Is your part time job just full squeezed into less hours?

[janx]

I am contracted to work 3 days a week but am being given more and more work without any extra support. It means I end up catching up on my day off and more recently going in at the weekend. When I have raised this in the past I am met with a patronising reply as if I am not coping and if I managed my time more efficiently it wouldn't be a problem.
I have called a meeting with my line manager on Monday - it is really making me stressed. I am efficient and now I am sleeping badly which is making me less efficient. Any advice?

I do have a smaller case load than my colleagues but it's not 50% of most of them.

Very common, sadly. I'm in a similar position although I get other benefits which make it worthwhile.

In terms of strategies to deal with it, it really depends on what your job is and what your boss is like. With good managers it should be quite easy to get them to see the advantages of a sensible workload.

But, if your manager doesn't care, have you considered being more direct? For example, rather than raising it as a concern, simply refer all work requests politely to your manager explaining that you look forward to doing this piece of work but that due to current work commitments you won't be able to start until a week on Tuesday, and your estimated delivery date is in 3 weeks time. outline your existing commitment and suggest that if the new work is very urgent perhaps you could agree together to reprioritise some other bits of work. Keep at it and h/she will start to get the picture.

What's important is to stay polite and engaged, rather than being negative or being seen to be a 'moaner'.

Yup. I was basically expected to work a five day job in two days. I had a job share partner but when they were off sick (for months) there was no cover organised.

I was refused requests to increase my hours and generally ignored.

I left. It was the best decision I ever made.

I now work three days a week and although I quite often exceed my hours significantly (an extra 5-7 hours most weeks) I don't resent doing so because a) I'm very well paid b) I'm appreciated by my boss and c) the flexibility cuts both ways - if I do an extra day one week I am expected to take the time off the next (not that I often do, but it's good to have the option).

So I would say its not the workload / extra hours that are a problem but the effect they have on you. If it's making you stressed and your managers are failing to manage the situation, that needs tackling.

Learning to say "no" is good, but I would also think about why more work is being piled on top of you. Is someone devolving their own workload on to you out of laziness? Are they trying to make you "look bad" by comparison? Or even force you out? Are you the only person in this position or is it a global problem across the company?

What would enable you to take more work on? More money? More hours? Train someone else up to take on part of the work? Have some solutions to propose - you will be able to learn a lot from the reaction to them!

Thanks for all your replies - it seems a common problem. One of the key problem is my line manager doesn't have the know how to realize how long certain tasks take. I organize events and am more experienced than her and I think she sees me as someone who gets a lot done. When I went on my last maternity leave my cover was offered a full time post - though when I came back it was the same work but part time .

I am going to write a very detail plan of what I am going to be doing and spell out exactly what it involves. I have started saying no to meetings which isn't going down well - but have said I can go to that meeting, but it means x won't get done in time!

I don't think you are helping yourself by doing things like going in at weekends. I actually found it much easier to say no once I went PT, than when I was FT, when I always felt I had to get everything done. After going PT, I calmly reply that I'm not able to complete x,y,z, as I'm only contracted to work 0.6 of a week, am only paid for 0,6 of a week, and therefore only have the hours to do 0.6 of a FT worker's workload.

Were you there FT before - can you produce figures to show what you were expected to do for full pay, and therefore demonstrate you should only be getting 0.6 of that amount of work ?
Or can you compare with a colleague's output ?
Always difficult as none of us know what the job entails, but you need to find some way of measuring the workload, so you can demonstrate you are pulling your weight, but just your weight is only 3/5 of what it was before, or what a colleague's might be.