Work/Life balance

[w3lshb1acksh33p]

Hi, I've been working over the border from Wales for about 5 years and my daughter is now 3 1/2. For a bit of context, my wife and I have no support in bringing up our child as we both lost our parents, so it is up to us as the main caregiver and our childminder. The only thing that is making me sane at the moment, is seeing our daughter. I have spoken to my employer twice about flexible working because of the reasons mentioned, and they were not keen on the idea. This is making me stressed and a bit depressed (as I do 12 to 15 hrs travelling a week) and lack of motivation in work. Has anybody else has this experience?

I make full use of agile working, I do full time hours in a 4 day compressed week. I work in the office one day a week and do the other 3 from home. I have my daughter every Friday just me and her while mom is at work and honestly I couldn't imagine life any different!

I'm the main breadwinner in our house (although my wife doesn't do badly) but I understand the pressure and stress of needing to work to make money. Realistically my advice would be to look for another role with more acceptable working conditions or geographically close to you. I know this is easier said than done but clearly your current firm aren't willing to step into the 21st century!

Understand the stress completely. I worked in private sector at the start of the year. 100 miles round trip commute for 9 years after a few years they agreed for me to work from home due to car accident but had to come in twice a week which was fine. Problem is after having my daughter it became a bit of a struggle managing shorter days with the commute and doing nursery runs etc (I’m the only driver). Plus my job use to take me all over the country away from home and just didn’t see it viable anymore. Took a job in public sector 10 minutes up the road from me and it has made the work life balance great but came with its own cost of an 8k pay drop for time being as the team are nearing retirement so I thought I can make it work for a couple of years to have better work life balance in long term. this was before bills started going up so stress in differrent ways I’d say. If you can get a job closer to home on similiar pay it’s a no brainier