So I am due to begin work at my full-time job again on Monday. I have been working from home part-time for my second job this whole time, have been since just days after giving birth. And have been able to juggle that with taking care of the baby just fine. Anyway, for the full-time job, my boss agreed to let me continue working from home and doing more or less easy work that would allow me to keep taking care of the baby.
But on Friday, just two days before I'm due to start work again, my boss informs me that "Oh, by the way, there's a whole new web administration system that you need to get trained on to be able to keep doing your job."
I asked him if it was easy training that I could learn quickly, he said yes. So I thought it was no big deal, set up a time to Skype with the IT guy today to learn what I need to know. And it turns out it's not so easy. The IT guy launches into this big training session that just keeps dragging on and on, while my baby starts crying next to me. He also informs me that now, I have all sorts of additional duties for my job. These additional duties mean there is no way I'd be able to juggle the work in addition to breastfeeding and everything else I need to do for the baby. So I had to break off the training session halfway through and explain that a) I didn't realize this would be so time consuming and complicated, and I have to tend to the baby (I still had to pump breast milk, eat, tend to the baby, etc, and this training was forcing me to neglect those things), and b)maybe I cannot come back to work after all, since no one warned me about all this stuff.
As I'm sitting there crying upon realizing that "f*ck, this just isn't going to work," my boss messages me to tell me that he expects me to work in the office "sometimes." I tried to explain that that's not really an option because I'm breastfeeding and don't produce enough milk to pump ahead of time and leave it with a nanny. He didn't care.
So now I am in a really crappy situation, because there is no way that I will be able to juggle two jobs and taking care of the baby, but the income from the one job is not enough. If my full-time job had remained as it was, without the new system and new duties, I'd have been fine. It wasn't difficult or time-consuming work. I would have been able to feed and pump milk and take care of the baby in between tasks. But now I'm screwed. The only option I see here is giving up breastfeeding, but I'm really not willing to do that when he's only 2.5 months, the country has no vaccinations, and he was born with a slew of health problems. I feel like if I keep the full-time job, I'm inevitably going to end up neglecting the baby, whether I want to or not. But if I get rid of it, I'll be dirt poor. This makes me very very angry. Because I really wish people, in this case my employer, would be more understanding about what it means to raise a newborn alone.
But on Friday, just two days before I'm due to start work again, my boss informs me that "Oh, by the way, there's a whole new web administration system that you need to get trained on to be able to keep doing your job."
I asked him if it was easy training that I could learn quickly, he said yes. So I thought it was no big deal, set up a time to Skype with the IT guy today to learn what I need to know. And it turns out it's not so easy. The IT guy launches into this big training session that just keeps dragging on and on, while my baby starts crying next to me. He also informs me that now, I have all sorts of additional duties for my job. These additional duties mean there is no way I'd be able to juggle the work in addition to breastfeeding and everything else I need to do for the baby. So I had to break off the training session halfway through and explain that a) I didn't realize this would be so time consuming and complicated, and I have to tend to the baby (I still had to pump breast milk, eat, tend to the baby, etc, and this training was forcing me to neglect those things), and b)maybe I cannot come back to work after all, since no one warned me about all this stuff.
As I'm sitting there crying upon realizing that "f*ck, this just isn't going to work," my boss messages me to tell me that he expects me to work in the office "sometimes." I tried to explain that that's not really an option because I'm breastfeeding and don't produce enough milk to pump ahead of time and leave it with a nanny. He didn't care.
So now I am in a really crappy situation, because there is no way that I will be able to juggle two jobs and taking care of the baby, but the income from the one job is not enough. If my full-time job had remained as it was, without the new system and new duties, I'd have been fine. It wasn't difficult or time-consuming work. I would have been able to feed and pump milk and take care of the baby in between tasks. But now I'm screwed. The only option I see here is giving up breastfeeding, but I'm really not willing to do that when he's only 2.5 months, the country has no vaccinations, and he was born with a slew of health problems. I feel like if I keep the full-time job, I'm inevitably going to end up neglecting the baby, whether I want to or not. But if I get rid of it, I'll be dirt poor. This makes me very very angry. Because I really wish people, in this case my employer, would be more understanding about what it means to raise a newborn alone.
