why can't my family get it into their heads that I WORK. I am SELF-employed not sodding UN-employed

[hatwoman]

I resigned from my job in May, to work as a freelance consultant. Never ever for one second has it crossed my mind to downsize work-wise or, perish the thought, to give up work. I love work (in general) and I love my work in particular. I'm the family workaholic. And I;ve been more busy since resigning than I was before. Two prize moments this weekend.

db "How are you finding not working?"

mum - on being told that if she visits for 4 days in the run up to Christmas I will be working - pulls a face like I said I was hopping on the 14.42 to Mars. "oh....well I don;t know what you do these days....Do you mean you'll be going into an office?"

aaaarrrhgggh.

I think I've brought it on to myself my combining this change in my work with a move to the country. ergo I must be retiring to make cakes for the WI/run the PTA/learn flower-arranging.

lol. My sil's mother always used to say to me,' you settle into soemthing one day, dear', Because I worked freelance for different galleries,and she really didn't understand it!

I've just gone back as a freelance consultant. My Dh doesn't seem to think it should affect DS's childcare and is making faces at taking DS to his music class tomorrow because I want to go to the ofice (Only time DH has ever been at home since DS was born 6 months ago)

I think my dh sees me now as his PA - always asking me to run errands!

I am employed full time, but am home based. No one in our families really understand that this means that we (DH is also employed but home based, different company) are shut in our home offices working.

Oh, this is so familiar. My MIL said oh you won't need childcare any more... but I am doing an effing full time job, except I m squeezing it around school hours, so yes, actually, I do need a bit of childcare twice a week so I can work a full working day occasionally. Otherwise I am hysterical all the time because I am being a crap mum and a crap employee and CAN T CONCENTRATE because every five mins someone comes in asks me for something.

When I worked from home, people always thought I was free, for coffee, lunch, popping to the postoffice for them..it got on my tits.

me too, you sound like me, TheDullWitch. The office is in the house and noone seems to understand (except dh) that it's an OFFICE. and WORK happens in there. I am not in there doing my knitting and drinking tea in order to get out of doing any parenting, and no, the clothes do not wash themselves either, I have to squeeze in time to do it because my working day and home day are so intermingled. And yes, when ds is asleep at night I go back into the office to make up the rest of my working day.

agh!

Both dh and I work from home. I find if you are firm with friends and family and make it clear that you really are "at work" during your designated work hours and not available for long phone calls, errands etc, they get the picture quite quickly. It helps that we work to ferociously inflexible deadlines, so we deal with phone calls by just saying "Sorry, I don't have time to talk, I've got to make a 3pm (or whatever) deadline". If they complain, I just tell 'em that they wouldn't be calling me up for a chat if I was still working as a teacher (what I did before having first child 10 years ago), and I'm just as busy working as I was then. A couple of "friends" took this badly, but by continually refusing to take hints they put in a position where I had to be blunt with them or lose a customer.

Our problem is the inlaws dropping in. We made the mistake early on of being quite flexible so taking a half hour break while they popped in for coffee. FIL in particular now thinks it's OK to drop by for an hour or two every so often and gets really huffy if I make my excuses and disappear back to my desk.
On the other hand, ds who is 4, has grasped it perfectly and knows if the door is shut someone is working and unavailable.

Ah, kitbit, you have rather shot yourself if the foot there, if you don't mind me saying. If you are "flexible" and allow people to just drop in, then they quite reasonbly assume that it's OK. The only way to avoid it is to say absolutely no callers without advance warning. Harsh, but if you want to get your work done, the only way to go.

Yep, you're right! Because we'd just moved to a new country (they were already here) and we wanted to be as accommodating as possible etc, that's how we started. We have explained nicely plenty of times since, and MIL is starting to understand, but FIL stubbornly refuses!

agh

hmmm. intereresting - we're about to move (this is the move to the country) and will be 5 mins' drive from my mum's. I am already thinking how I'm going to handle the dropping in for coffee thing - without annoying everyone. I also need to get dh onside - he's better at being flexible than me and will think I'm mean and harsh. I can hear him now "so you can;t even spare half an hour for your mum?...well what was the point of us moving here....etc etc"

I am thinking that I might just pick 3 days when I tell her that I work all day. I think telling her the reality - ie that my work patterns dovetail with dh's and with work demand - will just be too confusing. but of course the risk then is "oh so and so saw you in such-and-such a place. weren;t you working?" oh gawd this whole thing is complicated.

oh snap! I got that constantly when writing my dissertation(s)

can you book them in like you would appointments during ordinary work time? that sometimes worked with my dsis. (not mum though!)

My mother has to book appointments . Actually, she comes and looks after ds from late morning on Friday and cooks lunch for the workers and does the ironing. This is a win-win arrangement, as she is happy that she is being useful and gets to yak at us during lunch.

that does sound good bolshy. perhaps I can suggest something similar. dds are both at school but if mum wanted to pick them up one day a week that could work. would need to be disciplined about it though.

Works for us! Granny also sees dd when she gets back from school and sometimes does some baking with the dcs or helps dd with her homework (although we have learnt to keep Granny away from the maths homework - funnily enough maths teaching appears to have changed a bit since the 1930s).

oh everyone treated me like a SAHM as soon as I left a formal office environent to work running my own business from home.
Had to make a few very pointed comments to certain family members - I had one in particular that phoned on Monday to announce she would be coming on Tuesday to go shopping with me all day then stay the night. I just said - oh what a shame I have meetings all day - I'll drop you at the shops.... she was completely and seemed to think the business thing was just an excuse for giving up work and that I wouldn't actually be doing anything

I remembered!

answering machine. volume off. checked when I finished for the day!

(doesn't help if they drop by but phone calls were far more the issue for us...

I have to say mil is brilliant when it comes to this. She will often come to sit with the children whilst dh or I work. Also both of my parents are self-employed and although they have office premises now spent years working from home.

Sil is another matter. She seesm to think she can drop round, ask us to babysit etc etc. We do have a spearate business phone line so if we are busy we ignore the home phone and only answer the business one.

When I first worked freelance, my daughter came into my office and asked what I was doing.

"Earning money" was my reply.

Now they think my office is like a cash machine.

I bought my DS2 a Bob the Builder laptop for Christmas and he will sit playing with it and say to me 'not now mummy, I have some urgent work to do!' Hmmm.

Although how much of this is the fact that you work from home and how much is the fact that your mum is in denial that you are not 100% available to her?

My mum simply can't get her head around the fact that I have a pre-agreed number of days I can take leave from my full time employment where I work in an office. So is always rather bleatingly saying things like, "But can't your boss let you have a couple of extra days as we're here to see you" or whatever.

I get the same stuff. We've just moved to be nearer family and my mum is always saying 'why not just take a day off and come shopping with me'. The MIL is also always dropping by for coffee. Sigh. I like to see them but I find it hard to just drop everything and go slow. Child-free hours to me are work hours not socialising hours unfortunately.