MSE Parents Club Part 5

elle_gee

Tine, our Working At Home policy specifically states you must not be looking after children at the same time. Just watch out for that one..

redmel1621

Off for dinner I am serving up some Economy Gastronomy:rotfl:

Buttonmoons

So am I redmel, what you making? I made the bedrock braised mince, and have just turned some of it into chilli, only thing is I didn't read the recipe right and bunged the red wine in near the end instead of the start, so waiting for it to reduce now....

SugarSpun

Go Tine - I'd hate to be on their side if you were bringing the union after me Good luck

Husband's having similar problems with home office - at his company it's primarily based on manager discretion, and his boss prefers all the staff to be in the office. Husband consistently gets more work done when working from home because he rarely stops working at going-home time because he likes things to be at a convenient stopping point rather than at the point everyone shuts the office down.

The problem is that the boss has the German mindset that a mother should stay at home for at least the first year. My research contract is up in April, and to get the results I need to secure future funding I need to be back by the 1st November at the latest. I spent ten years in university to get my job, and do not think I should stay at home and ruin my CV competitiveness simply because we had a child. I can work from home half the time and we need Husband at home the rest of the time to take up the slack.

We've talked to HR and the higher-ups at Husband's office, and they've no problem with him working from home. It's just his boss, and so we're having to consider bringing in the union. Gah.

Sami_Bee

r.mac I like to give gifts made by the kids (coz its cheap ) How about a framed handprint with a poem?
green food - remember it takes something like 10 goes before they've made up their mind if they like it or not, do you mix the green stuff with sweeter things like carrot & broccoli?

I wouldn't worry (not that I think u are) Chris didn't really like it but he now loves lettuce, spinach, rocket and cucumber (all raw not though no broccoli or peas/cooked green stuff :rolleyes:)

3onitsway

r.mac wrote: »

What about you and Violet 3?

Have I made this quote small enough? :rolleyes::D

Have you tried mixing green stuff with sweet potato or BNS? When I did my cooking, i kept everything seperate, so i've got an ice cube tray of BNS, one of sweet potato, one of beetroot, one of broccoli, one of carrot etc. So, when I make her meal, I get about four/five cubes, maybe two sweet and two green!, defrost them and mix them all together. We've almost ran out of cubes now, so i'll have to make some more but this time more chunky I think.

She does seem to prefer sweet stuff like breakfast - but will still eat the other stuff. She's not refused anything yet, so maybe she's like the other two, they'll eat anything! Even sprouts!

Hugs about the work situation - i'm still unsure whats happening with me! i really should sort myself out. I've got a new line manager in work apparently, who I've never met - I thought he might have phoned/emailed to say hello! :mad:

MrsTinks

elle_gee wrote: »

Tine, our Working At Home policy specifically states you must not be looking after children at the same time. Just watch out for that one..

I've already checked that Apart from the fact it doesn't state it (I've read and re-read it!) then my "reason" for wanting to work from home is that even if she was in fulltime care then I can't be in exeter, london, milton keynes etc and my child here in daycare in case anything happens. I can't be over an hour away! The days I am not working from home husband should be so should be able to cover the "stand by"

As it is then there is nothing in my job that should be a problem with having Alexandra with me too... 85% is e-mails and reports - the other 15% is calls - many what would be "out of hours" so when I'd be expected to have her with me anyway. Just the nature of the job sadly... but it kinda works in my favour in this instance as because I don't have "set" office hours it's very hard to argue that my child would interfer with my work from 9-5 when infact often a lot of it is more like 7am till 10pm So it would be unreasonable to expect me to not have her with me for the other 7 hours of the day when they want to be able to contact me... (I've been dealing with outages after midnight before now... )
As far as the clients are concerned then so long as they get their reports on time and I answer my phone when something breaks (and then fix it) then they certainly don't care if I do it at 7am, 1pm or 9pm in the evening

elle_gee

MrsTine wrote: »

I've already checked that Apart from the fact it doesn't state it (I've read and re-read it!) then my "reason" for wanting to work from home is that even if she was in fulltime care then I can't be in exeter, london, milton keynes etc and my child here in daycare in case anything happens. I can't be over an hour away! The days I am not working from home husband should be so should be able to cover the "stand by"

In your opinion Sadly the bosses on high might not agree

As it is then there is nothing in my job that should be a problem with having Alexandra with me too... 85% is e-mails and reports - the other 15% is calls - many what would be "out of hours" so when I'd be expected to have her with me anyway. Just the nature of the job sadly... but it kinda works in my favour in this instance as because I don't have "set" office hours it's very hard to argue that my child would interfer with my work from 9-5 when infact often a lot of it is more like 7am till 10pm So it would be unreasonable to expect me to not have her with me for the other 7 hours of the day when they want to be able to contact me... (I've been dealing with outages after midnight before now... )
As far as the clients are concerned then so long as they get their reports on time and I answer my phone when something breaks (and then fix it) then they certainly don't care if I do it at 7am, 1pm or 9pm in the evening

Fair dos. Ours expect 7.5hrs to be worked between 0830 and 1635 and that you have a 35min lunch break.. just as we work in the office, so no leeway for stepping away from the laptop because LO is crying etc etc


I've no idea what I'm going to do. My intention was to go back for 18.75hrs a week (half of what I used to do) which would mean finding a job share partner. We'd have to see what pattern they would want to work, but it'd usually be two days one week, three days the next, all at 0830-1635. Hopefully job share person doesn't want to do all afternoons - there's no way I'd be compus mentus enough to work five mornings! Alternatively they might let me work two days in the office and a half day at home, but then they'd have someone else for three full days as the office has to be covered at all times so they'd be paying two of us at the same time for half a day a week. Of course all on the basis I actually can go back..

MrsTinks

Let's put it this way: if they don't get flexible about it then I will cease being flexible about answering my mobile at 7am because the director has forgotten he has a meeting and needs the latest run down on an account for a meeting at 9 and mailing him over all the reports he needs
And if the data for a report doesn't get to me till 5pm then it won't get done that evening anymore even if it means it'll be late for the client because my day ended at x time...
The company shouldn't have a problem with it - my line manager might... although goodness knows why... she's the main person who works from home out of the team... Ah well - I'll cross that bridge when I get to it

Becles

Buttonmoons wrote: »

I decided I'd gut out keira's room today, ....Well she kept deciding she wanted to play with X Y and Z as they were coming out the boxes

At least you've learned now that's a job to do when she is out of the house All sorts of crap gets thrown out when mine are at school, and most of the time they don't even notice :rolleyes:

that cat had went and eaten a string bag that your tomatoes/oranges come in, crapped it out, and started playing with it all over the room.

Sorry but that made me laugh. It reminded me of when my husband came in absolutely ill laughing because he'd seen a dog poo out a tea bag, but not all the string had come out so it went wandering off with a tea bag dangling from it's bum hole :rotfl:

redmel1621 wrote: »

I have come on for a little bit of a moan/cry....I keep getting myself all worked up about going back to work.

Give it a chance and see how you feel after a few weeks back. I was dreading going back to work too, but I enjoy it once I got settled into a routine. You can always pack it in or look for something else if you find you really don't like it.

r.mac wrote: »

Is there such a thing as being able to personalise an apron or a wooden spoon or something?????

I've used these before and had good service:
http://www.personalpresents.co.uk/

Rang the doctors and they said the next available appointment was the 3rd September :eek: Explained what the problem was and said it's not urgent, but I didn't want to leave it that long. Receptionist rang back later after speaking to the nurse practitioner and said they can see me on Friday afternoon. Have to go to work tomorrow, so hope I can manage that ok.