To think giving me one day a week actually isn’t ok?? Or AIBU?

[wpur]

DH works away in the week and on Saturdays he has to do ‘admin.’ He is high up in the NHS and prior to having dd he did always work Saturdays in his office room in our house. I wouldn’t see him pretty much all day.

Since having dd he had to relocate for work, this was not his fault and he has taken the best job he can. It is not possible for him to come home in the week, it’s too far and would be pointless anyway as dd is long in bed before he gets back. No point me relocating with him as I have all my family nearby and his contact is only fixed for 9 months… then the search will begin again for another job.

He has started coming home late Saturday night (after dd is in bed) and then staying all day Sunday until she has gone to bed. He relocated for work when she was 6 months and she’s now 17 months. I am sick of doing everything alone. He has said I can take the entire day on a Sunday to myself, either go out alone or we all go out as a family, or he will do entertain her all day while I am in the house doing my own thing etc.

I feel like this is unacceptable and he should be back late Friday night to help on Saturdays too. He says it is pointless as he can’t avoid the Saturday admin work and he would just have to do it when back at home and it would take him longer to get through it. He thinks giving me a day to myself a week is sufficient in the circumstances. AIBU? I am so fed up and angry that I genuinely don’t know if I’m being unreasonable.

If only there was a sarcastic ‘slow hand clap’ button.

@Heather37231 unfortunately they frequently do need to be cleared every day.

In those emails may be potentially life-threatening investigation results, urgent medicolegal issues, safety alerts about medications, etc.

It's good practice to clear your inbox every day. Otherwise you might come in the next day to an avoidably dead patient who could have lived if you'd seen the email about their investigation.

It sucks big style, I know how you are feeling. My partner went to uni, to do a NHS course, he had placements to do, which was him gone Monday to Friday. He came back at the weekend, but for his job, not uni course. So he would be working Saturday, travelling back to his placement on a Sunday night.
My son was a little older he was 3 when my partner started uni.
We had moved for his uni, so I didn't know anyone, him leaving would upset our son, he did try to phone him every night to goodnight.
But it was hard work, been basically a single parent. It was miserable, after his uni course, he got a 6 months placement, but it was the same him working away, as we didn't want to move until he got a permanent job. He didn't in the end. But it is a nightmare, it would be nice to see him Friday night, but if you don't see him all day on a Saturday, I get why he thinks it's OK, could say to him, can you come back Saturday's, yes I might not see you much but it would be nice, form your DC, so see there parent. But hang in there it his next job might be better.

Excellent post.

There is a big difference between having a large backlog of emails to deal with and saying that you have to spend every evening clearing them all. I know that you think I am being picky for the sake of it but I am trying to make an important point- yes, it can be in no doubt that NHS workload is unsustainable but throwing around exaggerated stats does nobody any favours when you are trying to convince people to change the system.

You are seriously obsessed. It's not a good look.

@Scirocco

Actually I work in one of the most under resourced and over worked specialties in hospital medicine.

I could never stop working if I were so inclined. There is no end to the patients to be seen, no end to the emails to be answered. Emails ping into my inbox faster than I can read them. No end to the task that is asked of us 24/7.

But I have boundaries and understand that for the sake of family life I must work in the time sensitive way that my contract dictates. Here is the time I have been employed for, and this is what I can do with it. No less and rarely more. A clear timetable agreed in job planning of what I am doing and when. "No sorry" when I'm asked to do something that doesn't fit. Or, "yes, but I will have to drop...".

For the sake of my sanity
And for my patients who need me not to burn out
And for my family who need me too
And because I don't want to be sued or otherwise considered negligent for working beyond my hours and contract and making a mistake through tiredness

It is possible because whatever anyone else is saying here, we do have a time sensitive contract and there is simply no variation in that in the UK NHS.

Can't answer your emails in working hours -go to your MD or whoever is tasked with your job plan and tell them you cannot. Agree a solution -stop responding to emails or drop clinical work to have more clinical admin time.

Can't finish your clinical work on time -same, what do they want you to drop to be able to do this?

Its all job planning and if you can't agree then there is your union and a clear set of mediation processes.

Doctors who choose not to use this and work in this way, outwith their job plans, adequate rest (or commensurate pay) are part of the problem. That martyrdom, and self sacrifice serves no one in the long term really. The NHS will not survive on this kind of "goodwill" working. New younger doctors see nothing appealing about the working role and don't stay. People retire early. Stress and sick leave are rife.

Gender comes into it too...

My experience in the NHS is that many more women than men are prepared to put these boundaries in place. Not exclusively of course, but in general. And it's not hard to imagine why. The prioritisation of children and family life is clearly possible if you are sufficiently motivated. Men (NAMNATT) seem to find it hard to let go of the idea that they are indispensible. I suspect many of them actually find work easier than the emotionally draining work of caring for young children. All of which is fine of course. Different things work for different families. But however he is working, it should be agreed transparently between both of the adults that decided to raise a family together. Anecdotally, I also hear a lot of male doctors playing smoke and mirrors with their non-medical OHs about how they are working, what is their choice, what is truly necessary/contracted, how "difficult" it is to get the leave they are entitled to etc.

@wpur Your first question should be: how many sessions are you employed for?

My maths says nine month contract when she was six months old means he was due back to look for a new job two months ago?? Allowing for that, surely he could be looking for a new role closer to home.

Otherwise do consider relocating to where long term roles are more likely. We chose where we live because it was close to three different locations with lots of appropriate roles. I found myself without family but made loads of supportive friends.

@Psychonabike no criticism or specialty judgement here, we're all equally needed across all specialties.

This is also my experience. Band 6s have more responsibilities than they ever would have done and so on and so on.
My husband was Medical Director and it nearly killed him ....not figuratively .
The poster who knows a CEO who never works weekends.....wow , she must delegate practically everything and those immediately below her certainly will be.
Really hope more people appreciate just how tough it is working for the NHS.

Completely agree with @Psychonabike - male consultants seem to be treated with reverence, untouchable and unchallenged - they are so important and busy they can't be questioned. As a female consultant I am expected to balance my work and my responsibility to my family.

I could let admin seep into a whole weekend day but I don't - I have to pick some things up in the evenings but I am stringent with my job planning and say no a lot. It would not be acceptable to me to have a partner doing whole days of unpaid work over the weekend in a regular basis. He also has evenings all week he is away

If he's away all week, why not suggest he do 1.5hrs admin per night? That way he can come home Friday late night, Sat do an extra hr admin if needed and then he has 2 days with you.

@sthonore Agree.

The other aspect of the gender split here is that women end up sacrificing multiple times as a result of antiquated ideas that we have some sort of endless ability to care for others.

For a time, while we were both hospital consultants, my OH took on a MD role in addition and worked way above and beyond...always adamant that he could not put in place the boundaries I was. However we examined this in the years of argument and debate it always came down to feeling like he couldn't, wouldn't, "it wouldn't look good" rather than anything real and objective that prevented working in a more rational way.

Well guess what. He got sick. Predictable. Almost every other consultant I know has had 3-12 months off in the past 5 years due to burnout.

And then I had a job caring for others, children to care for and a husband to care for who could barely help with the children at all. A cautionary tale for the OP!

[bangs head against wall]
That is exactly why it must be a safety risk if there are genuinely 250 such emails needing to be dealt with by one individual every day (or even 20 of these buried amongst 250 marked urgent). Working at that level is not physically or mentally possible. It’s like a lorry driver being told that he HAS to drive from London to Aberdeen every day in 3 hours.

@Heather37231 and this is why so many doctors have stress-related health issues, burn out and/or move to Australia. Should we have to work like this? Not really. But the majority of us do, so it's not helpful to tell us that we're exaggerating when we aren't.

Why can’t you get a nanny for the Saturday for you time then family time is Sunday?

This is what you married into and who you had a baby with. It’s ok to change your mind and realise it’s all a bit shit for you but it isn’t his fault.

The evidence of the burn out is there in the stats of the number who burn out. No need to invent spurious figures to back it up. 100 urgent emails would have the same effect. You tell people you’re dealing with 250 and someone somewhere will say “oh well let’s reduce it to 100 and they’ll all be fine”.

Why are you insisting that a figure is made up when 3 separate people have said it's a realistic number, @Heather37231 ?

Honestly, if I only had to deal with 100 emails or messages, my life would be a lot easier. If you can magically make that happen, please do.

It’s a tricky balance but if the contract isn’t permanent they are mostly using him until they don’t have him. Is he in a 10 or 12 PA? His workload should be balanced however if 12 then Saturday is expected.
As other posters have said, if he did admin of an evening (not every night) then he would get better quality time with the family however it’s a balance to manage burn out - and that’s both of you at risk of burn out

OK. Every single night every single consultant in the UK has 250 emails that must be answered or someone will die. Sure.

If he's away Monday to Friday, why can't he do admin on the evenings? He hasn't got any home responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, childcare) during that time. So why couldn't he work an extra 2-3hrs every night, so his Saturday's are free?
That would be more reasonable.
His solution means that you have no time as a family or couple. You might as well be single.

@wpur it might not be what your husband would want, but would there be scope for him to take a non-consultant role closer to home for a few years until your children are a bit older, if that would make things easier for you all? Depending on his specialty, he could try to get an Associate Specialist role or equivalent for a while - those posts often have no on-call commitments and reduced non-DCC commitments.

This. I find this really strange and a bit suspicious to be honest
Surely it makes more sense to do the admin on his evenings not with his family so you guys can have the whole weekend together
You getting a ‘day off’ is not the point - is he actually bothered about your marriage/ family time together?!

Not every consultant will, but a good number of us actually do have in that range of emails that need checking.

Some of them are pointless and can be binned.
Some are routine and can wait in email triage.
Some are considered urgent by the sender but actually aren't that urgent and can wait a bit before being acted upon.
Some are urgent and need acted on promptly.
Some are "oh sh*t we need to do something about this now".

How do we tell the difference? We check them.

Some people may choose not to check them. Some people (like myself) are fortunate enough to have awesome colleagues who help triage out the non-urgent stuff. Some people actually do have a couple of hundred emails to sift through singlehandedly after their clinic.

It's ok if you can't see how we can do it, but we do. Regularly.

Not checked. Answered is what was said.

And an answer can be anything from one word to a "forwarding to [the relevant person]" to an "I'll address this on [Saturday, probably, for OP's husband] to an hour of work to stabilise a patient. The emails that don't get a full response or full read on the day of sending then need to be dealt with, within an appropriate timeframe.

Several hours worth of work in an evening or at night is normal for a lot of us.

If it helps explain things, a typical non-emergency/not-on-call work day for me may involve:
Get up with the DC, breakfast, play or reading time, nursery drop-off.
Into work early - find out what's happened overnight and what I'm walking into.
Ward reviews/MDTs usually start at about 9 and finish before 12 so we can get the trainees off to lunchtime teaching if it's on, and get jobs arising from the round/MDT underway in time for same-day results.
'Lunchtime' is time to get up to speed on the issues arising in the morning while I was busy elsewhere, fire-fight some of those and get ready for the afternoon. Very little lunch is actually had.
An afternoon clinic could start at 1 and go on til 4ish. Here is where I'm a bit firm about appointment allocations so that I can get home for DC's bedtime. At lunchtime I'll have prepared for all the known patients coming and made sure patients are allocated to appropriate clinicians.
4pm - get back to chasing those investigation results, arranging things for outpatients, checking on ward patients.
5:30pm - off to pick up DC on my agreed days. If not a pick-up day, I'll usually be on the ward or in my office until 6.
Then I spend time with DC.
Once DC's in bed, remote working means I can log back in and get a few hours of work done, including checking and answering emails. I'll usually try to get to bed for 1ish.