AIBU to wonder what work are expecting me to do?

[FriskyHeeler]

I've worked at my current employer for 3 years and recently had a change in circumstances (in February) which means I have no childcare for my 3 children after school for 1-2 days out of the week. They have been understanding and accomodated my needs so far but have asked me to look at what realistic options are available and have called a meeting for next week to discuss, as the situation is not sustainable long term. I'll outline the facts below, please read carefully because it's not as simple a solution as most people seem to think.

• I work 8.30 - 5pm Monday to Friday and it takes me 30 mins to get to and from work.
• My husband works 8 - 4.30 Monday to Friday, his office is an hour away and he works from home on Thursdays and Fridays. Soon to be 3 days a week. He used to work nights, so would drop off and pick up the kids each day, however the strain on family life, our relationship, his mental health was not sustainable and he had numerous breakdowns over a long period of time and he changed jobs. Not ideal but I won't make my husband do a job he hated when it made him want to kill himself every day. He can be quite volatile and in the past this has affected work when he last left for periods of time so I've been left to sort the kids 100% of the time, at times. Work know things are rocky and my line manager thinks I should leave him but this would only make the situation more difficult.
• Our kids are 3, 5 & 9. The 3 & 5 year olds attend the same school/nursery and the 9 year old attends a different school.
• 2 out of the 3 kids have special needs and are settled in their schools. They previously attended the same primary school but had serious issues so we had to move them.
• Both schools have breakfast club, 1 starts at 7.50 and the other at 8.10, this obviously means I am often 10 mins late to work on the days they are in club.
• Neither school has ANY after school provision.
• We unfortunately live in an area where wrap around care isn't in demand, so options are pretty non existent.
• There are no childminders in the area that currently or are willing to pick up from either/both of their schools.
• Their are a couple of local nurseries that do after school club and they collect the kids from school and walk back to their premises. 1 of my kids is a flight risk so I do not feel comfortable with this as an option. He has escaped and ran off from his old school twice before.
• We cannot afford a nanny, prices are between £15 - 20 and hour when I have enquired and tbh, given my kids additional needs, I don't think anyone would last a week with them, they are VERY full on.
• My dad can collect the kids 1 day a week at an absolute push but it's his only day off and if he has plans it's not a given he can do it, I don't expect him to plan his life around MY kids. My dad works the other 4 days a week and my mom doesn't work but has stopped driving for health reasons so cannot pick them up and she is not physically able to walk/get the bus etc and as previously stated, 1 of them is a flight risk and she wouldnt be able to run after him if needed. A taxi for her to pick them up and go back to hers would be far too expensive multiple times a week as she has done this once before in an emergency and it was £30 for one pick up, let alone 2.
• There are no other parents at either of their schools that we know well enough to ask. We have no other friends or family in the area at all, aside from my mom and dad.
• So far, on days where my husband is in the office, I finish work at 14:40, pick up the kids from school and then log on at home for the remainder of the day, sometimes beyond 5pm.
• I am a supervisor and our team is growing and I will be responsible for up to 12 people eventually so work are saying I cannot effectively supervise if I am not in the office. We also have a lot of new team members (one being another supervisor) who are not fully trained so things tend to fall to shit a lot of them time if I am not there.
• Not to toot my own horn but i am the glue that holds the entire team together, and effectively, if I were to leave because I need more long term flexibility, they would be absolutely fucked. My line manager and our department manager knows this all too well, but are still pressuring me to find some magical solution that doesn't exist so I can be there 8.30-5 every single day. They've not said they will get rid of me, and I don't think they would, but they're saying I need to work my hours I am employed to do. I agree with this and have no issues with that, I've often said I will taken leave, take the time unpaid etc and they have always said no.
• I could put in a flexible working request to reduce my hours 1-2 days a week, but it would actually be a waste of time, as they can and would refuse it for a legitimate business reason.

I don't know what to do or what I'm supposed to say during this meeting. If you've thought of something I haven't explored above then please please let me know. I'm obviously going to explain all of the above in detail about what I've looked into and why it's not a viable option and see what they say. I'm also considering telling them I'm looking else where for something more flexible in the hope that they back down, but I don't actually want to leave, I really do enjoy working there and don't want to jump ship and end up being somewhere I don't like, or having to take a pay cut that I can't really afford.

Don't go in there asking them to pay for childcare, it will set a ridiculous tone and get everyone's backs up.

I do understand that it looks like the childcare options have been exhausted and aren’t going to work. Seems to me the options are 1 - you, along with management, come up with a solution whereby you are not needed in the office for a few hours on those 2 days when you need to leave early to pick them up. The new supervisor is trained and allocated to deal with any issues as they come up, or another manager, or whatever this may be. Or 2 - everyone accepts there is no solution, and you will need to give in your notice and look for another role that is less rigid and has the bit of flexibility you need.

That’s what a terrible company would say . Members of my team are like gold dust and I treat them with utter respect .

You need to use the after school club every day and work with them to find a solution to the running off. Otherwise you’re both expecting your employers to pay you for 2-3 hours every day that you’re not fully working. You can’t be fully working while looking after children of those ages even without the SEN. You describe them as ‘full on’ so it’s no wonder work don’t believe you’re able to do two things at once even aside from the on-site issue. Your employers have said they are not happy - sooner or later your DH’s will too so it’s worth putting a proper solution in place.

Very very rarely is an employer fucked without one particular person. Our managing director left last year, they really were the glue that held the organization together but guess what, they found someone else snd a year on they are remembered fondly but that's all.
It does come across a bit toot your own horn to say they can't cope without you.

I understand that but again it's not their problem.

They're not asking you to magic up childcare that doesn't exist, they're expecting you to be there doing the work they pay you for. Other people have children and they have to accept that they get paid childcare or they can't do certain work.

I don't think you should be 'working' while in sole charge of three kids as you cannot possibly be concentrating sufficiently at work.

This.

I've known many people who believe they are indispensable at work. That's never once turned out to be the case.

To the point of letting them dictate terms? I take it you do not own the business...

I feel for you O.P, it is hard when there aren't many viable options near you. Soonish I think your husband can do three days of the pick ups and drop offs and hopefully your dad could continue with that one pickup a week... So hopefully it's more just one day that you will be asking to leave earlier...

See what they say and you are right to cover all the options so that they understand the situation for what it is. Good luck.

If you don’t see a viable option then off ten what you have that is reduced hours . If they refuse then gives you time to start looking for another job . As a team leader myself I try my best to keep my team together as it can be really disruptive to break a good team .

Instead of your husband doing 3 days working from home could he do 2 days + 2 afternoons working from home and travel home from the office on his lunch break those two days? Then your dad covers the 5th day and you do the breakfast club drop-offs and make up the 10 minutes at lunch or something?

I wouldn’t threaten to leave or say you are looking for something else. If anything I’d ham up how much you love the job and your colleagues and are trying to make it work.

This kind of thinking is what you need - come with some 'bigger picture' solutions. Condensing hours, training up, things that can be a long-term plus all round.

I think they are showing all necessary efforts to accommodate you before dismissal. Nobody is indispensable. Not a prime minister or a monarch - and not you. It may seem like that to you, but that’s because you’re not the employer.

If you want to keep this job you need to come to the meeting with a solution. From the employer’s perspective you are putting your children and your husband and your finances before them, which obviously they understand because they’re humans too. But to do their jobs properly, they have to get your job done properly. If you can’t do it properly you can and will eventually be replaced by someone who doesn’t have attendance issues. They’ll promote someone or demote someone or make a lateral hire - anything, because they can’t keep you on functioning as you are.

Basically, you don’t seem to understand the onus is on you to keep this job which they can fire you from. They’re pressing you to eg pay for a nanny or two if need be. You’ll have to say you can’t afford it. Then they can say they have grounds for dismissal because you routinely don’t turn up or leave early. This is what people mean when they say your childcare problems are your own.

I was going to say this- very few people are 100% completely, utterly indispensable and irreplaceable. You can be excellent at your job and very hard to replace- and likely that the process of doing so will be difficult and possibly carry financial costs for a time- and the period of adjustment/getting your replacement up to speed tricky- but I would think you are, ultimately, replaceable. I can understand why an organisation would prefer to try to be flexible for a period of time when they have an excellent employee, but they will eventually need to you to work the hours your job requires and that they pay you for. Looks like that time has come. If you are aware a flexible hours request will be rejected, then you have 2 choices if they are serious about you needing to return to your usual hours: find a way to make it work with childcare (even if not your preferred/perfect provider); or find a job which can accommodate your needs.

I am trying not to sound harsh, but I think you do need to shift away from “they won’t do anything about it because I’m so essential that I can never be replaced”- you almost certainly can be and you need to be realistic about that. If you go in with that assumption, you may well get a bit of a shock. I’m sure they’d much prefer not to have to replace you, if you are as good as you say you are, but if you can’t do the hours/work required then they may well make that choice.

Finding it really hard to answer everyone, so many replies, some empathetic and some not so much.

I feel I've addressed most of the suggestions or comments in the original OP tbh. You can all think I'm smug all you want but I know my worth and everything will just fall down and unravel without me there. They WANT me to stay because they know this. They may want to formalise things and thats fine, it's cheaper for me to cut my hours than it is for me to find and pay for magic childcare that are SEN trained (doesn't exist where I live) .

No, I don't want to move to whoever mentioned this. We moved previously from an awful area, the kids are happy and settled, doing well. So they are the priority (one comment suggested that I put them first which is weird cos that's all I'm doing).

Also financials are a big consideration. Whilst yes I can cut my hours, I don't particularly want to have to. My husband can cut his hours but he's already taken a pay cut. A further one would be too drastic for us. We have scrimped for years paying for nursery/childminders when they were babies. I cannot afford not to work full stop. We get DLA for the eldest which gets used for breakfast club and holiday childcare. My youngest goes to another nursery during the school holidays and my middle has recently been banned from the holiday club he and the eldest go to. My mom will have 1 at a time for a day or 2 during the school holidays but she is really not physically well enough for more.

Like I said, I know it sounds arrogant and I'm replaceable etc etc. But I cannot express enough how untrue that is due to current circumstances surrounding staffing and volume of orders and high profile customers we have orders for, it won't make sense without knowing the details but I can't go into it and it's not straightforward.

I've never known a team of more than about 4 people where if one of them leave then the team will collapse.

This mentality will just result in you potentially losing your job.

But if your team fall apart without you then you’re not a great manager/leader - instead you’re heroically doing everything yourself. This leads to you feeling indispensable but you’ve created that situation for yourself by not letting go. Time to look at the staff you do have and coach, train and delegate more effectively. Maybe the reason for high turnover is low staff satisfaction as no one gets adequate training or is trusted to get on with the job.

I mean all of this kindly btw, it’s a really easy trap to fall into.

Do you get DLA for the children with needs? This may cover childcare

I think the afterschool nursery has to be explored more.

Could someone be trained or available to do supervision for the transfer of the flight risk child?

Are your children under medical review? Do they have contacts with any specialist childcare that maybe don’t advertise in usual routes?

You need to reduce your hours so that you can do the pickup. The place will not fall apart if you reduce your hours.

So your solution is…….?

Because the company clearly aren’t happy to continue as things are after 2 months of it.

Op, not what you are asking about but anyway - watch your self being the buffer. It's draining thankless and ultimately just a sticking plaster for bigger issues. It's a house of cards. I speak as an ex buffer. Don't become a casualty. You may think you have a good strategy but if management don't support you and tackle issues then don't be niaeve. You should know where you stand.

So you're not indispensable. It's just that your team prefers you to the other person.

That's nice but it doesn't mean that the company won't get rid of you if you can't do the job.

I wouldn’t see anyone with 2 asd kids and changing situations as “ dictating terms “ is see them as needing help to carry on being a integral part of team so yes I would work with them and either refuse hours or ask them if they could work from home those days .
half of my team has different work schedules for very different reasons and that is absolutely fine . It’s not a game to win , it’s a way to make life/ work balance work for everyone