To think it’s impossible for me to work?

[VanillaBerthaCake]

I currently work in a call centre, the pay is decent for that sector but still not high earning by any means. Full time I bring home about £1900 after tax. I WFH 2 days a week, the rest is office 10am-6:30pm. It’s a full on job, constant calls, 2 x 15 min breaks and one 30 min lunch break. I often stay up to 40 minutes late if I get a complex call last minute with a customer who is complaining or has a complex query. The hours are usually Monday to Friday and 1 in 3 Saturdays.

I’m 5 months pregnant and had originally planned to go back after maternity leave but I’m now beginning to dread it and don’t even think it’s possible. We’ve had quotes from childcare centres near us and I’d only have a few hundred left each month even with the funded childcare hours. Plus it wouldn’t even work with my hours, if the nursery shuts at 6pm, I work until 6:30pm, wouldn’t get there until at least 7pm, potentially later if I get stuck on a call. I’d need nursery and wraparound childcare, and that would fully kill my income. Baby would still need to be in nursery even on the WFH days as the job has no down-time at all. My call-centre is big in every worker being treated the same therefore there are no part timers as apparently it would make resource planning too complicated.

DH works on a rotating shift pattern and barely ever has weekends off. He usually works 4 x 12 hour days and the days he works are different each week. He also has the opportunity to do at least one overtime shift a week for double pay where he can make £380 in one day, and he tends to do this when he can. He probably gets 2 full weekends off every 12 weeks. Including the overtime he makes about £40,000 a year. He works 7am-7pm usually. We won’t have any family support, my parents live an hour away and had me in their 40s so they are elderly. DP isn’t British and his family all live abroad. There is quite literally nobody.

He doesn’t want to change jobs as the overtime opportunities at his current job help us have a decent lifestyle, 2 holidays a year, nice car etc. If he had a Monday-Friday 9-5 it would be different as I could get a weekend or evening job but it’s just not doable for us. He also has dyslexia and couldn’t do an office job, he needs to be out grafting. Also what is brilliant about DP’s job is sometimes there is no work on site and he’ll work 2 hours and then get sent home the rest of the day, on full pay. But you never know if he’s going to be kept the full day or not so you can’t plan childcare around this.

Even if I could find a 9am-3pm job for example (the holy grail for parents), I would still feel like we were wasting money. On DP’s 3 days off in the week, ideally I’d like him to be with our child whilst I work (he wants this too) but to retain the nursery place I’d still have to pay for the hours each week even if the child didn’t go during DP’s days off! It would be a complete and utter waste of money and I would feel resentful as child would be at home with DH 3 days in the week but I’d still end up paying the 5 full nursery days to retain the place, as the following week the it’d be different days I’d need baby to go in to nursery.

Also I have a health condition and DH has lactose intolerance so we need to watch our diet and eat freshly cooked home-made meals. Any “throw in the oven” processed food makes us both so ill. I have to meal-plan and cook extensively. Being at home with baby I could manage this so much better.

Working currently seems insane to me. Our mortgage is only £600 per month. Even if I stopped working and factoring in baby costs, DP would still have about £500 left at the end of each month. I’ve explained these concerns to DP and he understands.

I feel like it’s going to just be impossible to work unless DP changes jobs but he doesn’t want to which I completely understand as he’d never find another job where he can do a £380 overtime every week and where he sometimes gets sent home but is still paid for the full day (this happens at least once a week).

AIBU?

OP, think very, very carefully about not working in the current economic climate - if your partner loses his job, you will be very precarious.

The nursery years go by very quickly.

You don’t have to decide today. Take the enhanced maternity pay, but DO NOT SPEND IT. Put it in a separate savings account that you don’t touch. You can decide later whether to return to work, or whether to pay it back.

I sympathise OP. I work full time with 2DC. But more flexible as largely wfh. I think a PP’s suggestion to make a flexible working request to work around nursery hours is a good one. They can’t have a blanket ban on flexible work requests, they’re legally obliged to consider them. And they shouldn’t discriminate against women with caring responsibilities.
On the cost side, you should view that as a shared cost between you and your DP. You may only break even in the short term but the nursery costs go down each year due to the funded hours. Think about where you will be financially in four years if you have not worked. It can be hard to re enter and you will have no pension contributions for those years. It makes you very dependent on your DP, when actually childcare and associated costs are a shared responsibility.
Beat of luck!

It doesn’t sound either possible or worth while going back to your current job. But that doesn’t mean not working at all. Look for a 9-5 job (whether FT or PT) elsewhere. I’m sure call centre skills would be easily transferable to a more suitable job.
Can DH put in a request for set days?

Get married first if you’re going to consider not returning to work or significantly reducing your hours.

You could negotiate to pay it back in instalments if you would rather have the money upfront during your maternity leave.

If I was you I would opt out, and look for a different job. The current job just does not work for you but you may be able to get something part time or even full time but with better hours.

I worked in a call centre for a while, and left because it was the most inflexible job, while expecting me to be fully flexible.

I don't think you should stop working either, and I certainly wouldn't make the decision now. Finishing at 6:30pm is going to be difficult if I'm honest, that's very close to bedtime for most toddlers.

But you don't have to tell your employer now, wait for the baby to be here and see how you feel after 6 months at home (I was desperate to go back to work! Other are desperate not to...).
Take the enhanced mat pay, put it aside in case you decide to leave so you can return it.

Look at childminders over nurseries, it should come out much cheaper. But also you'll probably have to change jobs due to the finish time.

Be a stay at home mum for a bit, if you can afford it. I did it until they were both at nursery/primary school and then I got a part time job. I know it's not for everyone but I found it absolutely wonderful, and feel I was incredibly lucky to be able to afford it and have that precious time with my babies. Highly recommend it.

Get married now, become a SAHM and enjoy your child and family life. You can look at more options for work as baby gets older or have a bunch of kids!

They review flexible working requests and then come back and decline them. Their excuse is due to the call centre being so busy the rota has to be run like a very tight ship. Breaks are timed to the second, if you get stuck on a call and go on break 5 minutes later you get bollocked. They state that having part-timers would interfere too much with having the right amount of people on the phones.

Yes ideally staying at work would be better I know. I’d like us to be comfortable and not living off the breadline scraping pennies together for the food shop, still have a holiday every year, days out etc.

The thought of working full time and barely seeing baby makes me feel ill. I went through IVF and an operation to have this baby, I want to savour my time with them. I think I need something about 3 days a week where I’m guaranteed to finish at 5pm each time - no risk of being kept late. The call centre is too unpredictable. People have been stuck on calls 2 hours after the shift has ended before. I’ll probably decline the enhanced maternity, take 9 months mat leave and towards the end of the mat leave start looking for other jobs

Yes, it sounds like you’ll definitely have to go on benefits to keep enjoying the two holidays a year lifestyle.

I would definitely take the enhanced mat leave, go back fully utilise your holiday including any contractual right to unpaid leave (I can take 2 weeks a year) PLUS use your right to 4 weeks parental leave and use that time looking for a new job as now is not the time.

You sound like you’ve already made your mind up to be honest.

You could ask to do 2 or 3 days per week. You will need to find a babysitter to collect from nursery - there are often staff at the nursery that would do that and it would only be when your DH isn’t around.

Working to earn your £12k tax free allowance will make it more worthwhile financially.

If they won’t agree to part time as in 2/3 days of full time hours then you won’t be able to return.

There's life beside baby and life after baby and it honestly feels like you gave birth to a small bomb in the first year.

I think the lack of women between 30-50 gives you the answer about your job being viable. I would get married (safety net), then quit and consider going back to work after the first year. That gives you time to adjust to sleep deprivation and research careers.

Women typically take a 10% pay drop for every year we are out of work with kids. That's because we aim for family friendly hours or part time work.

You can mitigate this by looking for ways to upskill once the baby is older or run your own business.

Good luck with your decision.

There's life before baby and life after baby and it honestly feels like you gave birth to a small bomb in the first year.

I think the lack of women between 30-50 gives you the answer about your job being viable. I would get married (safety net), then quit and consider going back to work after the first year. That gives you time to adjust to sleep deprivation and research careers.

Women typically take a 10% pay drop for every year we are out of work with kids. That's because we aim for family friendly hours or part time work.

You can mitigate this by looking for ways to upskill once the baby is older or run your own business.

Good luck with your decision.

1. Get married
2. Take the enhanced maternity pay but save it to buy you time to think
3. Explore other income streams/retraining/upskilling you could do from home so you have a future plan if you give up this job - see this as an opportunity to build something you want to do

When thinking about not working have you factored in the possible weather related time off for your partner? That can make a big dent in earnings

I think you are right to leave that job, but there's no reason you can't look for something that suits your hours better, if you say you can give up work completely and still be okay (although extremely tight on your budget) then you have the flexibility to find something that suits your hours/shift patterns and still bring home the extra money.

Or try it for a year after mat leave, and keep the money aside in case you need to return it.

be VERY, VERY careful though, as the main earner, if your DP was to get ill or couldn't work you are in a precarious position, as well as if you ever separated (not something you would think about now, but it can happen, especially with life changing circumstances like becoming parents), always have that in the back of your mind.

Your workplace sound extremely unsupportive of working parents anyway so in your position I'd think it important to change job at least anyway.

Many people stay in their jobs to avoid losing career benefits like good pensions, promotions etc etc. Are these things available in a call centre job? My understanding is a call centre job is largely an entry level position that you could pick up again once you were in a position to return to work?

If you aren't going to be significantly financially better off and you can realistically afford for you to be a stay at home parent and you value staying at home with your child in the early years, I would do this, providing your partner is a good person to be dependent on (i.e. he's a decent guy) and I agree with other posters that being married would be sensible because it provides you with some financial protections.

In addition to marriage, there are other financial protection you can set in place if you are dependent on your partner in the event of death or separation, such as:

• life insurance
• being named as a beneficiary on partners pension
• continuing to pay into your state pension by signing up to child benefits
• having the house 50 percent in your name

If you can afford to go without the enhanced mat leave then you don't have to take it. I think a lot of people would wince at turning down thousands of pounds of "free money" but in my eyes it isn't free; you are sacrificing a year looking after you child. If you can't afford it then I imagine you'll have to go back for at least a year.

Either way your current job sounds stingy and uncompromising! My minimum return period was 3 months I think, and they really sound like they have zero flexibility in working hours.

I've read the first 3 pages and all the OP posts. OP, you haven't done your maths.

You say you won't make any money since childcare will take all your earnings. Yes, I understand. What you haven't said (and I don't suggest you do, on a public forum) is how much the enhanced maternity leave is, rather than standard. If the enhancement is enough, it could be worth going back to your job for 12 months. For example, if the difference is £200 a week for a year, that means it's like £100 a week over 2 years, which obviously affects the sums about whether it's worth going back to work. You need to do this calculation.

This is on top of the other advice saying FFS get married first, and consider a childminder rather than nursery....

That sounds like a good plan OP. A part time role would give you more time with your precious little one. All the best.

I would stop working at the call centre, and look at re-training in an AI-proof job while on maternity leave. Unfortunately call centre agents are going to be among the first to be replaced by AI.

I would look for other home based employment opportunities, if you think realistically with chikdcare costs you will only be gaining say 500 a month if you work. Then how else could you make 500 a month without childcare costs. Just doing a couple of evening shifts a week while DH has baby would make this up. There are home based telesales opportunities with shift work you could explore.
Unkess you absolutely love your job and want to progress there, then stay. But otherwise you can probably find a way to plug the gap in finances for a few years until you can work more hours with the free childcare element.