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?

Did I say I had?

I was well aware I wouldn’t have been privy to that and didn’t ask.

The only outcome I wanted that it was on record for the next poor person who has to work with her.

Some consolation that due to my grievance, practices for measuring productivity have been put in place which weren’t before. I was told this by the person conducting the investigation who said they were very glad I’d raised it formally to senior management. Obviously wouldn’t have had the balls to do this if I hadn’t resigned!

Op just solidarity- my kids don’t have sn and we have had the year from absolute hell with sicknesses. People saying your dh should take half days off for sick kids, we do this, with dh maybe having to take slightly more as I work in retail where there’s Days the shop literally wouldn’t have opened due to lack of staff. Also I’m the only one with kids so have the added ‘nobody gets it’ thing;) We have both been hauled over the coals and have warnings, and it has filtered down so it ends up being our arguing point and we’re all now on edge any time there’s so much as a cough. I hate it. But yes, if financially it’s needed that you need to work then I don’t know what to tell you

Op if you get a job …

it will go the same way the other job did.

Down the tubes. Either because you have a beef with a colleague or you don’t pass your probation because your employer realises that you’re fitting your work around childcare to suit you rather than your contractual hours.

Did you ask your union for advice while working? Could you ask them now whether they would support you with a constructive dismissal case?

Someone has to pay for the expenses of the family to keep them housed fed clothed and their needs met.

whenever people that that finances just miraculously happen and that no one needs to keep a job, it is clear they haven’t had financial responsibility for a family.

OP was a SAHM for many years and quit her job when she had work conflict. The only reason she had those options is because her husband was working and taking on all the financial responsibility for all four of them.

while you think he also needs to be at home and helping DS get up and be there when the kids get home and pick kids up from school and doing the things OP does, the reality of that is they then lose their housing and go hungry and have a mountain of financial stress and debt.

It isn’t a bad thing for one person to maintain stable employment to earn money to ensure the family’s basic needs are met.

If the two DCs needs are truly so high they need OP as a carer and she can’t work, then they need to make lifestyle and budget changes and maybe downsize and live a very simple life to make that work.

part of the responsibility of raising children is financial responsibility.

If you can WFH why can’t you work in an office? Working is working, not monitoring your children. It does annoy employers when please use the disguise of WFH as a way to do things at home when they are supposed to be working. What you are proposing (part-time WFH so you be there for alarms and watching what your children are doing) wouldn’t fly where I work. You are paid to work just the same as the people in the office are. I’m not surprised you were called back to the office. You can’t write paragraphs and paragraphs on here telling everyone how much you have to do for your children and how they have to be watched all the time and then expect us to believe you were working, uninterrupted, for your entire shift. It was one or the other. I think I can guess which one was happening.

@CantGetAWFHJob can you really, really push for a pump - no idea what avenue you need to take, but HbA1c results will be bad if you don't. How crazy to cut off funding just as kids go into their teens - more independent & less careful!!! Using a pump, with a sensor is, as PP said, an absolute game-changer especially if you're looping. It takes so much of the mental load away. DD (13) also T1.

Your kids aside - have you talked to your GP about the anxiety?

Op have you applied for DLA for your T1 D child? You could also apply for carers allowance. My daughter has for her dd. You get the forms from the Diabetes Clinic.

Is it more of you need to be home or want to be home OP?
That makes a difference. Its understandable you want to help and be there as much as possible for DC but you have to balance it with family finances as well

As is always the case on these threads, it's your DH who's the problem here.

You have two children who need regular care and support - if he's not willing to change his hours and help provide some that support himself, he can't be surprised that it all comes down to you.

He has two choices - carry on in his current role and accept that means you can't work as you will need to do the vast majority of day to day care, appointments and night wakings, or he changes his job and hours to be around in the evenings and at weekends so you can go out and work.

What stands out is that you wont address any of the comments about DH changing his job or working pattern.

My DN got diagnosed with diabetes type 1 at 10 and it didn't prevent dsis working full time as a senior healthcare professional. Your DH does need to step up sharing load with appointments etc. Its a common condition, DN would be baffled if it was described as a disability. Can you ask gp for some counselling etc to deal with dc not injecting for snacks etc.

The transition with T1 diabetes can be tricky but it does get easier.

I have read the whole thread and it does seem to me OP that you are coming across as intractable, and that may be the case in your job search too.

As a manager hiring for a team role, I would be wary of a candidate who was insisting in 100% WFH - e.g. is it that the person prefers solitary working and how would that fit with my team ? Or, is it that the candidate has other responsibilities that I am not aware of that would impact their role?

As other posters have stated, 100 % WFH roles are become rarer, and unless your skill is in demand and unusual, most employers would be looking for some flexibility.

I couldn’t read all of your posts but read the main one.

Re your question, yes you should try to get a job in the office if none WFH are coming up. I’m similar to you wanted a wfh or hybrid model and a few jobs have come up, government contracts mostly, but these are often fairly low paid on a permanent basis. I’ve also worked for a huge firm though on a hybrid model.

I will say that now it’s an employers market now, everyone wants a hybrid or wfh job from linked in and even with loads of experience and a great CV I'm finding it hard but not impossible to get interviews.

Government and NHS office work often do a hybrid model and look at local employers to see what model they offer. They may start out as hybrid at first but be more wfh the longer you stay there.

Ths may not be helpful to you but could your 12 year old not do more for himself re. his condition? Only saying this because many years ago I was in a class at school with a girl who would inject herself for diabetes during lessons. She was 9 years old at the time.

Tara66 my DN always managed his own after about first 6 months getting used to things.

As a type 1 diabetic who was diagnosed at eight years old there is absolutely no reason that you need to be five minutes away and hovering over him. That is your choice, from what you have posted you clearly can work in an office, you just appear to be choosing not to.

OP says both children have disabilities so I'm assuming he's not your average 12yo in terms of capability.

Her son is also disabled - it's right there in the OP. I imagine that complicated things somewhat and has an impact on his ability to manage his condition by himself.

I don’t see how working in an office or working from home is different in terms of your availability to support your children at appointments/collect from school. You’ll still need time off/flexi/leave for these things. Except I think you don’t do that, as a pp said - it seems for you, working from home means you fit work around your children and it shouldn’t be like that.

Have you asked for specific feedback following unsuccessful interviews?

There is nothing in the OP about the child with diabetes being disabled, she does mention her older child being disabled, but the worst example of something awful happening is cooking pizza with the cardboard on (lots of us lazies do that to keep the shelves clean). The actual problem seems to be OPs anxiety which she doesn’t appear (hasn’t mentioned) to be doing a great deal to manage.

Most of that post is completely irrelevant, you have left the first job so it has nothing to do with the current situation.

I am early 50s and I have had no problem getting jobs in the current work environment, I got a FTC last year and this year secured a different permanent position. Two applications, two interviews and two job offers. The difference is I am not demanding 100% WFH and I would strongly suspect that is the reason you are not making progress, not your age. I honestly think these 100% WFH roles are a bit of a mumsnet myth, these days employers are looking for an office presence and especially from a new employee.

I personally think you should pause your job search asst den with your husband to work out what are your options and what he can do to assist more with family life so that you can look at jobs outside the home.

It’s clear that you have had quite a stressful period recently. Perhaps some of that, even in a minor way, might be coming through when you are being interviewed? In myself I find that stress can be a bit like an extra layer, it takes a while to wear off even when the source is gone.

I think you could potentially go down the virtual PA round and probably do quite well there.

There’s a Facebook group ‘Flexible Working People’ which is very useful - I found my last role on there. Worth a look.

How often do you actually have to pick up your DC?

What is an honest assessment of the disruption to your life?

You've given a conflicting view of how much you need to - in your own words, "multitask" - and I'm trying to understand if you can meet an employer's expectations as things stand or if you need your DH to step up with childcare equally in order for you to hold down a job.

If you need your DH to get involved and he won't, then you don't need a WFH job; you need your DH to accept that one of you cannot work for the time being.

WFH jobs are available - more so at the very skilled end - but what is rare is being able to flex your hours and randomly work in the evening if you need to randomly pick up your DC again during normal working hours. What you want from a WFH job is more flexibility than might actually be on offer.

My last job was WFH. I was still expected to be available during core hours and to go into the office every so often for team events.

Forget the interview. What I am looking at is whether an employer would want you to stay in the job once you had it because if you ace an interview and then get sacked, it's not really helpful.

I do understand the impact anxiety has (and that can be a protected characteristic), but I get the impression the issue here is actually your DH, who doesn't share the same view of the support your DC need.

Could you agree to spend a few months working on your anxiety and also working on getting DC to be more independent and completely pausing the job search?

DC2 has a lifelong condition, but the difficult part is that it's a new diagnosis, and he hasn't yet learnt how to accept it and manage it. That part is temporary. You can work on it together.

With DC1, things might improve once that court battle is concluded.

There's a lot going on, but some of it might not last forever. Agreeing with your DH to take a few months to dedicate to your DC whilst everyone is stressed out might be the best way forward. In the meantime, he can spend those two months considering how much childcare he is prepared to do as a full-time working parent and how much he expects you to do. He either accepts he has to do more, or that limits what paid work you can do.

There is nothing in the OP about the child with diabetes being disabled

Yes there is @Simonjt - it's right there in the first sentence!

"2 DCs with disabilities"