Anyone else in office until 6 with long commute and young kids ? How do you do it ?

[opali]

I just started a new job and stupidly assumed that office hours would be 9-5. They’re not. They’re 9:30-6. 3 times a week.

anyway, I’m sure others have this - what do you do with your kiddies ? Mine are 3 and 5.

my last job was 9-5, but I used to leave at around 4:20 to go and get back in time to pick up my kids from after school club, which finishes at 6.

I didn’t really take a lunch break and caught up on whatever anytime anyway, so it didn’t really make any difference or bother anyone.

the new work place seems super office performatory and of course I don’t want to ask in my first week.

even on my work from home days, I don’t think I can pick up my kids. On my office days I don’t get back home until 7:30 pm.

I have a nanny who helps me of course with drop offs and pick ups, but it’s so expensive and now she’s going to have to stay with them until 7:30 on top of the pick ups and drop offs, 3 times a week.

in my last role, I just asked my manager a couple of weeks in and explained I need to leave a bit early to pick up my kids and his response was that he’s in the same boat, so understands and it’s about the total output and catching up if required.

anyway, has anyone else navigated this ? No one else seems to have kids, so I’m not sure they’ll really get it. They know I have kids and need some flexibility with travel for example as they said they needed a lot of travel and we agreed on a bit less for me.

Is it really outing to say ‘my husband’s job means that 5 days per week he leaves before the school run and has no flexibility’? She’s already mentioned he’s home late every night.

She has asked for support in how to manage it so needs to give a bit of info as it’s different advice if he’s not stepping up because he’s legitimately working or because he thinks it’s a woman’s job. Both type of men do exist.

He's probably someone in the public eye I'm guessing 🤔.

I have a six year old and a three year old too. I do drop off as I start at 930. But I have a long commute so they still have to go to breakfast club from 8am. I then work till 6, home by 730. My husband skews his day the other way, going to work early and leaving at 4/430pm so he can collect from after school club and nursery by 5/530. We both work a four day week so two of those days the kids can go/come home at a normal time. Then my mum does one pick up a week too, again at normal time.

Like many others, I split dropoffs & pickups with DH. I worked 4 days & he would dropoff 2, I would go in early, then leave work at 3.10 for school pickup.

The other 2 days I'd drop at breakfast club & he'd leave work at 5 to collect from after school, while I would work until 7 in the office.

That was contracted long/short days pattern for me though, as they'd wanted me to increase hours above my initial contract, so they had to work with us to find a pattern that worked in practice to get the total time THEY wanted.

@opali I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, but you do have a statutory right to request flexible working (twice each year)-even right from the outset of a new job now. They can technically refuse based on business need - but if you set out all the points you've made here about starting early to match European office hours etc, you might get somewhere.

Sounds like it's worth keeping your job hunt going for something closer to home if possible? Sounds like this one was 'needs must' after previous redundancy, and they may take a dim view of an immediate flexible working request, or just end your probation & go back to the next candidate from their recruitment process.

Appreciate also your DH's self-employed job may be a tradey with lots of travel time he just can't avoid. Or running a company he "needs" to be first in, last out every day. If it's closer to the latter than the former though, he would be doing everyone a favour if he figured out how to contribute 50% of his own children's dropoff/pickups - it would certainly be a better example of how to meet the requirements of the job while flexing hours to be a good parent if he has employees of his own...