Thursday 30 September 2010

Wednesday 28th September

Had an early (for me) night on Tuesday. Was in bed at 1:30am, but slept poorly and had weird, outrageous dreams when I did sleep.

Didn't want to get up when the alarms went off this morning, but managed it. DS2 got himself up and dressed & announced since he was ready for school he was going to play on his computer until it was time to go. DS1's taxi should have been here at 8:15am for his 9am start at college, so I began watching through the window at about 8:13am and when it still wasn't here at 8:30am I rang the taxi company. They told me that he was on his way, but had called them to say the traffic was bad.

At about 8:35ish it arrived. Bundled DS1 in to it, and handed the driver another card with the changes on it... he's now staying in college on Wednesday afternoons to do homework in the college library with a support assistant. (He has this autistic "home is home and college is college and they can't mix" issue which means he can't do home work - he's been like that all through school, which was lots of fun at High School - but I always did the work for him through his primary school!) - His college are fantastic with things like that - which is why it's so annoying that everything to do with his college doesn't go as smoothly! 

Anyway - I'd been filling the time waiting for the taxi by writing an email of complaint to Lancs County Council, who pay for the taxi, so that they know that they're being unreliable and asked if there was anything that could be done about it. Let's see if a more formal complaint helps at all.

So, then I took DS2 to school, came home and had a shower - I hate my hair - well, I love my hair... I always wanted long hair, but this is getting soooo knotted and its taking about 20 minutes of  conditioner covered combing out the normal knots that get in there from just sleeping, and that's 20 minutes I don't have to spare. And I arrived at work completely stressed and angry and on the edge of tears... too much going on that's out of my control.

Had a chat with the Union Rep today - I'd been told on 4th September unofficially in a casual chat that senior management were clamping down on part-year employees (I have 12 weeks off, unpaid, each year - and work short days, school-hours, meaning that I'm there only 57% of a full time employee - so I get 57% of my full wage, and 57% of my 30day holiday entitlement, and so on... meaning that I work the equivalent of an average of 21.2hours a week, but an actual 27½ hours a week when I'm in) And they said that when my annual review comes up, I won't be allowed to stay on 12weeks off, but would have to drop to 6 weeks off... which would mean finding childcare for DS2 for 6weeks a year, but also finding a carer for DS1, which would cost hundreds a week considering minimum wage is soon to be £5.93 an hour, and they'd need to be here before I go to work, and stay til after I get home... 6hrs a day x 5 days = 30 x £5.93 = £177.90 a week and my net wage is only £173 a week... would be crazy for me to even consider it! (Yes I know that my net wage would be slightly higher because I'd be working more weeks, but don't forget that it'd be over £100 a week for DS2's childcare too) - Anyway, union guy said not to worry - its a long time til my review & a lot could have changed by then.  Hubby says that if they change it back now, knowing my personal circumstances they're effectively doing the constructive dismissal thing. Besides, I'm currently finding that I'm at work when I'm needed at home with hubby's parents, and DS1's problems and both kids' medical appointments etc, so if anything, I'd rather reduce my hours, maybe to 25 a week when I'm there, and 13weeks unpaid so that it covers all the school hols, so I don't have to take a week of my own leave for some...

OK - whittered on for long enough... brief summary - had hair cut, but not very short, but about 5inches off the length - and did DS2's Dodgeball t-shirt transfers - decided to "don't sweat the unimportant stuff" and so deleted a couple of reminder that I'd been rescheduling for the following day for the past 3 weeks! (Just hope they don't come back to bite me!)

And here we are, 2:30am Thursday morning... chatting with GC on MSN... I've not been on MSN in months, and was glad he was here - I miss him - I liked being Grace to his Will. "Jersey Girl" is on the telly, looks like an ok sort of movie, but I missed the beginning - BBC1 had been left on, and it had reverted to the BBC News channel, which was showing ABC News - and had a report about how women from 40 should have two-yearly mammograms - hmmmm!

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