Thursday, January 17, 2013

When Are You Available?

I have been on the search for a part time job for quite some time. I have sent my resume to several listing, filled out online applications but my schedule is so messed up that it is truly hard to find something that allows me to be available to my kids when I need to be. 

This is my week:

Mondays: Chuck leaves for work at 4:30am, Jada gets her bus at 7am, Chuckie gets his bus at 8am, I pick up a friend's son at 12:20pm, I drop off Lincoln and his buddy at school at 12:30pm, I get all the errands and stuff I need to get done, Jada home at 2:50pm, boys home at 3:50pm, I pick up girl I babysit 5 miles away at 4:15pm, home to make dinner, eat, clean up, spend some time with Chuck, take Jada to dance at 7:30pm where I meet girl's mom for her to pick her up.

Tuesdays: Everything the same up until the boys get home because Chuckie has running club and I don't babysit, I pick Chuckie up at 5pm from the school, home to cook dinner, clean up, relax and spend some time with the family.

Wednesdays:  (Perhaps my easiest day.) Same schedule as above but no pickup of fiiend's son & both boys come home today, no babysitting.  I take Jada to dance at 7:30pm for a 45-minute class.

Thursdays:  Everything the same as Mondays but add in a 5pm pickup of Chuckie from running club. Girl's mom picks her up from my house.

Fridays: Everything same as Wednesday but I babysit girl so add in pickup of her and no dance.  No extracurricular activities today.

So, basically, I have 2.5 hours on a daily basis for me to get done what needs done.  This explains why I am always tired and why I go through gas like water.  I have a 30 gallon tank on my SUV and I go through almost an entire tank of gas in one week.  This is insane. 

All of this to say........

When applying for jobs, when it asks me what days/times I am available, I feel like saying, "there is no time but I need to make money so I will figure this out!"

I babysit though, right?  Well, it is on a daily basis, nothing is written in stone.  I find out the day of, whether I have her or not so it is not money that I can depend on.  Some weeks I have her all three days, other weeks, maybe one day. It isn't consistent so I need something that is regular, is scheduled, is reliable.

I had an interview yesterday that I felt went really well.  It is for a part time office/personal assistant position that is 5 minutes away from my house.  It is at a skating rink!  I would be working 3-4 days a week from 1-5pm.  That would work. The few changes to my family schedule I would have to make is that I would no longer be babysitting and Jada would have to get Lincoln off of the bus and babysit him until I got home. So she would be in charge for one hour.  Not a huge deal. Chuck will be home at that time when he doesn't work overtime hours so it would be fine.  With this position I would be making phone calls to vendors, filing, helping with promotions and event planning, helping to set up and possibly be their snack bar manager (not what I was applying for but they have the need and my last job as an assistant general manager for a food service company helps!)

I don't want to get my hopes up too much but I will say that this would be a perfect fit for me and for my family.  I could still be home in the evenings with my family to spend time together, no weekends unless I needed to make up some time from during the week, less work in the summer months to spend more time with the kids! 

I did also get a call from a retail store, Childrens Place, to set up an interview!  I will be going for that on Sunday.  That position does offer a bit more flexibility as far as when I could work.  I could work more on weekends to get more hours and not disrupt our crazy weekday schedule but not really what I would want to do.  They offer evening hours so I could work and have Chuck take Jada to her dance classes. 

There's a lot to think about and figure out.  All I know is that life is changing and I want to work and bring in steady money that we can rely on and yet, not disrupt everything we have going on.  I do know that I won't be babysitting anymore and I still need to tell the mom, this is all going on as of yesterday so I will talk to her tonight to let her know that I have applied and interviewed for positions. 

How in the world do other people do this?  I thought life was busy when I was working full time and running the kids everywhere but now it seems that I am busier than ever!

1 comment:

  1. I think the fact that your day is broken up into chunks makes it busy.

    Good luck with the job search! I am routing for you!!!

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