I pre-apologize for this long rant here, sorry…First off, I have three kids: 6, 4, and 2 and our fourth (and last) due in December. In late 2014 I changed jobs to a work from home position. I had been working in an office setting for ten years for big companies and now this was a small company where I could work anywhere but I had an increase workload compared to the past. The job offered higher pay, bonuses, money saving, flexible schedule, right career path, no more office politics and related shit, plus it seemed to fit better in our family life/schedule (particularly when all the kids were sick or had school functions). I was apprehensive at first making such a switch but my wife (she is a SAHM) convinced me it would be the right decision for me and the family. Now I seem to be regretting that decision. The transition was a bit rough for me at first but after a few months I was used to it. Last summer was a bit rough, especially my four year old, on me being home at working because I started the job halfway through the school year and she thought me at home during the weekday + her being home = constant playtime. I traveled one week a month during last summer so that helped break things up, but things are way different this summer. My workload has changed and no travel, my four year old still doesn’t understand me working from home (despite every trick in the book to try to get her to understand) and my two year old is...well, a two year old boy. My six year old has been the most constant and good throughout all this, but she has always been more mature than her years. When her siblings aren’t around, she is great. But combined, they have gotten in lots of fights that usually have to happen right by me working. This school year will be a repeat of this past year with my two oldest daughters in school and my son at home. Next summer they will be a year older but we will now have a six month old in the house so I am predicting long and trying days of attempting to work next summer.It is nearly impossible for me to work when all three kids are around now, especially during summer vacation. Now what happens is I start working from home, shit happens, I threaten to leave, shit continues, so I leave to work at Starbucks where I can get a lot of things done. The Starbucks has the best Wi-Fi but is 25 minutes away (trust me, I have tried all the closer places with Wi-Fi and they are terrible and I need a good internet connection for what I do). When I worked in an office, I was 25 minutes away and if I leave to work for the day it ties up our only car so it’s pretty much the same situation as my old job.One thing I was looking forward to when taking this job was dropping my daughters off at school and picking them up. Then I could work in between. My four year old had a rough transition to pre-school that lasted until January and they both would come home cranky and hungry. I basically had a window of 9:30AM – 2PM to work, then maybe some before dinner and then I finished up after kids were in bed. Pretty stressful and I grew to dread school days. It was just tough to juggle working full time at home and doing the school routines. My wife would pitch in when she could but she was mainly dealing with my clingy son as those were his nap/cranky times.My wife does what she can and she really tries but its constant interruption and distraction, meltdowns, and repeated over and over. I have a dedicated office (around 10x10 room) but I still get bothered and the kids stuff keeps overrunning the office (plus the room doesn’t have heating or cooling systems in it so I have to use portable heaters and air conditioners) and some days I just feel claustrophobic. My wife and I have talked (“family meetings”), yelled, threatened, punished, and yelled some more at the kids because of all this but they don’t seem to get it. She tries to keep them entertained and occupied throughout the day and it works in bunches but in between those times they want to bother me. She will take them out of the house sometimes and it helps me but it doesn’t happen everyday.Yesterday my wife was talking all the kids to a friend’s house. Before that she decided to clean out our van and vacuum it. We had planned to do it this weekend but she wanted to do it yesterday, so she asked me to dig out the Shop Vac and extension cord and she would do the rest. I did that and went back to work. About 20 minutes later she starts yelling for my help so go do that and then I ended up finishing cleaning since everything was out on the sidewalk and they had to leave and I could do it faster even with the kids interrupting. By the time all that was said and done almost 90 minutes was gone from my day and made it hard to get back in the working rhythm. I understand my wife needed help but even sometimes she slips into thinking that I am home and around that I can stop what I am doing to help. She has noticed this and apologized. A lot of my days have frequent breaks that interrupt work that I really can’t interrupt too many times and it just throws things off. Those days I usually have to finish work at night after the kids are in bed and I go to bed late and the next day I am a zombie.I don’t know, I seem to dread being at home now and I’m tired of the fighting to make this work. Just every weekday is an insane out of control madhouse and it’s become harder to concentrate on a bigger, more important workload recently given to me. That combined with several issues happening at my company and it really seems like it’s time for me to move on and back to a real office job. I really, really wanted it to work. At least I gave working from home a shot, but I don’t think it turned out to be right for me and as it turns out, my family. Disappointing. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/297LjoO
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