Mummascribbles – Feeling like work just don't get it – Mummascribbles

When I joined my current company, I’d done a bit of negotiating around the hours and what time I need to leave each day before I signed on the dotted line. It was agreed that I would work from 8.30-5 on Mondays and Wednesday’s, 9-4.30 on Tuesdays and Thursday’s and 9-5 on a Friday. By cutting my lunch break to half an hour each day and going in early on two days, I’d still be doing the full 37.5 hours expected of me but still be able to pick Zach up from my mum’s and get him home for bed, and still be able to pick him up from nursery without getting fined for being late. Had they have not agreed to these hours, I would not have taken the job. These hours were agreed by the manager and the HR manager. All was fine.

Then I started the job. The manager who’d interviewed me had gone on maternity leave the week before I started (which I obviously knew about), and a cover for her was now in place. Obviously that cover (who is very lovely), wasn’t the one to agree my hours and I genuinely think that had it have been her, she would have said no. The standard working hours are 9-5.30. I would say that most people don’t leave until six. Among the women, it is clearly obvious that most don’t have young children. I am not the only one that leaves early. There is another woman who works in a very similar role but is a manager, who regularly leaves at 4.30 to pick up her little boy from nursery. There is one woman who works part time because she has a three year old. So why is it that every time I leave the office, especially at 4.30 – a whole hour before the rest of my team – do I feel like I am being judged?

I regularly feel like I am not doing my bit. That I’m not there to pick things up in that last hour (sometimes only half an hour) because I’ve had to go and pick my son up and get him home to bed.

None of my team have children. They quite simply do not understand. I’ve told them of course. When I left the office today at 4.25 in order to try and catch the same train that I missed on Tuesday, meaning the other half had to get Zach from nursery with me going and picking them both up, I felt like I was doing something dreadfully wrong. I see the glance at the clock as I leave and immediately think that what’s going through their mind is ‘oh there she goes again’. My other half has assured me that this probably isn’t the case but I’m not convinced.

I can’t tell you the amount of times that something has come in – in that small window that I’m not there – something that has meant I have gone back the next morning to a barrage of emails because someone else has dealt with it.

I can’t tell you how many times something has happened at 4pm on a Tuesday, half an hour before I absolutely have to leave the office. I’ve always told them that on nursery days, there is no flexibility in my hours. I cannot get in until 9 and I have to be out of the door at 4.30. On the other days, it doesn’t matter so much as he’s with my mum. But it’s always on those days, and normally a Tuesday that something happens. That when I leave at 4.30 and promise my manager that I’ll be dealing with it at 8.30 the following morning and I get a grunt and a funny look, that I feel like the offices biggest failure. That I’m torn between keeping my manager happy and going to pick up my son in time. I have spent so many Tuesday night’s feeling like crap. So many Wednesday mornings dreading going into work because I know I’m going to get question after question with have I done this and have a done that.

I’m not sure I’m cut out for the commercial sector. There is heaps more pressure to get things done at that exact moment along with the feeling that you are not playing your part if you’ve got kids waiting for you to get them home.

And it’s not just my company. Flexibility in the workplace is just poor. We don’t have a flexible working policy set in place. I went for another interview for a company who did have a flexible working policy in place but at the sheer mention of it in the interview, the manager literally shuddered and rolled off the usual words of ‘well it’s something you can request but it’s at the managers discretion’. Mostly, the recent requirement to make flexible working policies as standard is a pile of rubbish. Yes you can request to work part time or you can request to reduce your hours, but it is completely up to your manager if it goes through.

The worst thing as I mentioned earlier, is having a boss/team who don’t have kids. They just cannot simply understand the juggling a working mum has to do and in all honesty, they simply don’t care.

I wish I hadn’t got so bored/disheartened by my previous company because my boss was amazing. She had kids, she knew the score and when I requested it, she approved my flexible working request. I couldn’t stay there though because I’d lost all respect for the company itself. I’d have stayed there working for her forever otherwise!

Workplace flexibility needs to get better. It’s 2015. Working remotely is more than possible, working varied hours is entirely possible. It seems that some people just can’t get their heads around it and therefore make it that much harder for those of us who have little people relying on us to be there for them.

I’d love to hear your workplace stories. Do you have a fab workplace or like me, do you feel that you are always being looked at with those eyes that are also watching the clock as you leave before everyone else?

P.S. I totally made the train today…yes!!!