Work 4 day week impossible as a Mum

[Storytime75]

Sorry if this is just a rant but some perspective would also be good - please be kind, feeling fragile.

I work remotely (in contract) and go into the office occasionally. I have worked 4 days a week since coming back from maternity leave and have my child one day per week.

I am trying to my best to be as accommodating as possible however this essentially means me putting in an extra 2-3 hours work every single night after my baby is in bed. I am so stressed out, and run into the ground.

Im not being a martyr, I've tried to put boundaries in place and have raised the issue of the workload with my manager and she's entirely unhelpful. In the past she has said "when I worked part time I found it really helpful to log on at 5am just blitz through my emails when no-one is bothering me, could you try that". Or "This is the problem with Mums working part-time, we expect a certain level of flexibility from you and it's usually impossible to make it work". I feel like encouraging this working pattern as the only way to get the job done is bad leadership. I do not get paid for any overtime or hours I put outside of the 4 days.

It's come to a head this week because I am expected to travel to a client on my non-working day (Tuesday). This is a 6 hour journey by train and an overnight stay. To then work the the next day with the client, and travel 6 hours back home to get back at 11pm. We do not get paid in lieu/toil for travel so that's 12 hours of my own time Im travelling on.

My issue is, in order to accommodate this for them, I will have to pay to put my child in nursery for the day. I raised this and asked what the business stance is on this as Im incurring a hefty additional cost and it's very much 'we expect you to be flexible'.

The solution is I work on the Tuesday, so I will be paid for that day. I will then travel up to the site. I will still have to pay for a full day's nursery in order to accommodate the business need for me to be there (I am unable to swap nursery days around).

Manager said 'well we're paying you for working on the Tues so we're covering your your childcare'. NO you're covering MY TIME, I am paying for the childcare. Im basically having to work an extra day, to get paid for 25% of it because the rest will go on childcare.

I understand that yes, every other day I work and my child is at nursery that is a cost I choose to incur, but that's a personal choice we've made as a family when weighing up my salary vs childcare.

Im pissed off because I feel that I'm having to pay the day of nursery fees/forfeit the day with my child in order for the business to meet the unrealistic expectations it has set to its clients, and the unrealistic expectations that staff will drop everything.

Im not expected to do it regularly, so fine. However the total lack of respect for my own time, the fact I work 4 days, the fact Im drowning in work and no one is prepared to listen, is completely disappointing. I will of course suck it up, and do the work, I just struggle so much to be firm in my opinions when management is so quick to disregard what Im saying as 'women being inflexible'.

YANBU - they are taking the piss
YABU - you need to suck it up

Thanks!

Full-time job with part-time pay.
They do sometimes treat men like that too but men usually have a female to take care of the child.

You have a shit employer. I work 4 days and have none of this. I don’t do a single minute on my non working day or weekends and there is no requirement to “be flexible”

Vote with your feet.

The job is taking the piss. Look for another. I've worked a 4 day week for 20 years and never done this. I never work any extra hours, never have.

You need to find somewhere else to work, or establish your boundaries and stick to these firmly.

I worked in a toxic environment, and in the end saved up so I could eventually leave without having anything else to go to, and take a career break, before finding a new employer who is actually genuinely understanding and supportive of all their employees, regardless what challenges they face.

I was also reluctant to go full time, even though a lot of my fellow mum friends said it would be better. The role I wanted was full time. I’m so glad I did it. Previously I was part time, but I ended up working more hours than I am now in a full time role, because I was trying to shoehorn in full time work to reduced working hours and around family, and I nearly burned out. The pace is completely different when you’re full time and a good employer is respectful of your time and is flexible to accommodate things that go on outside of your job. When you’re stuck in a toxic job/with a bad manager it feels like you’re never going to escape it, or it’s not really that bad, or the grass isn’t always greener. But things are better if you can escape and find a better working environment!

@C152
”It's fair enough to highlight that perhaps the manager is coming at it from an out-dated mindset based on her own experience. I'm also sorry you and your colleagues worked for equally dreadful companies. But it's not a race to the bottom. Shouldn't we want the generation after us to have better opportunities and not have to fight so bloody hard?”

Well put. I do think her manager is old fashioned and probably harder on OP than a male manager would be. I agree it’s not a race to the bottom and OP shouldn’t think it is just the way things should be. Unfortunately, being pregnant she has to make the best of it for now.

What about your baby's father? How is his working week affected?

My manager was like yours, so I really feel for you.

She made my return after mat leave completely unbearable tbh and it really affected my mental health. Within 3 weeks of returning, she expected me to be leading projects again like I had never been away and wasn’t understanding of doing 4 days.

My manager is now on maternity leave herself, so will be interested to see how she gets on tbh.

No advice but just to say it’s really common.

I am unclear why they can insist you work on your day off and can’t take TOIL? I would refuse. With the overnight you will be working a six day week for four. Your manager sounds like a dick. I could not work somewhere like that with kids. I left the first job I did with a baby because of an unreasonable manager. YANBU.

Stop working in the evenings for free.
It's unlikely they'll fire you as they need to have a proper reason, but as another PP suggested you should see if you can join a union. And it's likely you'd get another job if they did fire you.

Just sympathy

I would LOVE a 3 or 4 day working week but I know it’s a trap for all the reasons and more you outlined in your OP.
My experience has been that in jobs that are roles not a function (ie you manage a specific client vs you are 1 of 50 doing a repeatable task) part time just does not work 90%+ of the time and it is just crap.

my job is well paid so I just suck it up knowing that the money I am saving means I can go PT when the kids are bigger but I would love a 3 day pw gig on my current salary

Sadly, also in the same situation. Women, and most especially mums, are set up to fail. 4 days a week (which was an increase from 3 to meet the demands of workload) means I feel like I’m doing a shit job at work so put in extra hours, which then means I feel like I’m doing a shit job at home. And don’t get me started on the holidays where childcare drops off a cliff but being part time means entitled to less annual leave so the gap is even wider. Struggled through a month with not even 50% of the childcare I needed, and paid £1500 for the privilege. I actually have a good employer in general but because I’m a good employee, if the work isn’t done, I will put in the hours to do it. I also feel like I need to, to prove I’m worth it and not about to be replaced by a full time, non-remote working alternative. Shit show. I feel for you OP.

I will provide a different view which is based on my own specific position.

id love to work 4 days a week but i know its not workable with my role nor with my ambitions so I haven’t bothered with it (nor would i be allowed it).

what type of role do you have/ does your boss have? If you are fairly senior and/ or have ambitions of progressing you need to suck it up. If you earn a low salary and/ or aren’t senior then the situation seems unreasonable.

to me your boss seems to be giving you a helpful tip on how to handle things but I’d expect that advice from a senior manager / someone who is heading a business or function and earning accordingly

Thanks everyone for your advice, I knew 4 days was always going to be difficult, just didn't expect such a blatant disregard for employee wellbeing and balance.

When I was on mat leave they did say 'you can try 4 days but I couldn't make it work and ended up doing more work in the evenings so went back to FT'. Maybe they were trying to warn me, however I think a good leader would also help protect boundaries and ensure your workload was reasonable. Not just leave you to drown and come crawling back when it doesn't work.

To answer a few questions:

Manager is early 30s, and admittedly has very likely had to sacrifice a lot to get to this role, but has not experienced the archaic practices of bringing children/partners to client sites etc that some of you have mentioned above!

I know the problem is boundaries, and the fact that I've not been firm enough in putting them in place. But I'm also desperate to not be seen as the 'weak' link in the chain. Im the only one in the team with children (apart from manager) and am trying to gain back visibility and respect within the team after coming back from maternity leave.

As an example I said to manager 'let me just check with X that he's happy with this amount of travel before I give the go ahead for the meeting because it's quite a big ask'. And the response was something like 'oh don't worry about X, he's great, he's not a complainer and will just get on with it'. Which sums up my exact position - either get on with it or be tarnished as 'difficult'.

It's sad because I do the job because career and development is really important to me, and believe it or not I do feel that I need a certain level of pressure and stress in order to keep me motivated. And, I like the job, or did.

UGH Im still fuming about it 😂

Time to get a plan in place!

Are you a single parent and if not, what u
is your partner doing?

What is the reason you cannot get your work done in 4 days?
A) job is too big for anyone to do in 4 days (i.e., it's a full-time role)
B) you have too many distractions when wfh so can't get job done (were you originally office based before mat leave?)
C) the manager just keeps adding bits for you to do that are outwith your job description
Depending on cause, you need to;
A) leave and find a less densely-packed job that can be done in 4 wfh days
B) you go back to the office more days where fewer distractions exist
C) you have a word with your manager, or HR, with your j.d, go through each aspect, then point out the extra stuff being dumped on you

I feel for you. I also do 4 days, it's a joke. Although not as bad as it sounds for you. I've done p/t work before though & that was fine & absolutely respected by managers so i think it is dependent on job & management whether it works. I'm looking for something else. Good luck.

My company is a lot more respectful so I don't really have issues.
But when I initially discussed it with my manager he did comment that some days would be more difficult to accommodate than others.
Fridays were best, then Mondays, middle of the week would have been harder to make it work (I picked Fridays ).

The other thing is that if you are doing extra hours to accommodate your workload anyway, you could ask for condensed hours in addition to your part time so at least you get paid for it. If you do 90% that's an extra hour a day, 100% is about 2h.

In rare situations where I've had to work on my day off, I either got paid or got time in lieu that week. Usually my husband has taken the day off rather than us paying for nursery, it was a good opportunity for them to have 1-1 time.

I wouldn't entertain travelling on my own time until 11pm, I would leave earlier or stay an extra night.

I have occasionally worked my non working day to accommodate meetings and my employer paid for the extra day at nursery.

however I am also finding 4 days hard - having to frequently work in the evening

Go back and ask for compressed hours again, seeing as that's what you are doing now and your manager has actually suggested that to you in order to manage your workload (logging on at 5am). They can't argue it doesn't meet the business need when you're putting in the request TO meet the business need.

Then you'll get paid for the work you are doing, and on your NWD you need to be strictly unavailable. Additional travel outside your working hours needs to lead to TOIL, or you refuse to do it.

Yes they sound quite shit, but you are a grown up and need stricter boundaries and to formally log your concerns with HR. If you are repeatedly saying your workload exceeds your contracted hours, they are opening themselves up to a tribunal if they try to discipline you or dismiss you for not meeting targets at any point.

Or... look for another job?

I think you need to switch jobs OP, your boss and workplace honestly sounds shit.

Google work places that have won awards for best employer/place to work etc. and see what comes up in your area

This happened in my last job. I ended up leaving. I was doing 0.8 but a full time job.

In a new job now and I tried to compress my hours (9 days in 10) but with two preschoolers I was exhausted. I now do 0.8 but I can only do it because my line manager is as strict about her time as me. I occasionally have to be flexible, but it's optional to some extent and it's only a few times a year.

I've recently been asked to "step up" and I've had to decline.

YANBU. They are taking the piss, and would be doing so whether you had a child or not - the fact that you have one is just highlighting their shitness and making it impossible for you to absorb.

I worked 2.5 days in a heavy workload job. I had literally half the clients of the full timers so in theory should be fine. But I had to attend the same - weekly meeting (2 hours) supervision (1 hour) deliver training (3 hours) and do on call (2 hours ) so that left me 10.5 hours for client work. Whereas full timers had 29 hours left for their client work.
I had to do my emails and reports on my days off just to keep on top. I tried to explain it to my line manager but she couldn't seem to get it. Kept saying "how can I support you to manage your workload better' 🙄

I had a breakdown and left. (Tbf home was a struggle too so not all works fault)

I wonder is it the company with the issue or your line manager? Anyone in senior management or HR you can speak to for advice? You need boundaries. I would suggest you join a union and keep a track of unreasonable requests. If these requests tend to be verbal, note them down, or save copies of emails and msgs.

Meanwhile… job hunt for a move to a more supportive employer. As you are working remotely there may be a move you can make to an organisation who genuinely appreciates your skills.

This exact thing happened to me! I went back 3 days a week after maternity - they were more than happy for this as it meant only paying me for 3 days (they were in a mess after COVID and the director making ridiculous financial decisions) BUT I soon realised they still expected me to do my old job, which was essentially one full time role plus covering other workloads due to their history of under staffing.

They made me feel awful for struggling. Constantly asked me to work and extra day or swap my days to accommodate them. They couldn't understand why my mum couldn't "just" have my son constantly with no notice, despite knowing her mum was on end of life care at the time. They called me 3 times during my nans funeral and that's when I decided enough was enough.

I changed to a new job, 3 days a week but because they knew from the start what the situation was, I've had zero issues in almost 2 years. My son started reception last month and as he's doing so well (so far, touch wood!) I've asked about doing 4 days from Jan and they seem very keen to make that work, so we'll be having some meetings in the next couple of months to ensure everyone is happy with the arrangements.

@Storytime75 do not put up with being pushed around, it's basically bullying. Places are struggling to recruit these days - get your CV updated and get applying, I bet something more suitable comes up for you before Christmas!