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

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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?

Actually squilly said it much better than me.

I do three days and it works well for me. I find I'm very productive in those three days - I'm definitely getting more than 3/5 of my previous workload done (but that maybe says more about my previous faffing about as a ft employee...).

I do extra hours, usually long days on the days I'm in, and I have a work laptop that connects me to the network so I can check in on emails the days I'm not in or finish off any deadline-sensitive work. I'm not expected to do this, but I find it takes the pressure off on a Wednesday night and a Monday morning, and lets face it all my full time colleagues are working more than their contracted hours.

I also have a degree of flexitime so technically I could take back some of that time I work late - and in fact I rarely start at 9am so I don't have to rush ds into nursery.

I feel really lucky to have a job that's this flexible. Just hope I keep it. I've been worrying about potential job cuts next year and how my being part time might affect my risk. But hopefully my flexibility, experience and cheapness (only having to pay 3 days pw) will be on my side.

Noone grumbles about part time workers - they know we pull our weight so we very much still feel a full member of the team.

I don't think any option is easy. I'm doing 28 hours over 5 days which can mean 10-12 hours' commuting on top. But it fits in with DH and childcare, and I get to show my face at school for a couple of pick-ups, so I'm glad of the flexibility. Just knackered most of the time.

For me I think it can be the best of both worlds, although i think you have to get the right balance IYKWIM.

I used to work FT before DC. After my DD I had a good balance, working 3.5 days. After DS1, I worked 3 days, and felt like my work was suffering as i had to say "no" to a lot of meetings when they were on my non-working days, and felt i was missing out. I went back last month after DS2 on a 4 day week. I then felt like i didn't have enough time to do housework, shopping etc, and my one day with DS1/DS2 was just doing chores. So I have now negotiated to finish early one day a week so i can do some chores then whilst DCs are at after-school club/nursery. Oh, and I have a cleaner every week - a real godsend . I think i have found the right work-life balance for me, but you may need to tweak yours a bit?

I've been p-t for a year now, since having DS2 - went back f-t after DS1 and hated it, but stuck it out bcs knew we wanted to have DC2 pretty quickly

I much prefer being p-t, but it is quite stressful. I was 3 days, but have recently gone up to 3.5 as work was leaking quite badly into my days off, and I thought I might as well get paid for it, so I make up the extra 0.5 day from home over the week, so no need to use more childcare than before.

For some reason, I thought that I would have loads of time when I was p-t - no idea why I thought that, never seem to have ANY time to myself, and feel stressed by the juggling. But it's still better than being f-t, for me - I love having my days at home with my boys. Must admit, am v much looking forward to mat leave with DC3, though

I work PT, from home. Suits me well, but nearly everything I do is on the computer. So at the weekend, I simply don't turn it on. The trick is not just to have self-discipline about doing the work but also about not doing it when you're not supposed to be.

I work PT, 24 hours spread over 3 days and it works well for me. I like to work from home one day and try and make it into the office one day and then I make a call for the 3rd day. I have two DC's who are both at Nursery and I am completely happy with my childcare arrangements and I am confident that my DC's are happy there. My DH is out of the house for 12 hours so the nursery drops and pick-ups always fall to me. I work as an IT consultant and have been with my company for 10 years. Before having the children (nearly 4 years ago now) I did a lot of international travel that sometimes took me away from home for a month at a time. When I fell pregant with DD my travel was kindly limited to the UK but I would still be away for 2,3,4 nights. I went back 3 days a week after my years maternity leave with DD and I didn't have any problems whatsoever. I was back for exactly a year before going on maternity leave with DS and I returned once again back in June on the same part time basis. I think it helps that there are around 15 other UK based consultants in the same role as me, which I guess you could call a job share. My time is charged out to my clients on a daily basis and consultancy days are agreed upfront in a project so in some ways it makes no difference to the client if I work 3 days or 5 (other than in terms of elapsed time to perform a task). It seems to work best when I have a trainee member of staff that can pick up things on the days that I don't work.

I am very lucky really in that it was also not essential that I went back to work. TBut te thought of being a SAHM for evermore filled me with dread and I find working makes me a more contented and focused mother than if I were at home with them 24/7.

The downside is that because I can no longer travel, even within the UK, that I don't have the pick of the good and interesting projects and pretty much just get what I am given. On days that I am at clients or in the office I have very restricted working hours, in that I can't get anywhere before 9.30 and generally need to leave by 4.30 in order to drop off and pick the kids up from Nursery. I feel quite paranoid about this and worry that people think I am not working my fair share. However I will generally put in a bit of time in the evenings when the kids are in bed. I definitely am not as involved as I used to be and do feel a bit side-lined, watching young consultants that I coached working on the big successful projects but my view is that my career is not my priority now.

All in all it works well for me and I feel I have a good balance. I get to use my brain again for 3 days a week and get some time away from the children. The children are happy and stimulated at Nursery yet they still spend more of their week with Mum.

I work either 3 short shifts or two long shifts a week. I loved being on mat leave and found it a huge adjustment coming back, but now I'm really glad for the intellectual stimulation. It help that lots of people in my work are also part timers.

I've always worked very much full time. It depends on the person what works for you.If you're in a career rather than just a job then if you want to make a lot of money which is huge fun at times and teenagers and student children appreciate it (! - don't knock it) then working full time is best.

It also helps the power balance in a relationship if you are in a relationship because you arenot misses pin money who earns a pittance but a serious major financial provider so if your husband says scrub the floor you can tell him where to go. not to easy when he is the God like thing on £50k a year whilst you earn the minimum wage.

I started out with 10 hours and it was a nightmare because I couldn't get everything done and was constantly stressed and DH didn't really see it as a 'valid' contribnutuoon or proper job so just assuemd if the kids were ill or it was holiday time, that I would cover it.
I now workj 20 hours and feel much less stressed because Dh's perception of it as a job has changed and I can get my work done in that time.
I tried to extend it to 26 hours, but that really didn't work for me as I had no time at all to do chores, houseowrk, shopping etc which Dh couldn't do and stll not earning enough for a cleaner, say.

I find it is only a problem when things go wrong. So, if a DC is ill then DH and I both share the time off, but because I work part-time it is a bigger proportion of my week. Plus I am the only one in my team who has children so I find it is a challenge sometimes to get people to understand school holidays etc.

And, it has been made clear to me that having had two MLs and being part-time has effectively ruled me out for promotion.

I never tell people I work part-time, if they ask for a meeting on my non-working days I simply say I'm unavailable on that day. I find they can always re-schedule!

I do 4 5 hour shifs so 20 hors a week and it really is the best of both worlds - I've taken a huge step down the ladder though so I literally can leave the job and the stress at the door and then pick it up again on my next shift. I can do all the school pick ups and all the ebdtimes and it's not much of a commute so it works brillaintly at the minute.

Part time is partly the best and partly the worst.

I'm a part time freelancer, so I work from home 3 days each week. Sounds great right? And so it is, particularly when I need to drop everything and pick up a sick child from nursery or be at home for a plumber/delivery/etc. However, I can go for DAYS without seeing anyone other than my kids and DH. I'm one of the sad gits who sometimes work in coffee shops just to get a sniff of social interaction. Nothing's perfect!

I always wonder why the term 'working mother' is normal, but 'working father' doesn't exist. Therein lies the real issue.

if your husband says scrub the floor you can tell him where to go. not to easy when he is the God like thing on £50k a year

sorry...laughing my tits off...Dh is too...

they'd really like to think earning alone would get them that status, but by gum, it means nothing in this house. earnings do nt decide power - not in an equal partnership.

By toomuchcoffee Wed 17-Feb-10 15:41:42
Part time is partly the best and partly the worst.

I'm a part time freelancer, so I work from home 3 days each week. Sounds great right? And so it is, particularly when I need to drop everything and pick up a sick child from nursery or be at home for a plumber/delivery/etc. However, I can go for DAYS without seeing anyone other than my kids and DH. I'm one of the sad gits who sometimes work in coffee shops just to get a sniff of social interaction. '

I'm like that too which is why I go into the office, for the 'cump-nee' (as my nan would have said). I know that some freelancers in my area have organised a bit of a network where they meet up, trade ideas that kind of thing, could you start something like that up? Lots of areas have their own blogs, you could suggest a lunch or something. I also find that listening to Radio 4 makes me feel like I have learnt something useful during the day. When we had a dog she also provided me with a reason to leave the house and lots of other dog walkers to talk to.

Agree with EdgarAllenSnow...money does not equal power in our household. I've earned more money than DH (pre child), the same as DH (post child), reduced my hours to part time (post child) and earned less, gave up work for a while, earned nothing, and now I work part time.

During all this, DH never came the big 'I Am' routine because of the money. We always had a joint account. When I earned more, I didn't see him as inferior and he repayed the compliment.

When I was FT at work, then went to PT it didn't affect my career prospects initially. In fact, a few months after coming back from my ML, I was offered a temporary promotion (permanent ones were banned in the organisation at the time).

I was the one who couldn't cope with it. I was managing a transient team of 8 people, a major organisational change and a new job role and I found myself crushed by it all.

I finally got the team on a more stable footing, made it through the big organisational change, got on top of the role, and found I was bored...so I took a career break (formal name for it, not my fancy dan imagined name for it). And then I quit, as I realised I couldn't go back to the red tape and bureaucracy. Now I'm doing something that actually feels of value, even though the pay is shite. It's also local, school hours and darned convenient!

I think FT to PT can work, but it depends on the employer. I think most women's careers are damaged by pregnancy/childbirth/motherhood. It's not fair, but it's an unavoidable truth. Some people (I won't call them lucky, because it's not luck that makes this happen) have great careers regardless of their family circumstances. But I think the majority of us are held back by maternity leave and part time hours.

Having said that, Part Time has worked o.k. for me in the past and as a parent I would not consider going back full time until my daughter's old enough to look after herself (probably secondary school age). That's just me. I don't feel I can commit to a full time job til that happens.

can I just ask re: holidays/annual leave

I want to work 20 hours a week when I go back which I think gives you about 11 or 12 days holiday a year.

If you work your 20 hours as 3 full days a week then to take a 2 week holiday I would only need to use 6 days of holiday.

If I work 5 mornings a week instead, then to take a 2 week holiday would I need to use up 10 days of holiday?

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious - I'd quite like to work 5 mornings so I'm there for the school run but I'd like time off at Christmas as well as the summer and maybe April too!

goodbye, my work uses hours to work out part-timers holidays.

Basically though, part-timers have the same holidays as full-timers, prorata'd.

So, if a full timer has 5 weeks holiday a year a part timer also has 5 weeks holiday a year. In our case though a full timer would be taking off 37.5 hours to make up a week where as a part timer would be taking off 20 hours (say).

So the full timer would have 5x37.5hrs holiday and the part timer would have 5x20hrs holiday.

In your example, you would get 60% of a full timer's holiday allowance (roughly) but would have the same number of "weeks" off. Just that your weeks holiday will be fewer hours as you work fewer hours. So 5 mornings off would = 1 weeks holiday.

Is that clear as mud?

To clarify (hopefully), when you're saying you get 12 "days" holiday, I think what you're saying is that you get 7.5 hours x 12 (depending on how long a normal working day is).

If you're working half days normally then you'll get roughly 24 of your working days off. Which probably equates to the number of full days a full timer gets.

thanks shona that makes sense now!

Holidays are a bit of a grey area and alot of people aren't sure what they are entitled to.

Contractually, it totally depends on what your hours and holiday allowance were full-time as it usually pro-rata'd for your part-time hours.

For instance I used to work 40 hours a week over 5 days. I now work 24 hours a week over 3 days. So my pay and holiday is 3/5 of my full-time allowance. I get 20 days holiday when working full time so 3/5 of that is 12 days. You are also entitled to 3/5 of the public holidays. There are 8 public holidays a year so I get 5 of those. So this is tagged on to your holiday allowance. So my pro-rata'd holiday allowance is 17 days a year (inc bank hols). The difference being if a bank holiday falls on a day that you usually work on, you take it as holiday rather than just a bank holiday. Does that make sense?

The bank holiday thing also depends on the days you work. I work tues, weds, thus. So I don't work mon and fri, which is when bank holidays tend to fall. So it's quite handy as easter and the may bank holidays I get to take as additional holiday, if you see what I mean. But if christmas day and boxing day were to fall on tues and wed, I would take them out of my 17 day holiday allowance.

For a 2 week holiday that falls mon to fri I only take 6 days holiday.