Has anyone tried 'condensed hours'?

[homelesshedgehog]

I've been back at work F/T since LO was a year old, and I'm really glad that I came back to work BUT just not sure that 5 days a week is the right thing to be doing. I've had a think about switching to P/T and had a conversation with my manager, and she was much more positive than I imagined she would be, so far so good.

But she suggested that I consider 'condensed hours' instead. I work in a job that doesn't always have regular hours, or projects that can be divided into 'half', but there is some room for flexibility. At the moment I either start at 7.30 and finish at 3.30 or work 10 till 6 to fit around DH's shifts. I can see how squashing the work into four days might be possible, by working one evening, and doing some longger days, but has anyone tried this and found it effective? Or do you just end up knackered and too tired to entertain your LOs on your day off anyway?!

One other thought is rather than doing 5 days work in 4 as fulltime, to do 4 days work in 3 as part time (0.8). Three huge days might be easier to deal with than 4. But perhaps this is asking too much of what has already been a sympathetic employer!

Thanks for any advice.

I do 4 in 3days and it is absolutely exhausting but probably not helped by the 1hr commute each way. I spend my two 'free' days catching up on the bombsite of the house, laundry etc, not much time with dcs really.

I don't really do condensed hours as all our shifts are 12 hour shifts, but I only need to do three a week to be pretty much full time hours so not too dissimilar.... I do find it hard, depending on my shifts I can sometimes only see ds for 15 minutes in the morning (I won't get home until after he's in bed) which is really hard, but I really do appreciate my days off with him.

The thing about doing long hours is that you don't have any time to do bits and bobs of housework (I would normally potter about in the evening doing stuff like washing and the odd bit of cleaning when ds was asleep) so you can end up doing nothing but housework when you're off with your dcs which is no fun at all. We have a cleaner one day a week and I consider that an essential - I'd go without other so called luxuries to keep her. It means that I can spend my days off with ds doing fun things. I make a rule of doing no more than one hour's house work when I'm off with him...

Oh dear

I had really thought that 4 in 3 might be the answer, but having read these replies, I'm now MUCH less convinced. I don't think I had really considered the other clear advantages that proper part time work would bring - ie it being only half the work (allegedly!) over literally cramming everything, including the rest of life, into three days. I enjoy an early start at the moment as on the days that I'm working from 7.30 DH sorts out breakfast and does the nursery run, and I get to finish at 3.30pm. Doing a full day, the bedtime walk of doom, and then settling down to more work does sound less appealing.

Thinking cap back on

DP does condensed hours (5 days in 4) so he has a day with DS. His day is Weds to give him a break from working. They are long hours but he seems to manage. He doesn't see a lot of DS on his working days but thinks that the whole day he gets with him makes it worth it. Also, DS regularly takes 2.5-3 hour naps on the days he is at home which does mean a big break in the middle of the day!

It only really works because I'm part time too, and get home early.

As regards housework, DP does a bit on his day at home, I do a bit on mine and we do some at the weekends. Not a lot gets done in the evenings apart from cooking and washing up.

I used to do 5 days over 4, and had a Wednesday off. To make it work, I would spend one of those days working from home. I used to keep track of my hours religiously, and if I needed to do a bit of extra work over the weekend, I used to do it on a Sunday night.

It was hard, but worth it. However I was exhausted, and realised that the less time I spent at work, the less I wanted to be there, so negotiated 21 hours instead. I think because I proved I could work flexibly with no detriment to the business, they were far more inclined to agree to my 21 hours.

I scored brownie points by occasionally swapping my "day off" in work called for it, and also by responding to emails via my blackberry on a Wednesday if they looked urgent.

I used to do 4 days in 3 so was in work by 7.30am and leaving at 6.30pm ish plus hour commute each way. Although I had the two days off, the bulk of the housework fell on me as I was "off" more, plus the bulk of the childcare too. AT work, because I was doing 4 days , I was still expected to do my full time job too so was knackered, knackered and a bit moe knackered. I would NOT recommend, the worst of all worlds. I can see that 3 days work in 3 days with normal 9-5 office hours would be much more manageable.
I now do 90% hours in 4 days and even though I have to be in work an extra day a week, I do almost normal office hours, I am like a new woman (almost). Soo much less tired. Plus at home, housework much more evenly spread, I do not do it all anymore plus childcare is much more equal...this is much better for us (well me!)

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I do 5 days in 4 and find it fine. My working week is only 35 hours though, which helps. I generally work 7.30 until 5 or 5.30, and usually don't leave my desk at lunch