabilities - DC1 is a young adult but needs support getting up and out of the house (or they won’t). Also needs someone to be at home when they come in. Attends outreach education 3 half days a week and also has regular psychologist and other appointments that I need to be at home for, bad MH with previous self harming so can’t be left alone for long periods. Currently going through an extremely stressful 18 month court battle to get a specialist residential provision which won’t conclude until July and unlikely we will win. Not ready for supported living yet.

DC2 is an almost teen, had a shock diagnosis last year of a life threatening. life long condition. I need to be close by due to this for my own peace of mind and also for any emergencies (low risk but still). DC has been struggling with it understandably as still new diagnosis and also has side effects and low immune system so lots of illnesses and lots of time out of school. Very draining as have to be on top of it 24/7, lots of ups and downs and often disturbed sleep due to alarms going off as needs treating. TBH just can’t sleep a lot of the time as terrified will sleep through alarms which could be fatal for DC. Also has had massive impact on my long standing anxiety disorder which will be further affected if I feel like I can’t get to him if needed (2nd child died at birth from rare lethal abnormality which was only picked shortly before birth).

DH works very long hours and too far away to be of any help during the day.

I had a part time WFH job which I resigned from 4 months ago. Worked really well with minimal disruption due to DC. If hospital or home appt came up, I’d change my hours with agreement, work in evenings etc.

Had a an issue with close work colleague though who was a nightmare and didn’t do her share of the work (shared role)so I ended up being very stressed and working over my hours as very heavy workload and complaints from senior management it wasn’t being completed in time frames. I was part time, she was full time. It was a blatant pisstake and there were other issues as well as her not doing the work.

I put up with this for over a year as needed WFH as well as dealing with education court case and younger DC’s new diagnosis which hit me for 6 - only took 2 days off while DC in hospital.

I asked manager to intervene several times and was told that we’d both have to work in the office so they could oversee workload if I thought there was an issue. They couldn’t tell her to and not me apparently. Office was 5 mins walking distance from my house when I started but moved 30 mins drive away a few months later. Colleague couldn’t drive so I was asked to drive her in by management. I only did it once and got no thank you. She even left me waiting outside her house for 5 minutes and got in my car without apologising.

Colleague was pestering me to go full time so she could part time even pointing out jobs for me. Last straw was when I requested the workload be checked and they said I was doing the same amount of work as her after leaving me hanging for a month. I resigned as it was also affecting my MH and later raised a grievance which triggered a full investigation and was upheld. I was responding to double the amount of emails and tasks as she was despite working 2 days a week less!

I’ve now been looking for another remote role for 4 months. and am just not getting anywhere despite lots of interest in my CV and interviews. Keep getting to 2nd interview stage then ‘tough decision but it’s we’ve given it to someone else’. I’m early 50’s so age could be a factor.

Finances are now an issue. DH thinks I should take a full time office job and let older DC sort themselves out, take time off for appointments etc! What about when youngest off school? Been called to pick them up numerous times since diagnosis as feeling unwell.

Who’s being UR?

I resigned as it was also affecting my MH and later raised a grievance which triggered a full investigation and was upheld. I was responding to double the amount of emails and tasks as she was despite working 2 days a week less!

Sounds like you did this the wrong way around.

Interesting that he thinks you'll be the one taking the time off for appointments OP, no mention of him doing it at all.

So you’d left
then submitted a grievance

to what end?

You say the previous WFH job worked really well

very very clearly - it did not

@GCWorkNightmare I knew nothing would be done about colleague (protected characteristic), and couldn’t work with her anymore so resigned anyway. If I’d raised the grievance while still working there, things would have got even worse.

Tell your husband that as soon as he gets a job local to home, and he covers 50% of the child related issues, you will get a full-time office job.

Could you not get a pt carer to support dc? (Do they get dla/pip?) Are you getting help with your anxiety as it feels more about you with dc2 than the condition. Dh should be offering a share of the appointments but that assumes you are willing for him to take responsibility and feedback.

So you left and then submitted a grievance

and they still performed a full investigation

did anything come out of it?

I doubt you will find a purely wfh role , lots of places now want people in the office at least part of the week .

How did you even find out you were answering double the emails and calls as your colleague, if you were both wfh? With respect, what if hers were a lot more complex than yours to deal with? Can you really use that as a measure of being more productive?

Personally, I think you don't feel up to working out of the home full-time for understandable reasons, but you need to sort the financial aspects with your DH, instead of trying to blame the whole situation on a former colleague who has "lost you your dream job" in your version of the story, OP.

Are you the poster whose son has recently been diagnosed with diabetes? Hopefully the shock will subside and it will get easier.

Job wise, has your DH any plans to be around more long term?

How can you get a wfh role if you need to take your child to appointments?

WFH jobs are very rare and especially ones that allow you to look after your DC at the same time.

Why not get a job that is evening work or long hours but over less days.

Then there is less chance either of you would need a day off and you can take in turns if you do.

Yes, grievance upheld. Went above manager’s head to Head of Service. Point was made manager should have investigated when I first raised issue 8 months prior to resigning (didn’t raise it for a while as had to work closely with colleague and didn’t want to be seen as troublemaker). Manager had said I needed to put my big girl pants on and challenge colleague myself which would have opened me up being accused of bullying IMO. Further training and plan in place to ensure it did not happen again apparently. Obviously don’t know what disciplinary action was taken against colleague but believe still in job.

Anyho, over with now. Just didn’t think it would take this long to find another remote job!

So you invested time and effort in a grievance after you resigned for the good of the company going forward. Very odd

Can’t help on the work front but have you applied for DLA for your child with the life threatening, life long condition and carers allowance for yourself. If it’s the same condition I think it is it’s classed as a disability for which he’ll get certain benefits for. It’s a shock I know, my seven year old granddaughter was diagnosed with it seven months ago. She’s got a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin pump now, total game changer.

I think your ire is misplaced here.

You seem to expect more flexibility from an employer than from your husband. I take it he’s the father of your children, he needs to act like it.

It seems that you need a job that fits around your DH's hours so that he can be at home when you're not.
Are you getting carers allowance, or other benefits for the DC? Do you have other help?

Are you telling potential employers at interview about the situation with your children?
Because to be honest if I was an employer I would be concerned you would be frequently distracted by their requirements if you told me what you stated above

It's all well and easy for the partner who doesn't do this day this day to day stuff, they have no idea how time consuming it can all be.

Can you work part time or evenings? I only work lunchtimes in a school due to 2 children with Sen

Listed on grievance outcome report. They obviously finally checked. I was definitely doing the more complex time consuming work as colleague said she found it too hard and I was having to constantly correct her mistakes.

Not blaming colleague for losing my dream job, it was a minimum wage admin job! Managers handled it really badly though. I’d been in much more senior positions before but it was my first job after being a SAHM for many years due to older DCs disability so took an entry level role as offered WFH.

My decision to resign as couldn’t work with someone who’d spend all day doing minimal work, constantly calling me for help on stuff she should have known how to do (time wasting) and telling me stories about personal stuff while badgering me to increase my hours, when I could see she’d hardly done anything leaving it for me to do. For e.g whole afternoons where she’d string out out 2 or 3 simple tasks then tell me she’d been too busy to do anything else. All I had to do was check the emails to see what had been done.

Gone a bit off topic anyway.

Just explaining background with previous job. Didn’t think that would be picked over.

Not at all mentioning DC in job interviews. They’re not little DC who need constant supervision. I just need to be around for them.

@Daffodilsandtuplips DC can’t get a pump. which would be a game changer especially as he hates the bother of injecting and will often secretly snack without doing it (growing fast) so constantly fighting highs especially at night. Very difficult as hate asking him ‘what have you eaten’ and he’ll deny having eaten anything, as concerned about developing eating disorder. Our CCG won’t fund pumps unless clinical need due to bad Hba1c results as cut off is age 12. Diagnosis at 12 years and 1 month. Had to self fund CGM for 7 months before got funding for it as well.

Yep.

Given that he has 2 DC with disabilities, he can only have one of a spouse who works out of the home earning a FT wage and a spouse whose work means he doesn't have to do any medical appointments.

This is exactly what I was going to say.

I would have concerns that your home situation would be distracting you from your job and is actually why you shouldn't be WFH.

You have loads on your plate, sorry OP.

My office is still mostly at home (350 employees and only 25 in the office regularly).

Regarding CV and age, at this point strip your cv down - you don’t have to put dates of qualifications on. Skip mentioning O levels, just list A level and beyond. And skip early part of your career - maybe just cover the last 15 years or so.

Not at all mentioning DC in job interviews. They’re not little DC who need constant supervision. I just need to be around for them.

not exactly what you outline in your op