I’m so grateful for my job…we’ll see if I have it tomorrow.

It’s been such a great thing for my little family for me to be able to work from home on Friday’s. Of course, the work spreads out and I end up doing a little typing on Sunday nights sometimes, but I have always been able to get my 40 hours per week, ensuring insurance, and I still feel like I am caring for Hannah and building our wedding business…sometimes the laundry even gets done.
This last Friday wasn’t any different except that my boss is now officially back in the office after maternity leave. Sometimes I wonder if she ever really left at all or if she just took a week to recover between cases…but as far as the higher-ups are concerned, she’s “finally” back full-time. Kristy made it a point to tell me that she wanted me to be sure and have access to my email this particular Friday and I didn’t hear the “dun dun duuuuunnnnn” in her email that I should have. I was busy most of the weekend with so many things, but I did get my computer up and going, and I did type for hours and hours…but I think that some of the emails I finally got to at around midnight on Friday night were testers that I should have picked up earlier and responded to. Most of the emails were fairly simple, or non-time-sensitive, so they weren’t urgent at all…but I’ve come to realize that Kristy likes to know things…she likes to be in charge of things…and she likes to control things. My being out of her contact and control, even for menial little questions that she already knew the answers to, was not something that she was agreeable to. The second to last email I got said that I hadn’t been responding to her so far and that concerned her. The last email said that I obviously hadn’t gotten anything in a timely manner and if I wasn’t going to be accessible, then I couldn’t work from home on Friday’s anymore. Done and done. No discussion. She wanted me back starting this next Friday.
D’oh.
I sat on the floor of our basement office staring at the email, wondering what I was going to do. Jon noticed my quiet and asked what was wrong. I read him the email and he looked stunned too. Too many things had come together to make this possible only to have it jerked out from under us just as we’re getting busy and building up work. We listed off so many reasons for why we needed these days…Jon is already working at capacity, and having to keep Hannah for one more day (much as he loves her) was going to squash any deadlines he needs to be able to meet. We’re doing everything we can to get out of debt, pay back startup costs, and get a little extra put aside for retirement, but paying a babysitter will probably wipe out what little we may save. Jon has been able to take Hannah with him on photo shoots so far, but she’s crawling now and she hates being stuck in that car seat while dad has to wander the house taking pictures. It’s also not the most professional thing for Jon to take her to these houses when the agent or the owners are there, and everyone has been really understanding so far (good thing she’s so freakin’ cute and the agents end up wanting to play with her), but bumping the test of that good will up to three times a week instead of two is uncomfortable for us both. With Hannah being mobile, she gets SO frustrated being stuck in the basement with Jon while he works too. She wants to move and play and go outside and explore. There’s not much that she can do down there, and she lets her dad know it in extremely loud and piercing tones sometimes. Having an open day like that also allows us to take meetings, allows me to return phone calls without having to duck out into the hall so as not to disturb the office, and lets Hannah know that Mommy is only away from her for four days a week and not five. That seems like a small thing, but percentage-wise when you look at a single week of time, that one day is huge. That one day just looks bigger and bigger the more used to it we have become. What were we going to do?
Jon took a break, and I started responding to some of Kristy’s earlier emails. I felt like I ought to go in order and just took some time to start at the beginning and go through each of her requests and comments. This file is in the archive. That exhibit was mailed last week. That appointment was cancelled. As I neared the end of the list, and those fateful two email stared at me, I started to brace myself. How to respond to those? The first one, I could handle. I apologized and said that I’d had conflicts that day, I’d also had to reboot my computer connection to the shared network for the office, which was true. I’d spent nearly an hour doing that just that morning. Then, the final email, I just stared at my blank response page and wondered what to say.
Jon came back from his break and said that he’d been thinking things through. He was feeling like we just couldn’t give it up. As much as we need insurance and the steady income that my job brings, the obstacles it presents…not just by losing Friday’s, but by my being gone all day every day…are getting to be too much if we want to be able to take on more wedding work. We’ve felt like we’re about to hit that hump of shifting from part-time to full-time on the wedding business, and to be able to handle the extra, beyond the work that we’re already attempting, I was going to need some time and flexibility. Really, the only thing holding us back was money and insurance. I could get another job at this point, especially with the skills I’ve built up as a legal/paralegal secretary for the last year, so the money wouldn’t really even be an issue, but the insurance would be tough. We’ve thought about getting our own insurance, but Jon has diabetes and I have awful dental issues…both of them would be considered pre-existing conditions unless I were to hire on with someone else and be covered by their umbrella coverage. The Professional Photographers of America offers insurance to their members, and Jon has considered that often, but we’ve never followed through because the yearly dues aren’t in our budget just yet. Soon, but not yet. We’ve also discussed incorporating our wedding business and getting an insurance program through the company…cheaper than as individuals, but still more than what we’re paying now…and just haven’t followed through on that one yet either. We’ve just been so set in the status quo. Too set. Still…Now…Jon felt like it was time to draw the line in the sand.
I got the biggest pep-talk of my life at that moment…we went back and forth, building and layering ideas about how I needed to have a talk with Kristy. We covered my entire experience with her from when I interviewed for the job and told her, not only that I was pregnant and understanding if she didn’t want to hire someone and then give them a huge 2-month break after only 8 months so that they could go and have a baby, but also that I had a side business and that I would need some flexibility to work on it. I had told her from the beginning that I would not only take maternity leave, but that I was going to want to discuss cutting back hours so that I could stay at home more with my child after that maternity leave was over. I told her I would need to take phone calls and that some days I’d need to leave early to make it to an event. I was hired that same week. I have always done everything that she’s needed done, and despite a few human mistakes here and there, I’ve been a pretty model employee, but here I was at my desk 40 hours a week after Hannah was born when Kristy told me that she wanted me back full time. No discussion. And I am never able to take wedding calls at my desk and all personal emails are restricted to lunch hour…Not what I remember agreeing to, but something I’ve been able to make work so far.
I took on more work too…handling her paralegal needs as well as all of her secretarial needs because she was able to bill clients more for my added duties while still paying me for the lower rate. I understand that…I’m happy to do it…but I was already filling at least 35 solid hours of work just transcribing her letters and keeping up with her mailing, faxes, and filing. Adding her request that I be able to bill 40 hours a month as a paralegal on top of that was going to be difficult…but I’ve done it. I’m doing it. The wedding business has suffered and so have I! Jon rehashed all of the good that I’ve been able to do, as well as the fact that my personality worked so well with Kristy’s, and he felt that she HAD to recognize that fact…so she wouldn’t want to let me go. In the end, of course, it all fell to her, whether I was worth keeping even though I needed Fridays from home, or if her security blanket of a 40-hour a week secretary was going to be more important to her…and by the end of the evening, we agreed that either way she chose would be okay. If she wanted me, she would be flexible, once and for all and we wouldn’t have to discuss any of these things again. If she needed the coverage, then I was understanding of that, no hard feelings, and I’d walk away grateful for the opportunity she had given me and I would find another job with the help of all the experience I have gained. It really would be alright.
The more Jon talked, the better I felt about myself. I AM pretty okay. We finally agreed that I would have to brave the lion’s den and have a chat, so for now, at Midnight on a Friday, I just responded to Kristy’s final email with another apology for not being available for her emails and let her know that I would be to work first thing on Monday morning.
All weekend I stewed. I am NOT good with confrontation. I tend to go red in the face, I shake, I roll my eyes so as to not make eye contact, and sometimes I break down and cry. Jon has been excellent over the last three years to bring me out of the worst of those habits…teaching me that confrontation does not mean argument or fight. We’re just discussing things, not punching it out. I’m still trying to grasp that and put it into practice, and I’m getting better. But, better isn’t GREAT, so I was worried about how to approach Kristy and have this discussion…and what to discuss?! Where do I start? What do I say? We had another day at the Thanksgiving Point Wedding Show on Saturday, and then Hannah fell off the couch and got a big ole bump on her temple, so our focus was able to shift for quite a while, and I was calm. Even having Hannah sleep with us so that we could wake her up every hour and make sure she didn’t have a concussion was more calming to me than pondering the trip through that door and closing it behind me to have a private conversation with the woman who signs my paycheck.
Sunday night, Jon and I talked all night about how to make this work. He gave me a near repeat of the pep-talk and revved me up again to be able to say what I needed to say. He let me practice it too, pretending he was Kristy and going through all the points that I wanted to make. I’m not a good spontaneous person, so reviewing a script was so helpful! He told me I was ready and if I could just stay calm, unemotional, and clear, I was going to be great. Ugh. That’s a big IF. I had him give me a blessing that night and although there was nothing in the prayer about success or great outcomes to the idea, it did say that I would be able to say what we had discussed and that we would be alright with either outcome, and that I would be calm. Ahhhh. Okay.
I got a few hours of sleep and then jumped into my Monday. Kristy’s birthday had been on Friday, and I hadn’t been able to come into the office to give her the gift so I stepped into her office and just placed the bag on the corner of her desk, said a quick, “Happy Birthday” and then went to my cubicle to jump into the work I knew was waiting for me. She had seemed intent on the file she was reading, so I didn’t elaborate, and her, “thank you” was short and sweet. Jon asked why I didn’t go into it right then, and I explained that I needed to work up to it, make sure she wasn’t grouchy or busy, and besides, I’d wanted the present to be independent of anything else. She didn’t need to associate the gift with my request.
Half an hour later, Kristy came out to my cube and sincerely thanked me again for the gift. No mention of my missing emails or the demand for the return of my Friday’s….just a fun discussion about clothes and shops and saving shopping dollars for a house fund and wishing that the clothes weren’t such a temptation. It was good.
After 2/3’s of a day of work, feeling better about everything I was accomplishing, and seeing that Kristy was in her office, had eaten a good lunch, and showed nothing pressing on her calendar for the rest of the day, I finally screwed up my courage and knocked. She laughed at my question as to whether she was busy…she’s always busy, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be put aside…so I took a seat, took a big breath, and took my chance.
I went through everything. I told her how sorry I was again that I had not been available when she’d wanted me, but that my Friday’s had been so good for me BECAUSE the work was able to be spread out over the whole day…that when things came up, I could deal with them and still bill a full eight hours at the end of it. I talked about how much I liked working for her and how grateful I was for everything she had taken a chance on me for. I reminded her of the sheer volume of work I was doing for her and that I wanted to keep doing that work. I finished with the fact that my wedding business needed me, Jon needed me, and my baby needed me, and as much as I respected her and knew that her needs came first as far as her business was concerned, maybe I wasn’t what she needed for her business after all. I have to keep working from home on Fridays and I will be working from home THIS Friday as long as she didn’t boot me out the door and tell me to clean out my desk right then. I wanted to keep my job, but this was something I had to stand up for, so I hoped she understood.
Kristy took everything so well. She agreed that I had done good work for her, but she understood that I was good at what I did with the flowers and coordinating too and that I had the dream to make my business more. She didn’t get why I couldn’t just find a babysitter for Friday’s though. I repeated that it wasn’t just coverage for Hannah anymore…it was work I needed to do, help I needed to give Jon, and that I WANTED to work from home and be with Hannah regardless of the availability of a sitter. She also said several times throughout the conversation that she didn’t want to lose me as well as that she didn’t want to find someone new…a very fine line to two very different ideas. She thought about it for a minute and I told her that I understood that she would need time. I didn’t want to leave her in a lurch, I didn’t want to pressure her, I didn’t expect a response right now, and as long as I could keep the Friday’s from home, we could deal with everything else as she found time to think it out. She agreed to that and said that she would take some time to really think about what she felt she needed and she mentioned that she would talk to Mark about the whole thing and get his opinion on it too. I told her that was a great idea and we left it on good terms. I went back to my desk and got back to work.
I sent Jon a message right then and all it said was, “I DID IT!” We went back and forth via instant messenger for a minute and I spilled the whole story of how well I’d done, how controlled I’d been and how I had touched every point that I’d meant to without harping on anything. Whew! I was so glad to have it finished and out of my hands, and I was proud of myself too for doing it right. I was happy to have her go talk to Mark too because he is a kind, jolly, good man. Mark has a wife and kids and has been a fantastic and fair lawyer for decades. Mark is the man who has been a mentor to Kristy since she joined the firm, and he has been ‘working’ (his words) on her for years to get her to calm down, loosen up, and be less of a tough cookie. Getting married was a big step for her and having a baby of her own has done even more for her, but then there are times when she is the same old Kristy and I have to admit that I’m never sure which Kristy I’m going to get in a given situation. Mark is also my sister-in-law’s boss, and Mark has coordinated his schedule with hers to the point that Lisa works from home on Fridays and comes in half-days on the days that she is here. How could he NOT be a good influence on the situation with Kristy?!
YAY!
My conversation with Kristy was only yesterday, so I don’t expect an answer until maybe next week. For now, I’m just happy to be here, adding to my timecard, keeping my insurance in place for as long as is possible and hopefully showing Kristy how grateful I am for my job. I’ve been working my guts out all day and have finished a lot more work for Kristy…and I’m excited to work some more while she’s out of the office at a meeting this afternoon because any chance to work while she’s not adding to my pile of to-do’s is a good thing. Her understanding has just fired me up to be that much more of a model employee…a model employee that she doesn’t want to fire. Maybe someday I’ll have to brave the lions den again and let her know that I need another day each week to work on wedding things, and maybe someday it will be that I’m leaving for good to run the most successful wedding business in the world, but that may take a while, so for now, I’m grateful for my job and a good boss who’s willing to negotiate.
Whew!

~ by bylorena on September 23, 2008.