To be perfectly honest, finding the balance was hard. I spent a lot of years with more work than home.
At the time I wrote the schedules but I had required hours and shift due to my position. I worked 6 days a week. 4 10 hour shifts and 2 5s. My 5s were during the week when I had my son so I could be home a couple days with him after school and 2 of my 10s were on the weekends when he was with his other mom. The downside was that even when I wasn't AT WORK I was still getting phone calls/texts from my employees and bosses every half hour or so until late into the night. Even when I wasn't working, I was working.
One day I decided it was time for me to step back. My higher ups had gotten mad at me for not answering my phone one day due to being at a family reunion about 30 minutes away with family who had flown thousands of miles to see everyone. My father was one of those people. After that I decided I was done.
I ended up transferring back to the location in my hometown as the Assistant Manager. 40 hours. 2 opening shifts. 2 closing shifts. And a GM who had absolutely no idea how to do her job. So while I once again was physically at the restaurant less, I was still on the phone and answering texts almost all day on my days off.
About 6 months passed and I was informed that my GM was quitting and the higher ups asked me to take back over. No change to my schedule, they would take the after hours calls. At this point I had gone from having 1 child to 3. I did not want it. However, they were in a jam with nobody to do the job. I agreed to give them a 90 day test run. I wasn't going to screw myself by not having anyone to do the things that needed to be done in order to make my job easier. At least this way I got the pay increase.
2 1/2 months later not much had changed. It was smack in the middle of covid and with all the new policies I was losing employees and still getting call after call, text after text.
One day I was sitting down with my family to watch a movie before the kids went to bed and my phone went off. My oldest asked me "Mom is that work calling again?". Even years later I can hear him say it clear as day. That was the moment I decided I was done.
I had a standing job offer to bartend at a local place so I went to talk to the manager after work the next day. He asked me when I could start and I told him I would like to give my current boss a notice that my availability would be changing. I told my current boss that I would stay on a couple days a week until they could find someone to take over. I worked on the days they needed the food order placed, and would do the weekly inventory. This way I also got to keep my benefits.
6 months went by and I was finally training a new GM to takeover so I started looking for other jobs that would let me work during the day and not on weekends. While I enjoyed my bartending gig, I was tired of drunk assholes. I wanted out of the service industry all together. I finally got an interview with a local media company.
Almost 4 years later I am perfectly happy at a job that understands the value of family. If my kid is sick, no problem. Need to go to an appointment? See you when you get back. You want to go see your kid get an award at school? Congrats tell them we said good job! My boss is a bad ass momma too and I don't know how she does it.
I realize not everyone is as lucky as I am and its not always possible but, the right job, and I mean THE RIGHT JOB, won't make you set your family aside. They'll give you the flexibly to do both and encourage you to put your family first. Wait for THAT job.
Daily writing prompt
How do you balance work and home life?
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