And now for something completely different.

Hmm… ok, not completely different – we’re back to the work life balance question. It just feels a little different… maybe… Well, it feels effing overwhelming is what it feels…

Oh right, the point.

So last week my husband came home and told me that he’d just heard on NPR that furloughs were on the way. Apparently the number of days of furlough would depend on how much you currently make starting at 3 and going up. I am deeply suppressing my tangents on this and will just say his is 5 days.

It’s unclear to us what 5 days means – 5 of his 24 work days or 5 8 hour equivalents (about a week’s pay v. 2.5 weeks pay). And there’s so little info available as he hasn’t heard it directly yet. I’m going to refrain from shooting my mouth off here to blow off a lot of steam in deference to him / his work, as that’s not REALLY what this post is about. I’m just giving you a framework to work in here before I start on the path.

So here’s the framework – he’s got a furlough coming (oh, a furlough means you don’t work/don’t get paid for some amount of time. So rather than just cutting your salary by 2 or 4 or whatever percent, they pay you that much less, but you also don’t have to work), so we’ve been looking at our finances and our plans anyway. He’s been talking about getting a part time job in addition to fire fighting. He’s even considered quitting and going back to consulting full time.

Of course, if he works 5 or 6 days a week, what does that do to our current daycare amalgam – where I work 3 days and have the baby the other 4 (usually 2 or 3 with him), he works 2 days and gets her on his own 2 and his Mom watches her one day. We weren’t sure we could bring his Mom up to 3 days a week – she might not want to do it / it might be too much. So we talked about whether I should quit (I don’t really want to. I don’t always like my job, but I like the balance) or what we need to consider.

And then…

Reorgs are coming at my office. Due to some M&As, we likely don’t need as many support staff (I’m in finance) as we have and the role I currently have is probably on the chopping block. But I’m a good worker and I’ve known my boss a long time and he thinks there might be some other options for me. But part time? That doesn’t seem too likely – at least not short term.

He mentioned a couple of options. In another life, one of them might actually have been of real interest to me. Maybe it still is… but really, right now (right this second), I like getting some good quality time with my baby and just working 3 days. Maybe I could get into the stuff I’d be doing, but the idea of leaving her hurts my heart a little.

Always the negotiator, I suggested that maybe I could jump into that role full time for a couple of months and then once I had the hang of it and had reorg’d that team a little bit to better use their strengths, maybe I could go part time. He agreed to present that version to his boss. But… whoa…

I mean, it’s good to be wanted and to have a good reputation. It’s good to have a job (the other option is that I’d be losing my job in a couple of months). But it feels like we’re really getting hit with a lot.

And…

Even though he’s going to float the full time for awhile transitioning to part time idea by his boss, there’s no guarantee on that. I may get into and determine – yeah, this is really a full time job. And then I’m screwed and working full time. Maybe I’d get lucky and find something else, but I probably wouldn’t even make as much as my severance package would have been in that time.

It all makes my head (and heart and stomach and…) hurt.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I just needed to throw this all out there to the universe. Please say a prayer for me or send me good vibes or whatever. Thanks!