Too good to be true

After two years of gainful employment I am soon to be thrown back to the jobless wolves snarling at each other in their quest to bag the elusive part-time-relatively-well-paid-professional job.  When I casually told people I worked four days a week, school hours, mainly from home, for a global consulting organisation they would eye me with suspicion as a clear weaver of fiction, as this really did seem to good to be true.  And alas, it now is.

This is my lovely home office, where I sit surrounded by my vintage tat, music, decent coffee and commuting time of about 2 seconds from the rest of my house.  And I can hop up every hour for a mandatory stretch and to hang out a load of washing.  Nice huh?  

Unwilling to up my hours to FTE (that's full time equivalent, don't you know) I've been told my contractor status means my employee attractiveness is now well on the nose.   Seat overheads - that's cost of carrying me as an employee - not jaunty parasols to embellish my workspace - means part-time is commercially unviable.  Of course if I was a permanent employee I'd have some bargaining power to receive the lip service benefits of inclusivity and flexibility heralded by large organisations today.   But I'm a contractor, and unless I go full time, cannot become permanent.  So there's the rub.   

Not that I want to get on my soapbox (hello?  are blogs not the new soapbox?) but I do feel that I'm now living the workplace experience of the millennium, the expendable casual worker who can be dropped at the, well, drop of a hat. Such is the experience of a parent trying to balance the challenges of having a career, making some money and being around to hear the stories of the  school day, get a proper meal on the table and get everyone to their afternoon activities.

Rant over.  But I pass now to Mr Bragg, who recently treated Melbourne commuters to this rendition of his view on the matter.   

ttp://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/bragging-rights-for-the-poorly-paid-20121018-27u2f.html