Well I say managing work, I’m not managing work really. I’ve been an admin at univerisities for last 6/7 years, have a range of experience in different functions, good at what I do and well liked among colleagues, never had any major issues with work. I’ve been in my current job 6 months and all going well for the most part.
I had to relocate recently to be closer to family for support with our child who has a bowel condition. Part of her problem is she ends up in hospital every few months and is usually in for around two weeks per admission. Obviously working full time makes this difficult. Dad and I together and he does what he is able to but he’s the breadwinner and his sector/team constantly at risk of redundancy. It would be harder for him to find a new job than it would be for me so I take on a lot more relating to our child. However he has more day to day flexibility so he will often work random hours while she is in hospital so that’s how he manages. The hospital my daughter stays at is a 90 min drive (no traffic) so can’t really commute to and from work when she’s in hospital and my work have said not to do any wfh they just always say focus on your daughter and don’t worry about work.
my daughter has had two admissions in the last six months. HR told my manager to log these as sickness absences (after using 1 week of dependants leave). I don’t think these should be recorded as sick leave but they wouldn’t let me use holiday leave to cover the time or take the leave unpaid (which I offered to do and would understand). I’m guessing this is just the easiest way to manage it for them. I’m waiting to hear back from the union about it.
But I’m not an idiot and I cannot do anything more than I am already doing to try and minimise her need to be admitted to hospital. She isn’t even 2 yet so it’s not like I can just leave her to it and go to work or work by her bedside 9-5, I appreciate some may find that ridiculous but it is the truth. We’ve had 8 admissions now and we know what works and what doesn’t.
I figure I’m probably going to lose my job at some point (my daughter is going to be like this for at least another 4 or so years) as this isn’t sustainable. I don’t need to work full time as we’ve recently gone on to a mortgage and this has reduced our outgoings significantly. I am struggling to find a way of maintaining some sort of income without having to work within the rigidity of most admin roles.
I could do part time admin remote work but I need something that is very flexible with hours so if I had to catch up on something, it wouldn’t matter if I was doing it from a hospital bed at midnight. I cannot find anything that could work, so many of these remote working jobs advertised are total scams.
I can’t do things like taking ironing in (shit at ironing) or cleaning as would still need to be around to keep up a client base and I wouldn’t have that if I have to drop everything at short notice to take my daughter in to hospital. I don’t have any sort of skills for side hustle type stuff. Embarrassing as it is the only thing I am good at is admin.
does anyone have any sort of suggestions of what I can do? Where I can look? Feeling so despondent and stressed with it all. This isn’t how I imagined things would go when we had a child.