Aaargh! If I hear one more person bang on about how we all have more time now

[ITasteSpring]

You may mate, but I am working my normal hours, at home, and homeschooling young children - my son is too old to not need to bother with school work and too young/ struggling at school to to plonk in front of a computer and leave him to get on with it. Someone banging on about how they love how less frenetic life is, and what we are learning about slowing down and having time. AAAARGH. I have never been so effing busy. I am having to do my job over 7 days a week as i can't get all my normal hours in over five unrelentingness of it. I can't get out to my weekly classes to give me days. It's so much work! No weekend break! And the a break or even 'pop to the shops' which I used to do for a break too.

I get we are all different, but please radio 4, can we have some ';thoughts for the day' from people like me who are going a bit mental with non-stop work and stress. This is my thought 'AAAAaaargh!'

YANBU!

I keep getting emails from work proposing new projects and ‘busywork’ due to, and I quote, “the gift of time we’ve been given.”

Er, I haven’t been gifted any time. I am working from home writing reports and proposals, they haven’t gone anywhere and a constant stream are coming through.

I’ve saved maybe an hour of commuting - but that’s my time, not my work’s!

100% agree, we have a newborn and an older child with special needs and there is no downtime. I am getting really fed up with people saying 'everyones' gardens will look lovely this year' and 'our house has never been cleaner' when we are just surviving and everything is a complete mess.

No, it wasn't you Wiltinglilies - your post made laugh! Yes, it was clearly a joke - and a good one to boot.

You're alright, you are

Good, thanks for replying. Like loads of people, I'm so bloody brittle at the moment, trying to lighten things where possible!
Hang in there.

There have been a few posts here about companies still expecting 50 hour weeks from people. I would hope this situation would make people think if this is what they want for their life when things go back to normal. I work in a public service - pay will be much lower than for a commercial enterprise but their care for us has been exceptional. No high salary could compensate for that. Full timers have been told to drop working one day a week but continue on full pay in order to allow them to have a work life balance with all the extra demands on time at the minute.
To be honest your employers sound horrendous.

Yup - trying to work and answer homework questions - I’ve turned into the family emotional punchbag. DD (12) is very anxious about it all and has reverted to toddler status of wanting to follow me into every room and bursts into tears if I suggest I might want to go the loo in peace. Not helped by her studying the black death in history and the holocaust in English... Other DD is yr10 and keeps yelling at me about her GCSEs like I can do anything about it. I tried to set myself up a desk in a corner to do some work but ‘d’h has decided to take a couple of days off work to do some decorating and has emptied the room into my work area. Whilst simultaneously telling me that I need to sort through all the clutter... I’m trying to remember why I love them all.

I see that I have found my tribe

My friends mostly are sahm or work part time. I do a full time stressfull senior role. I am doing this at home, dh is wfh 37hrs a week and we have dc.

I have never been so stressed. I am unable to do my work role or my home role. My mental health is suffering. My DM is very worried about me and has told me to go off sick...
All if my friends talk about how all the jobs at home are getting done all the fun things the kids are doing etc I feel like a failure in all areas at the moment

Oh Jesus yes. Life before was busy but I had regimented it into a really finely balanced system and it was all humming smoothly.

Now I’m doing 5 hours of kids, 5 hours of work, more with kids and then work after kids are in bed. Most of DH’s company on furlough and he is on reduced hours so has to work all of them or game over for his job (mine pays better but more flex and frankly a far better employer). No cleaner. No grocery deliveries. Kids both out of routine and eldest (8) quite wound up about the situation. And no I can’t just leave an anxious 8 year old and barrelling 4 year old to their own devices all day, helpful people. (At least one helpful person has previously told me that being a SAHM is a full time job, I didn’t disagree with her and I still don’t...)

Fucking daily dream, isn’t it?

Yes, Mrs Devine - it's the feeling of failure. My eldest has struggled badly at school and had only in recent months started to make any progress - I don't know how to bloody help him and I just don't have the time for the level of intervention he needs. I do feel like I am failing.

Absolutely yes!!! On my own, working from home full time, trying to educate my daughter, don't have a cleaner anymore, daughter is making such a mess (she's 11 so can fix that herself). Usually when I'm this busy and not on top of the house, at the weekends I say "*" it, and we go out for the day so I haven't got to stay in and look at it. Find I need that recharge before I can tackle it.

I've found my tribe too! I get to work from home but it is manic because if the situation. I've been concentrating on how lucky I am to have a job but all the social media posts about spare time are infuriating!

YANBU!

Think it's quite ok to just wing it with most of what we are supposed to be doing

Feeling your pain OP.

I’m fortunate enough to still be on extended maternity leave after no 4 so am basically a sahm. I have way less time now than I did when 3 of the dc were at school/preschool and weren’t home all day arguing, shouting about not going out, demanding food, dropping crumbs, making mess etc so those of you trying to work as well must definitely have less time! I’m used to having the baby home full time and the preschooler half the time but my god having all four of them home ALL the time is draining! So much more cleaning and tidying to do as well!

Yanbu.
My house is a tip as the dc's are making a mess and eating all day long.
I've had way more emails from school and extra curricular clubs in a week than I usually get in a month.
Appointments to reschedule. Shopping delivery slots to constantly hunt for. Work 3 days a week. Not sleeping properly. Retailer wiping and soaping of handles and surfaces.

Regular wiping. Not retailer.

Oh yes.

I only worked 35 billable hours last week so I don't know how I didn't manage to fit more sitting on the couch into my week. Frankly I feel I'm slacking.

Yeah I'm still going out to full time work every day, key worker, and doing normal childcare evenings and weekends. I guess I'm lucky as nothing much has changed for me apart from being totally exhausted with the extra workload but I still get to see my colleagues from a distance.

100% yes!!! We are lucky - both have FT jobs able to WFH, on usual pay, employers relatively understanding. BUT it's a major struggle to be prioritizing the bits of paid
work that still need doing, plus care of 2 year old, plus domestic stuff, plus we're supposedly in the middle of moving house/arranging mortgage etc. Oh, and I go on maternity leave in 10 weeks. Any notion of downtime is a distant dream!

It's bloody awful. Really stressful, much more so than before.

Me too, I work in banking and we are all working 16+ hours a day keeping companies afloat in a time of crisis, with limited IT kit that means everything takes longer, plus added inefficiency of everyone working remotely. Add in DH's FT job and 2 small kids including a pre schooler and no childcare plus the general complexities of lockdown during a pandemic and, well let's say it's pretty easy to figure out why I have excruciating stress related stomach pain to top it all off. I recognise that in many ways I am incredibly fortunate but I am finding this so hard.

Me, warning epic moan coming up! I'm at the end of week one and I can see ahead that I will burn out.

I'm WFH atm also trying to homeschool two young children. They are only young and they need help and supervision. School havent give them much work to do.

I know work expect my full hours and they've said we can make time up in the evening . But after a full day of making meals, snacks, doing work, teaching the kids, listening to bickering, cleaning, tidying, washing, printing worksheets for the next day. I'm done. I'm mentally and physically exhausted.

If work deem im not doing enough work id rather take a pay cut than start working in the evenings. It will break me.

The kids are climbing the wall cause we are self isolating at the moment and cant go out, cant get a shopping delivery.

They cant see their dad currently due to self isolation, they dont fully understand why, and I'm dealing with the emotional fall out from that.

Finally, I know the video calls are good for keeping in touch, but to be honest I'm finding them rather intrusive at times. I'm shattered at the end of the day, but in the nicest possible way I cannot be arsed doing video calls to several different people and giving them the low down on what the kids have done that day and other inane chatter. I know that's awful of me, but I just dont have the headspace for it at the end of the day.

Dont get me wrong, I know in the grand scheme of things, I'm getting off lightly, with people losing jobs and being seriously ill but Its constant and relentless right now. My pace of life certainly has not slowed down.

Phew!! I needed to get all that off my chest.

I’m predominantly a SAHM (usually do some freelance work from home) and don’t have more bloody time... instead of having one child at home and two at school, I have three at home (and am vaguely attempting to educate them). The baby has three molars coming through at the same time and screams all night, and no respite in the day as I’m looking after three children (while trying to keep them quiet as DH is working 10 hours a day from home). And I’m well aware I have it far far easier than most as I’m not attempting to work myself. Not sure when I’m supposed to find time to learn a language.

I feel bad for moaning, I am WFH and we have 3 DC, but DH is a SAHP, but it is still difficult. It is more the headspace that this is all taking.

Work wise, I am having time to look at things that always get pushed to the side as I can't actually do much, if any of my actual job.

I am just finding it all emotionally draining.