Not sure if it's me being slow, or unreasonable or not!

[Tempforwork]

I have taken on a few hours in an admin role after being a SAHM for a few years, and been doing it for a few months now.

It's only half a day per week in a fledgling business and I am feeling a bit stressed at getting everything wanted done in that time. Hence I am making more mistakes than ideal, as well as doing some really good work too.

I have never held a post with such few hours before and in previous employment have been used to quite a bit of autonomy to prioritise my work and get stuff done.

In other part-time roles (16 hours or so) I've generally felt able to not worry about staying late to get stuff done because an hour here or there doesn't seem much on top of a decent amount of regular hours and I also had more flexible childcare back then (so less of an issue than now). I'd also see it that on some days I might be a bit slow paced for whatever reason (DC up in the night etc) and had no problem taking responsibility and staying late/taking stuff home to keep on top. I did keep a log of some of the extra hours I did and reasonably used this as evidence to take TOIL on occasions and up my hours eventually.

I also like to be able to give a bit on top of my work as I think it shows a good attitude.

But for some reason I seem to feel a bit more of an issue with working extra in this role, I think due to it being such few hours to begin with. I really don't slack off at all in the time that I work and I seem to be doing an extra hour each week, and never reaching the end of my lists.

But I am now wondering if my pace is generally slower than most peoples (my boss in particular perhaps) and perhaps working fewer hours is actually exposing this more readily, than if I had more hours to absorb the peaks and troughs of energy flow? My boss seems to be coming at it from the angle that it's a focus issue from not having been working for a while and possibly adjusting to working alongside the responsibilities of a now larger family than I had when working previously.

That said, I am on AD's for PMT, have been quite stressed though family stuff and do still feel a general sense that I am not as sharp as I was BC - forgetting things more frequently, not always feeling on top at home, so maybe my boss has a point?

Sorry for the ramble - any thoughts or similar experiences?

I've no idea really where to go from here. Thanks for reading.

Bump

Jobs are quite often about experience and training, rather than anything else. If you've only been there for a little while and you have few hours it's going to take you longer to get the hang of things, it's normal and not a reflection upon you at all. Can you ask them for some more hours and guidance?

Well, the world of work has speeded up a lot in my opinion so he is probably expecting his pound of flesh.

I can't imagine you are earning a lot doing an admin job for half a day a week so I wouldn't be prepared to give more than 30 minutes 'overtime'. I used to find that a lot of bosses had no concept as to how long admin task took.

Do you like working there? It takes some time to adjust if you have been away from work for a while, but also dont under value yourself. If you are working hard and there is still more to be done - perhaps they do need to increase your hours. Try and track how long you are taking to do various tasks and be honest with yourself and see where you can save yourself time. then you will build up an evidence base for present if you decide to ask for more hours.