Working part time, is it just a big old con?

[blueblanket]

And in fact, rather than being the "best of both worlds" (seeing your DC and keeping your hand in with work, and the brain ticking over), it's actually the WORST of both worlds because you're part time everything?

I've been back at work 2 days a week for a good while now ( so this is a considered opinion) but just feel like I"m not giving the best to either my child or my employer.

I work remotely from home for a great company, but the other problem with the flexibility is that with iphones etc everyone's at the end of an email almost all the time and it's really hard to switch off, even on my days off.

is is just me?

I do 4 5-hour days. For me I think it IS the best of both worlds, I don't want to work full time (every again!), but I don't want to not work either.
I am good at my job and I am (mostly) a good enough mum - I think I wouldn't be as good a mum if I didn't have work.

I work 4 days a week and find it's an excellent balance for me. I don't have anything to do with work while I'm not there and if I were you, I'd do the same.

I think it depends what your job is

I was offered a job on a 2.5 days per week basis. It was a total disaster. I was constantly rushing from one to the other (work to home) all the time. It was never a job that could be done in 2.5 days.

I went full time and the balance is much better. My children are at school all week anyway so working full time never felt wrong and I have a lot more flexibility now that I do work full time (if that makes sense - so I can take the odd afternoon off if not busy whereas when working part time, I was always expected to be there on my fixed days).

Tbh, I have almost always worked full time apart from that brief foray into part time working.

It's fine as long as everything goes smoothly. As soon as it goes tits up it goes ten times more tits up than it would have done full time.

I do 3 days a week job share. My job share has left so I am doing a 5.5 day job in three days. Added to that, we manage a job share, one of whom is new and clueless as yet but getting there and the other one is just about to leave. Consequently out of four jobs I am carrying three and a half of them. DD was really off colour yesterday but I had to take her to nursery anyway (nothing contagious). I cried all the way to work because I really really didn't want to leave her there and I had a shit busy day ahead of me. I am far more stressed now than I was when I was full time.

Working term-time is a big old con. Now, if they could swap the working time with the time off, that would work for

I agree - in fact as part time (o.6 fte) teacher i find that i work just as hard (if not a helluva lot harder) than some of the full timers at work. The bonus for me is that my timetable is tweaked so that I can sometimes get to drop the dds off at school and occasionally pick them up - and of course when i am off work - i get one day off a week - the dds are at school, so i can go to tescos on my own.

Not sure how I'd feel if I had children at home though I only went back to work when dd2 went to school.

feel for you blueblanket.

I feel the same way as ChasingSquirrels; I work 3 days a week and I love it. I am very lucky in that my colleague who is full time is very good at shouldering the whole burden on my days off - if I had to fit 5 days of work into 3 days it simply wouldn't work.

I know exactly what you mean.

For me two days just wasn't enough time. There can be no allowance for being slightly less than 100% efficient/sorting out the unexpected/things taking slightly longer than they should in 2 days per week. 3 days per week was much better. I think you also have to be highly self-disciplined.

It is the worst of both worlds.

You can't do your job properly because half your mind is one what you have to do when you leave the office. You have to leave meetings early or excuse yourself from them altogether even though you need to be there. So to compensate you try to do more than you can manage.

You are always rushing to be somewhere you should have been 10 mins ago.

When you do get home you are so flustered you snap at the DC.

You end up being the one who does the lions' share of the housework 'because you are there'.

And you don't have any spare dosh.

It's shit. And when I finally (reluctantly) went full-time 2 years ago it was like a breath of fresh air. Which surprised me TBH.

i do two days a week in an office - it's perfect for me. Really is the best of both worlds.

Only downside is that I am not as involved in work as I used to be, I just can't be as I'm not available all the time, but it's a short term thing and when DS is older and in school I'll increase my hours. (brilliant flexible job

Well said orm, that's exactly it. I'm still the one at home even though for three days I'm not. So DH gets whatever sleep is going, first and longest dibs in the bathroom in the mornings and he doesn't have to get ready with dd trailing round his ankles. Yet I also have to be in an office at a certain time looking reasonably presentable and without dried weetabix on my bosom.

I'm another one who loves part time. I spent a number of years moving around jobs in the same company until I found one that suited working part time. I love being my work self for 3 days and a mum for 2 it's a good balance.

Agree that it totally depends on your boss. Mine has 3 boys which he is very hand on with and sympathises with me being a working mum, if you're boss doesn't have kids or doesn't see why they should inconveniences them I'm sure it can be awful!

My boss is great fizz and very accomodating. But regardless of that my role requires a lot of my time and effort. It doesn't work part-time. But I guess jobs differ too.

Different strokes I guess.

I don't feel that any of things in Orm's post applies to my situation - other than having to do it all at home (but I am on my own with the boys so I would be doing it all on my own regardless).

I also have fantastic childcare support (my mum and a great CM) which no doubt makes my life a lot easier.

And different jobs, different bosses etc would all have an impact.

Also your own approach, I don't do extra hours - and I didn't when I was full time.

Orm
Yes that's just how I feel
Though only have one dc - still at home.

I do two days a week, and effectively (though not formally) job share, as there's a FT person who is meant to devote 2-3 days per week to the same project as me. So in effect, I do my two days and he picks up the rest.

I think for PT to work you have to be very, very disciplined: make your working hours clear, be clear about the fact that you can't routinely work late or pick up phone calls/email out of hours (dire, genuine emergencies apart). You have to train the people around you that you are available at certain times. And then once that mindset is there, you can be more flexible, and suddenly people really appreciate that.

Quite a lot of the problems with being PT is down to the inefficiency of other people: if you make it clear from the start that your work pattern means that if they are not ready for an agreed deadline, the project doesn't get finished as you are not around the next day to pick it up, it is amazing how it focusses minds.

I am tired though, on my non-working days, as I do work absolutely flat-out while I am in in the office.

And you do have to be careful to not take things for granted: the generation above us pretty much had a choice of working full-time or being a ft SAHM.

That is particularly true in the professions: there's a lot of women who are now in their fifties who have sacrificed a huge amount, in terms of family life, to break the glass ceiling. And that has led the way for our generation to be seen as serious contenders for serious jobs, with the flexibility to take some time away from the office for family reasons.

So working PT is hard, and you have to make sacrifices. But being a FT SAHM is hard - and involves different sacrifices - as does working FT with no choice to adapt.

I worked full time after first DC and felt I hardly saw him, 3 days a week after 2nd DC, which was vastly better from the parenting point of view, but extremely stressful from the work point of view (usual problems, trying to do 5 days work in 3, unsympathetic boss) and ended up with health problems. Was glad to be made redundant last year and am now being a SAHM, so have tried everything, so far SAHM is the least stressful (for me). I don't regret the part time stint at all, but couldn't have carried on with it indefinitely (not in that job anyway).

I think trying to convert full-time jobs in the 9-5 corporate environment (like I was) is hard to pull off. Maybe different in non 9-5 jobs, and if many staff are part time.

wondering, that's all very well and I absolutely get that. But much as I like my job sometimes, I am doing it for purely financial reasons which is the downside of it all. Men are no longer the sole breadwinners which means that someone like me who would love to stay at home with DD has to work to pay the mortgage on our tiny house. So these sacrifices I make for the pleasure of working add to the stress.

Um, depends on:

if you have a good employer and colleagues (who understand part-time means part-time)

if you are strict with yourself about being part-time

if you have childcare arrangements which you are happy with, so you don't stress about your DC when you're at work

if you have a supportive DH who shares chores

if you have a sensible or at least manageable commute

if your work is relatively predictable in terms of workload / being able to leave on time

Is there something you could you do, blueblanket, to make things a bit easier? Looking at your OP, could you start with trying to be really strict with yourself about not replying (or even reading) emails etc on your non-work days? Do you set an out-of-office with alternative contact details?

I work 3 days, have done for 6 months now.
It's going really well, much better than I thought, but there's factors that have really helped:

My new division at work is hugely understaffed (8 vacancies, and 14FTEs, 20 of us, in post). So they're desperate for anyone good to stay. No-one else remotely fitting the spec applied for my post in the last year. And over 1/2 of us are part-time doing work for the division, even though some are full-time workers but work in other divisions or agencies some of the time.

Lots of people do some homeworking or work at other offices or on the move some of the time. So flexible working for whatever reason really works. My manager has a baby younger than mine, too.

I actually go into the office more than many people rather than home-working because I see people, have a rest on the train, and can write letters and make phone calls that are hard from home. And I can split myself into Home and Work mode and not really think about the other when I'm not there. So I don't have a pic of ds on my desk, for example.

Excellent nursery next to the station I commute from, and ds loves it. It was closed for one snow day but MrNC was working from home and I couldn't get to work, so worked out OK. Ds has been poorly a few times but only two days too sick to go in, one was a non-work day for me, one MrNC worked from home and we got various unemployed friends locally to cuddle ds when MrNC had to be on the phone.

I've got a lot better at planning time at work and just saying 'no' to stuff if I won't have time - but as everyone is overworked, we all have to do it so me being part-time doesn't make a difference. I did agree to two meetings on my off-days but only because they were round the corner from my parents and they could see ds.

Suspect helps that I actually have some cash left over after childcare+commute, and am really enjoying work (mostly). If I had more kids I'd be spending a lot more and would only do it if I were still enjoying the job. Or if ds was in school by then and costing less. Or would holiday+afterschool care plus all the other stuff older kids need cost as much as current nursery?

x-posted with wonderingwondering - I worked in a fairly small place where everyone knew each other, did the same work pattern for several years and yet no one ever seemed to remeber when I wasn't going to be in. One of the biggest stresses was people coming in just before I had to leave to get DCs from nursery with something that had to be done by the next day when I wasn't due in. I couldn't take work home, and to extend deadlines was never an option. My boss did not permit others to cover my absence, they had to do it on the quiet (luckily they were willing to do so on the whole, but it wasn't always possible as they were all massively overworked too).

Oh, and if you have a lovely jobshare partner who picks up everything which comes up when you aren't there! (and vice versa)

Think it must be harder without jobsharing.

Also, from anecdotal evidence, public sector seems a better employer than private sector when it comes to flexible working.

(unless you work for Accenture where you get a whole YEAR off, on full pay, plus loads of other family-friendly incentives to stay, as per a friend)

I work FT and have done since DS was v small (he's now 8). I have quite a senior professional job and couldn't do it as it is PT, and as a family we couldn't lose my income (or even part of it). BUT I do find that FT is easier than trying to do 3 or 4 days or leaving at 5.30 on the dot (if I am at work I don't normally leave before 6.45 and am not home before 7.30 or 8). I also make sure that I work from home about three or four days a month (I lead the team so don't have to ask permission which helps, but that's the payoff for being ancient when sprogging) so I can fit in school assemblies etc etc without flagging on the work front. It's definitely less stressful than doing this job PT. Probably not what you wanted to hear. I think I'm in the 0.001% of women who don't want to work PT.

The economic/social climate is a separate: I am irritated that house prices are such that being a FT SAHM is not an option for so many women. But it must be better to be PT if that's all the hours/money you need than FT or nothing?

If an employer can't make reasonable adjustments for PT workers, that's a broader issue about working conditions. But if PT is managed properly, it can work, and can be a really good option for working parents. But it does require a lot of effort and adjustment from both the employer and employee.