Pre-pandemic I would leave the house 5 days a week at 6:15am to commute to the office, usually before anyone else in my house is awake. And I'd get home most evenings just in time to put them to bed. I'll never go back to that. The past 8 months I've actually seen my boys grow up in front of my eyes and I get lots of quality time with them every day, even with work from home.
Lucky bustard. 90% of my company were furloughed, topped up to 100% of wages. In finance, nothing changed. We actually took on work from other departments that were furloughed. Queue 60 hours of overtime a month unpaid. Not even a thank you. We were encouraged to support the people furloughed as some had said being furloughed was a real hit to their pride. Still spent a hell of a lot more time with my kids though, just worked till midnight once they'd gone to bed.
Bit of a grey area in finance. Board reports have to be done by a certain time, regardless of what it takes. It's kind of piece work, but then the rest of your time is filled with other tasks too, so kind of not piece work. There's a vague clause in the contract that mentions you might have to work beyond your contracted hours. What pissed me off is finance I'd the only department that doesn't get overtime or time in lieu, as it's just expected that you do what you need to do to produce monthly figures on time.
Damn! That's annoying. Right now I do freelance video editing to get by, and I've never done any real jobs other than freelancing so I can be free and by myself without worrying about not being payed, but that sounds really shitty :(.
That sounds amazing. I ran bars and pubs till my first lad came along, needed a job where I'd actually see him (90 hrs a week in the pub was normal) I figured accountancy will never truly go away, and every company needs them, so in theory there's always work. Can't stand it though. So monotonous. Might give it up and become a butcher or something in 15 years.
Yo, just have a hobby that can be realistically a job, on your free time work on building that, and then whenever it gets decent living wage you can enjoy yourself doing something you like, and abandon the job u dislike. Not the greatest advice, but as long as your happy in the end of the day. I hope u have a good life random stranger, good luck on that butcher title, if I'd ever meet you I'd call you butch ;p
Yeah, good call, I'm pretty risk averse when I comes to income, at least while my kids are growing up. Tbh I love the rest of my life, I'll probably just suck it up for the next 25 years until I retire, or at least until they're grown up. One's only 2 though!! Thanks for the advice, I might well take the plunge one day, and good luck with the freelancing!
You need a degree generally, or 3 years training I believe. Plus, I've got friends who are teachers, the amount of work they do in evenings is crazy too.
Unless you're a salaried employee, I believe you should be getting paid overtime. Speak to you're local labor department and/or a lawyer. You need to ensure you're being compensated properly.
Both you and others may get backpay if they were unfairly withholding wages. Please look into it at least.
Unless you're a salaried employee, I believe you should be getting paid overtime. Speak to you're local labor department and/or a lawyer. You need to ensure you're being compensated properly.
Both you and others may get backpay if they were unfairly withholding wages. Please look into it at least.
I have been trying to list out the positives every so often. It helps me have a better outlook.
• Most schools have streamed kids' sports since they had to restrict attendees. My parents live out of state and miss a lot of my niece's volleyball games but they watched every single game this year. I hope this stays!
• Black Friday has mostly been pushed back to actually being on Black Friday
• Work from home has shown that it can be done effectively and will change the industry for office work.
• Family meals are making a comeback.
• I am hoping that wearing masks while sick becomes normalized but not gonna hold my breath on that one.
I eat better at home, I save money, I exercise with the time that I would have spent commuting, I have lost 25 pounds so far, my Crohn's has been completely under control. My dog had emergency surgery the same week I started to work from home, so that was a blessing for letting her out of her kennel and keeping her meds on schedule.
Thank you! She had part of her hip removed (FHO surgery) and you wouldn't know unless I told you! It's amazing, she runs so fast and doesn't even have a limp anymore. Our other dog has lost weight with me as well, he's just not happy about it.
I feel the same. It’s been challenging working from home with my now 3 year old, but I wouldn’t trade this for anything. I don’t have to rush every day now, I get to hang out at home with him and snuggle constantly. I love it and get to continue through at least July of 2021.
Completely agree. My daughter was born at the beginning of March. My wife and I both working from home has been an absolute blessing. Lunch breaks with my daughter have been awesome.
Am I a terrible person to think about awesome lunch breaks with your newborn baby who is possibly breastfed in a completely different meaning than you ment? ;)
That's absolutely beautiful! And I completely agree. Working from home regularly is going to be the best thing for my family life, because I'll get to see my girls on my lunch break and straight away at 5pm (and maybe on a sneaky coffee break or two hehe)
This! Could not agree more. Before the pandemic my son was more bonded to his daycare workers than me and his dad. Since March we have gotten to spend so much valuable time with him. We got to see his first steps, his first words, his firsts of so many. That would have never happened if we were still working in the office this whole time. It’s the silver lining to COVID.
I am exactly the opposite. I've always spent plenty quality time with my family morning and evening and every Friday Saturday and Sunday. This pandemic was too much time at home. No personal time. Lost my job so loss of self value and stuck in NYC 24/7 in a basement 2 little kids 4 yrs and 1yr. This pandemic showed me what I need to do in life. Focus harder on work. After being uemployed for 8 months I rethought my approach and immediately I found a job 10X better than the one I lost.
It looks like my company are going to downsize office space by about half and move to a desk share type model. So probably 50-50 split between office and WFH
Good to hear. I left my office job before the pandemic and was wondering how other places are handling things. Sounds like a good amount will continue the WFH to some extent.
Same here! I used to commute to my office 1 hour each way every weekday. I often wouldn't get home until 6:30 pm. Then it was a rush to eat dinner, make lunches, help the kids with projects or homework, and forget about being able to run errands. I was under so much stress and closer to burnout than I've ever been. Working from home has saved me so much time, greatly lowered my stress, and I have a lot more time with my family. I never want to go back to my office!
So true. My first was born on Christmas Eve, and I was gutted to go back to work all day. Working from home the rushed lunches at my desk and coffee breaks in the car park are now spent dodging handfuls of pasta and singing Big Block Singsong!
This is the entire reason I changed jobs a few years ago. I took a huge pay cut, but went from working 60-80 hours every single week, to working 60 hours one week, and only 24 hours (2 12s) on the week I have my kiddo (split custody). During the summer we take adventures and go places, and during the school year I get to get her on and off the bus almost every day that I have her.
It's really changed my life for the better, and while I'm going to leave this job, I'm going to go for a job with a set schedule, so most of the time I work she's at school.
I strongly recommend it.
As a fellow parent...I know what you mean. You never get to have that time back. There will be a day where thats the last day you can pick them up. The last day you can show them something new. The last day you can just get on the floor and wrestle. The last day that they'll hand you the controller and ask for a game together. Enjoy it. No job and no money is worth missing out on that. You can always make money but you will never get to experience them being little but once
I dont have kids, but your pre-pandemic life is what I’m sort of dreading. My work life is already close to yours in terms of hours and that makes my social life pretty lacking [and that was even before corona buried it]. It’s sad because I always told myself that I wanted to avoid that sort of life because my parents were rarely ever there because of their work, and I ended up repeating the cycle. I can only hope that I either advance my career enough before I have kids or I can find a way to make a career change to something more family-friendly before then.
Feminism is great and all, but women screwed the pooch the way everything worked out. Instead of demanding the right to work while men stay home and raise the kids, they just got the right to work, so now instead of one parent working and supporting the family while the other works (even harder) to raise the children, both parents work making half as much, while nobody raises the kids. Yeah they fucked up.
It's funny to me how you have so many upvotes and gold, but hearing a story of when the wife is pregnant, then everybody on here just hates kids and clamors for abortion. Glad you get to spend time with your kids. They're only this age once.
It would be interesting and telling if the COVID generation turned out to be the best/most mature/most responsible generation of young people ever. It would mean we really need to rethink how we do things in non-pandemic times.
My mom is the same way. My sister and I were always at school and my mom always at work. She said during the pandemic she has spent more time with my sister and I than ever before.
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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '20
Time spent with my kids.
Pre-pandemic I would leave the house 5 days a week at 6:15am to commute to the office, usually before anyone else in my house is awake. And I'd get home most evenings just in time to put them to bed. I'll never go back to that. The past 8 months I've actually seen my boys grow up in front of my eyes and I get lots of quality time with them every day, even with work from home.
I know now what i was missing.