Agreed to work full time but am hating it - what should I do?

[bojangles]

Please bear with me....I returned to work in December and was working 4 shortish days per week. It was going fine and work were happy. I was then offered the permanent post and put under a lot of pressure to wrok full time - a case of we want you to have the job but we need full time cover. So I agreed hoping it would all be ok. Now the job is flexible as it is local government but I had never considered full time before and after a few months it is apparent that I hate it. I am jealous of the nanny, stroppy and tired when I come home and keep getting very tearful about my predicament.

The main reason for them insisting on full time is that my collegue is about to go on maternity leave and quite frankly they don't really want to pay for full cover for her post.

The only option that they might agree to is a job share but I believe I need to have worked at this Council for 6 months before applying. I just need some advice on what to do and how others cope working full time when you want to be at home more.

TIA
x

What about compressed hours? I don't see what other woman's mat cover has to do with it, why should you have to pick up that slack?

Can you delve around the HR policies and apply for compressed hours, 4 days a week, or alternative hours that would suit you?

I wonder if the deal is they have to use a head to keep it in budget and if they use the headcount they can't hire another half fte to do the work? Can you ask for the reasons and then work on it based on what they need? It may be that they'd go for 2 x part timers to make up one head if they knew it was what you wanted to do.

Thankyou WWW - I think it is down to £ - no reason in the face of it why a job share wouldn't work but the HR policies I have seen say you can't apply for flexible working until been there for 6 months - this won't be until June. Also I really want to work 4 x 7 hour days or 3 slighlty longer days and they are quite clear on needing 5 days cover. I agree about colleague's post as it is becoming apparent that they are just going to dump the work on me. I will check the policies and the legal position and make a plan.

But if they need 5 days cover 1 person could do 2 and another 3, surely?

Speak to your manager about concern re workload when colleague goes on leave.

WWW you are right - think I just feel guilty having agreed to do something and don't want to let them down but that is not a very sensible way to look at it. I have asked for a meeting this week about colleague's work.

Bojangles, have you had your meeting yet? I used to work in local government and they are usually incredibly flexible.

Job share was very prevalent in our office. We had a job share where one woman did 3 days over 4 to enable her to drop off and pick up her children from school, her job share worked 3 days a week to enable her to deal with her childcare.

I was full time, returned part time after maternity leave and worked 2 & 3/4 days to get my hours in. I shared the job although I wasn't job share with another colleague and we massively overlapped on one day!!

Even if you have to wait until June if you knew that you could then job share would it take the pressure off?

hijack bojangles are you still looking for a new nanny? if so i might know someone.