My heart goes out to those part time workers who are given a full time role and expected to perform as well as their full time colleagues.
When I was ‘hating’ my job two years ago I calculated the hours I actually worked in a week. I was working the equivalent of 6 days and being paid for 4. At the time I thought that this was ‘normal’ as I knew my colleagues worked ‘extreme overtime’ too. In essence my role as a consultant/manager was one of my own creation. Yes, I was employed and, yes, I had a boss, but I knew I was in control of what I actually did on a day to day or week to week basis.
So what did I do?
- I realized that working 50% more hours than I was being paid for was NOT normal and NOT good for me or my young family.
- I decided to do something positive about it
- I negotiated with my boss to get paid for 5 days a week (and I reduced my working week to just 5 days, including travel time as I was contracted to work from home and could do as much as 5 hours travelling each day)
- I continued to plan my ‘exit strategy’ (basically I found something that I loved doing and did lots of it outside of work, meaning the time I had available for work decreased)
Where am I now?
- I got the push I needed, 12 months ago, when my my role became redundant.
- I had already set up my own company and was half way through a 1 year training course in preparation for this.
- Now my LIFE and FAMILY comes first.
- I work school hours, school term times.
- In January I invoiced twice as much as I would have taken home when in employment!
Best of all I now LOVE my job and get a huge sense of satisfaction from the difference my company makes every day to Primary School Headteachers across the UK.
This blog was inspired by a recent article on BNET.com - “Brits Excel at New Sport: Extreme Overtime”.
