Anyone do their pre child job but partly from home?

[Lasvegas]

I posted a couple of weeks ago that I had resigned due to massive childcare problems. Anyway a possibility that I can do 3 month trial whereby I do 2 normal days in the office 10 -6 and 3 short days 10-2. These hours enable me to do school runs and look after DD after school on 3 days a week thus not needing to find yet another nanny. MIL will do childcare on my full working days. My job will stay the same except that I will have an element of home working on 3 days. Work will network up my PC to office system and will have blackberry. Has anyone tried this sort of thing? Any thoughts?

[kslatts]

I haven't tried it, but the company I work for have both a homeworking and flexible working policy, I only started permanent in Sept and have to wait 6 months before I can apply, but I will be applying to work 2 days a week from home, I know other people who do it and it works really well.

[Lasvegas]

Thanks Kslatts what ages will your kids be when you apply to work from home?

[clarinsgirl]

My office is at home as it was before birth of DS. I'm out and about approx. 2-3 days / week and at home for the remainder. This works really well for me. I work for the same Company as before I became a Mum (role has changed but nothing to do with DS). I have worked from home for many years and it does take a little getting used to but I wouldn't change it now. The Company I work for has many field / home based employees so is geared up for it (phone, networks, system access, culture etc). I find it makes life much easier;

• I'm more efficient at home as no disturbance from 'open plan' office environment
• I'm less stressed as I can keep on top of things whilst working from home e.g. put on washing machine, put casserole in the oven, waste time on Mumsnet ...
• Flexible hours are easier to manage e.g. if I haven't finished all I need to I can stop and go back later, it also means that I can start early and finish early to suit me.

For me its great but I would say it depends on the job you have, how motivated you are and your company's culture / infrastructure.

Good luck.

[majorstress]

I did some work from home for "1 day" (actually spread over 2-3 days due to kid pickups etc.) a week for several months with PC networked to work etc. It was pretty hard for me even though kids aren't in house all the time (dds are 6 and 3, school and nursery). I found all the undone chores around me oppressed me, and felt very lonely and irritated by being there when cleaner was too, unfortuately her day coincided. If I had it to do over I would try to be more disciplined from the start, but also schedule more nice things for myself-I just felt that I had to work and work all the time to make up for working part and flexible time, and do all the housework too. It has added to relationship problems too, dh has stopped helping at home and ok his career is going well, but we never agreed to jack mine in and I resent it.