Flexibility

Mothers are difficult people to employ. So many businesses can't get their heads around flexible working. Surely if you make yourself available via iPhone/laptop etc and do your work to a high standard, on time and on budget it shouldn't matter where or when that work is done?

The problem is that it does matter. It matters a lot. Companies like 'bums on seats;' to be able to physically see the people they employ. This was a problem when I went back to work after having William, even working 1/2 a day out of 5 from home proved such an issue that I ended up having to come in for that 1/2 day rather than working remotely.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to go back to the corporate world I know so well and love being a part of. You cannot have it all. You cannot raise your children yourself and expect to be able to come back to work on a flexible basis, to the same standard you did before becoming a mother.

I do see that it's difficult for companies to change their cultures, but sometimes I wonder what all my education/career was for? Maybe I'd have been better off having children at 20 and going back to work now, after having brought them up. Who knows. It does sometimes seem like a terrible waste of my time to have put all that work in and ultimately end up doing the ironing/cleaning the bathrooms etc.

You can't have it all, but I'm going to look for the middle ground and I won't give up until I've found it. I've put too much in to quit now.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turkish Delight will get you a long way

It's roasting today, 30 degrees plus, and I've been up to Argos to buy the boys a cheap two man tent so they can go out later, build a fire at the back of the garden and camp out for the night. We've got frankfurters and rolls, bananas to roast in foil and Nutella to go with them. But no marshmallows. As we all know, no camp is complete without toasting marshmallows, so with the dual purpose of finding some, and collecting Pokemon, the boys set off on their scooters on a search for marshmallows. They had no luck at Brummell Road or the Co-Op, and a tomato-faced William came home empty handed while James continued on to Waitrose for a last try. He finally came home twenty minutes later, bright red and clutching a packet of heart-shaped marshmallows. Stomping past Dolly and I he announced "Got them on the house. They couldn't find the ones I wanted, so they gave these to me on the house." A pause as he rummaged in his pocket and I digested this incredible ...
Read more

Lunch breaks and baking cakes

It's James' birthday on Monday, but he's got his mates round tomorrow and he wants to have his birthday cake then, so they can all sing Happy Birthday and take a slice home. All well and good. Apart from the fact that I have back-to-back calls pretty much all day, and friends round for dinner. AND, I refuse to buy one. With an hour between calls it has just been possible to wolf down a fish finger sandwich (using the thinnest of slices, Eddie having eaten the rest of the loaf while I was on my previous call), mix up a chocolate Victoria sponge and get it in the oven. Icing I can sort out later. Then I wondered, as I often do, whether it would ever occur to a man to take his lunch break to bake a birthday cake. And whether high-achieving women would just go and buy one because they were focused on work and couldn't spare the time. And whether it is career limiting to spend time baking cakes when you could be working through your lunch hour. Yesterday on a call we w...
Read more

Sourdough-off

Image
Time to teach the boys to make sourdough. This is going to be an excellent project - from start(er) to finish. They have to write down the instructions each step of the considerable way and I hope at the end when they bake their loaves they'll have the same sense of achievement that I feel whenever I manage to bake a sourdough successfully (which to be honest, isn't often, but still...). Today is bake day. Will's first out of the traps as James is away on a sleepover and not back until after lunch. We were a bit worried William's starter had died yesterday as it developed an ominous layer of fluid on the top, but after school drop off I drained the fluid and gave it a stir and by this morning it had recovered so much it had actually bowed the top of its tupperware up. We poured in into lukewarm water and it floated beautifully. Mine NEVER does that. #sourdoughenvy.  This is the recipe we're using - so far it hasn't failed me.  https://www.rivercottag...
Read more