Regret my promotion

[BusyTaupeFox]

I work in corporate and am fairly senior in a high pressure role. I have an 18 month old daughter and have been from maternity leave for almost 6 months. I had HG in pregnancy, and alongside my high pressure job, I was signed off work by doctor at 35 weeks, which was a huge relief as my job was incredibly stressful. I loved maternity leave and love nothing more than being a mum to my beautiful daughter. Whilst I had lot of difficulties (eg. breast cancer scare turned abscess/no more than 45 mins a sleep a night), I’ve never had so much mental clarity.

fast forward, I was put forward for a promotion, for context I have always been high achiever in my role- won awards, consistently high in performance reviews and am good at putting myself under immense pressure to please others. I thought I should put myself forward to show willing, and to dust off my interviewing skills. I did not think I was worthy of the promotion, there was someone else who went for it who ‘fits’. I am unassuming, I do not like conflict, and I’m a bit scatty- it should have been them. I found out I got the job the same day my grandad (who had a huge part in my life) passed away. I didn’t really think, and long story short, I accepted the job (ignoring my gut feel).

I should add, I went back to work on 30 hours a week, over 3.5 days. A number of people do this working pattern and I am with my daughter every Wednesday. I asked whether this was possible and they said yes. i have done some form of work most Wednesdays since returning.

now here I am, after working over 40 hours a week, whilst looking after my daughter, bed ridden from a head cold, an insomniac because I am constantly thinking about work, anxious and constantly shaking because I’m not eating properly. It’s Q4, so I know it’s only going to get worse and I need to set boundaries. I counted my emails last week and I was getting over 100 a day! My team is understaffed, and we are trying to recruit, but I need help now.

I also put myself under undue pressure to go over and above in every area of my life. I need a clean house, otherwise I am overstimulated, I need to exercise and do enough walking as that clears my mind, a lot of my friends live far away and it’s impossible to keep on top of WhatsApp and my emails.

1. is it actually possible to do a leadership on part time hours, and actually be there and present for your children? I don’t want to only see her on weekends, I actually want to bring her up 😔
2. should I ask for a demotion?
3. do I just need to leave the business and start afresh? I can’t take a huge pay cut at the moment, as I need to built up savings following Mat leave

i don't really know what I’m asking as I’m really not feeling well, but if anyone has been in this position and come out the other side or if I’m being ridiculous and need to pull myself together.

understaffed
Why is your department understaffed if you have a budget?

Buy in a temp or 3 while you go through the hire process.

A qualified contracter can be asked to turn up tomorrow and push out all the low grade work off to free up staff time. The professional ones will not care because there is no career advancement issues. They will photocopy for 8h if they are being paid to do that.

If you are falling behind hire a temp PA to help you reorganise your (and your departments workflow)

100 emails
How many of these are TO or CC?
How many of the TO
• do you need action and
• how many are ass covering by staff who should only CC you and
• how many are the sender not using the TO and CC correctly?

If you are not directly involved in an action request (TO) should you be on the email at all?
if you should be (CC) what process can you use to delegate the oversight?

If the email is to your department the named staff member should be dealing with the content or you should be sending the email on for action and requesting you name be romoved or pushed down to CC

If there is a problem eg 2 of your staff are named it should be up to the 2 to see who can manage the content and only come to you when there is a dispute over who is "it" or they need other help.

working over 40 hours a week on 30h contract
Why is 40h?

were you sold a 40h job or is it learning /settleing in pains?

Is it that your department has lost senior or key members who were the independent problem solvers?

How many staffing the dep can work independently?
how many cant problem solve to their role level?

And

Project management
What are you using to manage projects?

If you are getting multiple repeat tasks is there a standard work flow?

If its unique tasks how good are the staff.

If its long projects what tools are being used to track the workflow and who have you delegated the oversight role to.

If your finding work hard try work with your manager to find solutions to get your houra back to 30h.

Buy in home help or change the way the household is run to make house management /cleaning easier.

First things: Do you have a PA or assistant? If not do you have Copilot or some AI tool ? Use a person or tool to prioritise your emails and workload and get on top of things so you feel less overwhelmed in the short term

To your broader question: it is possible but very hard on 3 days. 3 days a week you need a truly part time role. Many senior roles struggle to be truly part time without some effort. Or job share. So could you do 4 days week, in my experience you can be effective at doing most senior roles that are FT in 4 day by being ruthlessly efficient and declining all extra stuff (do not attend any extra events or nice to have meetings). 3 days means they need to tailor the role to have less workload and it doesn't sound like their are doing that. Have a good think about what parts of your role can be given to someone else and go to leadership with a concrete plan of what needs to happen.

I understand, we have unlimited hours contracts, so although I am very slightly part time (one afternoon off a week) I’m in reality working for over 40 hours.

Im not sure the 30 hours over 3 days model works that well, especially in leadership roles. I wonder if working five days but having two half days off a week would work better? Then you’re present to deal with things at work and push things along, but also getting that protected time with your child to do nice things. I personally have found I get less bothered on my afternoon off - or I don’t feel bad literally turning my phone off on that afternoon as I’ve done everything urgent. And I’m not dreading the next day as mostly everything is sorted. I went back to work after my 2nd child in the transition period doing three days and it was a nightmare and very stressful.