<p>I've been working part time for about 4 years now. I had a job share situation that was a match made in heaven. People called my partner and I the two headed monster, and our work was completely seamless. Then my partner moved into a full time position, and I got a new job share partner.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>New partner is a very nice person whose heart, I think, is in the right place. But bless her heart, she's ragingly incompetent. She's been in the postion for 6 months, and it hasn't gotten any better. She is intellectually very, very bright. But she overthinks everything, gets ridiculously stressed out, and as a consequence either makes dumb mistakes or doesn't get her work done because she's too stressed or afraid to mess up. She's developing a reputation outside of the office as a big liability for us. I spend a great deal of my half of our job trying to fix her messes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I had been harboring hopes that my old partner would come back part time eventually, and she seemed to really want to do that. But her spouse got a fabulous job in another state, and she's moving away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So it's becoming increasingly clear that my current partner is going to either quit or be fired eventually. That puts my postion in a weird place. For some reason, the powers that be don't seem to believe a half-time position in tenable on it's own. But they are starting to see this current job share fiasco as evidence that job sharing doesn't work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My supervisor had a talk with me today, and said he's been thinking of other ways I could structure my job to work part time. His main suggestion sounded awful to me. He also said that he understood why I work part time, and he supports it, but pointed out that if I were full time, I'd have had a much more senior position by now. He kind of suggested that I am languishing in my current postion and not really being put to best use. So it was a compliment, but implicit in what he was saying was that I must be bored and frustrated cruising along in an "easy" job that doesn't use my skills to full advantage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I guess I'd been kind of envisioning happily skipping along with my little part time gig and just enjoying life until I retire. But I do have moments where I wonder what if I would enjoy my job more if I worked full time and became a supervisor. And it's weird that everyone at the office views my current situation as temporary, even though I've been doing it for 4 years and had no plans to quit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing is, mr jebba works 60-70 hours a week most of the time. I am the person who keeps the household and family running even somewhat efficiently. If I worked full time, I've no doubt it would all fall apart. Mr jebba has no idea when bills are due, when dr appointments need to be set, when the cars need their tags renewed, etc. Plus we would need a nanny, and I really don't want to do that. *I* want to be the one who does homework with my kids and carts them to practice and remembers when they have to dress up like a book character for school. I want my real life to be the life I have away from work, and not have work be my real life, if that makes sense.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I guess I am just feeling anxious and antsy, because I don't know what's going to happen if my job partner doesn't work out. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*sigh*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>New partner is a very nice person whose heart, I think, is in the right place. But bless her heart, she's ragingly incompetent. She's been in the postion for 6 months, and it hasn't gotten any better. She is intellectually very, very bright. But she overthinks everything, gets ridiculously stressed out, and as a consequence either makes dumb mistakes or doesn't get her work done because she's too stressed or afraid to mess up. She's developing a reputation outside of the office as a big liability for us. I spend a great deal of my half of our job trying to fix her messes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I had been harboring hopes that my old partner would come back part time eventually, and she seemed to really want to do that. But her spouse got a fabulous job in another state, and she's moving away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So it's becoming increasingly clear that my current partner is going to either quit or be fired eventually. That puts my postion in a weird place. For some reason, the powers that be don't seem to believe a half-time position in tenable on it's own. But they are starting to see this current job share fiasco as evidence that job sharing doesn't work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My supervisor had a talk with me today, and said he's been thinking of other ways I could structure my job to work part time. His main suggestion sounded awful to me. He also said that he understood why I work part time, and he supports it, but pointed out that if I were full time, I'd have had a much more senior position by now. He kind of suggested that I am languishing in my current postion and not really being put to best use. So it was a compliment, but implicit in what he was saying was that I must be bored and frustrated cruising along in an "easy" job that doesn't use my skills to full advantage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I guess I'd been kind of envisioning happily skipping along with my little part time gig and just enjoying life until I retire. But I do have moments where I wonder what if I would enjoy my job more if I worked full time and became a supervisor. And it's weird that everyone at the office views my current situation as temporary, even though I've been doing it for 4 years and had no plans to quit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thing is, mr jebba works 60-70 hours a week most of the time. I am the person who keeps the household and family running even somewhat efficiently. If I worked full time, I've no doubt it would all fall apart. Mr jebba has no idea when bills are due, when dr appointments need to be set, when the cars need their tags renewed, etc. Plus we would need a nanny, and I really don't want to do that. *I* want to be the one who does homework with my kids and carts them to practice and remembers when they have to dress up like a book character for school. I want my real life to be the life I have away from work, and not have work be my real life, if that makes sense.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I guess I am just feeling anxious and antsy, because I don't know what's going to happen if my job partner doesn't work out. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*sigh*</p>
