Making it Work Part 2

I’ve just finished week 4 of the ‘New Job’ and things are ok! Are they getting easier? Hmmmm…! Am I adapting to a new hectic life? Maybe, who knows.

If you read my last post after week 2 of returning to working life, it may surprise you to hear that things got worse!

Millie’s teething didn’t ease up and I was called to collect her on a Friday afternoon as she had “had a loose nappy , had been sick and now she had a temperature and wasn’t eating” (while I was just short of 30 miles away!), I was due to do a floorwalking exercise (where you support users in the field when rolling out a new technology system or similar) the following week, had no idea where I was due to be sent as had no access to email and despite numerous requests no one had called me (though it wouldn’t have mattered because no communication had gone out!).

So off I go to collect Millie and it turns out the sick was reflux, Millie was much chirpier after another nap and it was highly likely all her symptoms were down to teething!

I feel like a fraud having gone to collect my child and enter a weekend being clueless to where I would have to go the next week.

Then Sunday night comes….yet Sunday night sleep doesn’t! Millie screams….properly screams….the whole night, aside from 2.5 hours between 3.30am and 6am! I’m a mess! What’s wrong with her? Is she really poorly? (yet the waterfall of dribble and now smiling little girl tells me she isn’t). I’ve had very little sleep so am extra emotional and have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Do I take her to nursery and win bad mum of the year award? Do I take her to the Dr to be told she is teething and win the bad new employee of the year award? WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? I call NHS Direct! I barely hold it together but because she has just dropped of fto sleep and I am unwilling to wake her they advise me to take her to the dr.

Despite getting through at precisely 7.59am (the lines open at 8am) the first appointment available is 11am so I text work….then when I’ve no answer I phone.

Come 11am I take her to the Dr and she utterly charms them (the Doctor and the Student Doctor). She is fine! She is teething! Back to nursery she goes and I get a phonecall…it’s work…“are you on your way to Bridport?” Over the weekend I’d heard rumour I may be in Blandford. Blandford is 22 miles away, Bridport is 47.5 miles away. I clarify whether they mean Bridport or Blandford….no it’s definitely Bridport. Oh joys…off I go to Bridport! I arrive and on day one of the rollout, the newbie who has only just learnt a few bits of the system, and am thrown into the Lion’s Den of an MIU (Minor Injury Unit) on day one of rollout on my own! Another IT guy is due to arrive at 1.30pm (about when I arrive incidentally) but doesn’t turn up until 3.30pm and quite frankly I’m a complete fish out of water and do the best I can to help them through! I leave them at 4.30pm to fly home to collect the kids arriving to pick them up dead on time of 6.15pm!

Day 2 of this week and I’m due in Weymouth (another fair distance from home). Stuart and I drop the kids off at nursery and Callum has a melt down! He is hysterical and doesn’t want to be left. Eventually we just have to leave him while upset.

The stress clearly takes it out of both Stuart and I and cross words and tears are exchanged! Stressed? ME STRESSED? WHAT DO YOU MEAN STRESSED?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I know Stuart has his own work stress but quite frankly, and selfishly, it’s my turn to be stressed!

The week continues with me flying to all ends of Dorset but thankfully the work gets easier (well I get more confident and am supported by people who actually know what they are doing) until I get a text message from the school on Wednesday informing me of what classes will be open on Thursday (Callum’s not being one of them). Hey? What? Why isn’t the school opening? When I pick Callum up in the evening I find a note in his school bag telling me “further to our letter of the 10th of October, due to strike action, the following classes will be closed” (or words to that effect). Letter of the 10th? What bloody letter of the 10th? I’ve obsessively checked his school bag every night and there has been absolutely no bloody letter! An emergency call to my Mum means Callum can stay home with my Mum on Thursday. Phew! Can’t thank her enough!

Then Friday afternoon brings another call from the Nursery saying Millie has a temperature again!

A more cynical person may suggest that the nursery staff may just want to leave early on Fridays?? But no, I suggest they put her down for another nap and let me know how she is doing when she wakes while the nurse next to me says he wouldn’t consider a temperature of 37.8 a high temperature. They call me back half hour later and sure enough her temperature has dropped and I’m pretty much suspecting those pesky teeth are still giving her a hard time.

I leave just 10 minutes before I’m expected to leave and make the horrid,  traffic laden journey, which is supposed to take an hour but takes and hour and 25 minutes, home. Millie is fine! Teething but fine!

This week has been back to observing courses, staying close to home and the kids have been well and doing what they are supposed to be doing with little or no complaint!

However…..it doesn’t stop there…Stuart has come down with pharyngitus and has been bed-ridden the whole week.

But, quite frankly, a grown man on his death bed sleeping all day in bed is a hell of a lot easier than misbehaving kids, nasty teeth, useless communicating schools, long commutes and unsupportive husbands!

Work has been local and I’ve even had a couple of compliments. Despite everyone else’s usual project stress that all but me seems surprised about (it’s an IT system roll out what do they expect?) I think I’m actually holding my own.

You know…I might just make the full 6 month contract!