How to go part time (suddenly) without still being stuck with the same workload?

[majorstress]

Any experience out there? Boss is impossible to talk to as everything is always in a crisis. I had to reduce my hours from 5 days to 3 a week because of childcare problems.

I need non-confrontational, constructive ways to get out of some of this work! They have been delighted to reduce my pay but there is no indication of whether to do everything even more slowly (I am overloaded anyway) or what to drop. I've tried to drop projects before but just get moaned at and criticised until I give in.

There is of course no-one else to do anything. The onus to hire someone else has now also fallen on muggins-so I actually have even more work now!

You have my sympathies. I can see myself in a similar boat next year when I return to work on reduced hours after maternity leave.
My boss doesn't know yet.

Hi

Sorry, no advice here, but lots of sympathy.

After ds1, I came back to work half-time and with a job share partner, BUT as the more experienced, I got the more complex work, no matter whether that reflected a fair share or not. Stuck it out for 15 months. My boss simply wouldn't recognise that I was only (vaguely) coping by taking loads of work home. I did do a direct comparison with one of my (f/t) colleagues to prove that I was doing more than 50% of the work she was doing. I thought that would be pretty damn conclusive, but I think that by that point, my boss had labelled me as a whinger and wouldn't really take me seriously.

Perhaps you could make your boss sit down and look at some evidence of your workload asap and make him/her make the decision as to which projects you hand on to other people while you are sat there???

I was lucky enough to be able to move to another section, doing similar work, with a boss who is a dad and has a wife who works p/t....

I am beginning to feel that a new job will be the only long term solution, because I can't get any satisfaction out of this one anymore particularly part time, but in the short term I need to try to make this work out. It is still the least dreadful aspect of my life! I doubt I'll be able to get another part time job, and the institutional policy in theory prevents them sacking me for going part time, but I still feel very pressured that I am never doing enough. I've never been able to talk to the boss much, he is a hopeless manager but somehow inspires loyalty. You can't help but think he is also labelling me as a winge-er, but the whole place is composed of them and he is the biggest one of all.

This is very common. Companies happy to pay part-time wages for full-time work. Ideally you need to sort this out BEFORE you reduce your hours.

You need to be very clear about what your objectives/targets are. These need to be drawn-up in writing and agreed by both sides.

You can use your old 5 day objectives to base a significantly reduced role on, i.e. cut out at least 2/5 of the tasks.

You also need to identify and agree with your boss who is going to take on the 2/5 of work that you are dropping. This is essential as otherwise it will still be left to you and others/boss will just think you are slacking.

You also need to build in a review after a couple of months where you can both assess the work load, and reduce again in the light of evidence/practice if needed.

That is good, I just can't think straight for mself anymore goldenoldie. I've never had anything so formal as written objectives, I doubt the boss knows what they are (beyond "do his bidding") but I think there is a job description kicking around somewhere, must find it.

I've already been tipped into this headlong, so a scheduled review is a very good idea. Maybe things might calm down in a few weeks so I can have a sensible word (much worse things have been happening that are nothing to do with me).

RIGHT...Back to my partial replacments' job description....the idea is to get a junior to take over all the busywork that is easy but is taking all my time up, so I can do all the skilled stuff I am good at (and enjoy). It's been hard to get the description to be junior enough....(I have no training at all in any of this, it's no joke!)