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

Ding ding, round two

After six months of blog lock down I am duly motivated to post once more. Why? Well sheer boredom might be one reason, as the novelty well and truly wears (wares?) from my new life as a Perth city working person: it seems I was never destined to be an English teacher after all (clearly).

Even the joy of some new clippety-cloppety shoes and different food every lunchtime is starting to fade. The truth is, working life is hard graft - not cause it's hard, but cause it is just is...(in the esoteric sense) day after day after day.

After eight years (give or take) as a full-time-at-home-mother once more I am part of the big wide world beyond cupcakes and pickups. And boy does that cosy-slipper life look attractive, once more, from tuther side of the toe-pinching shoe fence.

Life has taken me on adventures far and wide in the last twenty five years, intellectually and physically, and yet here I am again, where I started, trotting along St George's Terrace in search of the perfect sandwich, or running to catch the train home. Determined to reject the dominant paradigm (even then) I eschewed the uni route at 18 and took to the pavement to earn money. Pah, I soon learnt that was a foolish move and after a few years of 'word processing' (what WAS that you may ask) gratefully left the business world for the glorious sloth and wonder of student life. But the memory lingers and being here once more is like a thread to my past, a tentacle of memories, a sobering reminder of the reality of everyday life, for most grown-ups.

But earning dosh is nice, and husband is now shuffling around the kitchen in his slippers, enjoying the freedom. A bit too much, frankly. As I try to cooly appear not too bedazzled by the advances of the working world, technology, lunch options, he sits at the kitchen table emailing me errands to complete at lunchtime, while the gathering dust and pants accumulating in washing baskets await my return home. Phew, at least some things remain reassuringly the same in such times global and career change and advancement.