Reducing my work hours permanently made me feel free
For 33 years now I have been in the public service, in Australia.
As one of my older sisters pointed out, through this experience I have learned a lot, like government protocol and hierarchies, and systems plus of course interactions and relationships with people at all different levels of responsibility (power and salaries).
I have done well because over the duration I have done my utmost to learn my tasks and to apply those and my responsibilities with 100 percent effort. I love to take free-hand written notes and my copious amount of notes have been turned by me, into many an invaluable instruction or Guideline.
Not one but several of my work colleagues in records management, the field I work in, have filed away my notes which I transferred to typewritten documents. One has a huge compendium of them in a Lever Arch file and especially when I was away for 3 months in 2014 on sick leave, found them to be like gold.
Anyhow I began on a substantive permanent full-time tenure. In 2013 I started to experience a lot less physical energy and in 2014 the doctors proclaimed that it was time for me to have Open Heart Surgery for the Bentals procedure.
I was born with the supra-valvular disorder, meaning the artery from the heart was narrowed. My surgeon told me that my aortic valve may also be replaced.
Well, it was, with a mechanical valve which resulted in me having to take warfarin for the rest of my life. I had 3 months off work for a difficult recovery and returned to work even though I felt very weak and not ready for it.
My work hours began reduced at 3 days per week, as part of a formal Return to Work program. The only thing is that we had a new manager, who had replaced my nice manager who has gone on personal holiday leave.
This new person was not nice and bullied a younger person (to the extent that I informed that young person he had the right to ask me to attend meetings with that “manager” if the latter wanted to speak to the lad “privately”).
He did not manage, for example, I asked him who would do the indexing on my days that I didn’t work, and he didn’t like my tone of voice and replied: “I’ll just leave it all for you to do on Mondays”.
Although I spoke to HR about him, the person I spoke to sided with him and said: “I can’t tell a Manager what to do.” OMG, what was the point of it all?
I didn’t need this stress. I didn’t know what was to come!
Three months after returning to work I increased my hours to 4 full days per week and had to put up with that manager for a total of 6 months.
In 2015 we were extremely busy and change was in the air, leading to early 2016 when my team was shunted off to another building apparently to learn from some other record professionals located there.
It was an awful feeling for me, as we were then separated from our customers plus our numbers had been decimated. This time period was also stressful for me and resulted even in January 2017 me feeling suicidal.
My Life has been far from easy, and I have written about this on Medium.
Then our nice manager suddenly left. He went on holidays again and didn’t return. This was not good management as we had things to ask him on a “hand-over” basis, even if we were only the “rank and file”.
We ended up without a manager for around 10 months after an interim spell when they shoved a Level 5 into our area, whose job had been abolished.
That person hadn’t got records management experience and ended up learning significant elements of it, BUT not including us in those activities.
In December 2017 we moved back to where we had been, due to the McGowan government reducing the number of departments and amalgamating them.
In the lead up to this, our interim Director had promised that I could drive the management of our files, for the move back to where we had been, but that fell through and some others commandeered the direction of it, doing a quick and dirty job, so I thought.
In January 2017 I had to use sick leave entitlement to take one day off per week, as my manager hadn’t got around to looking at a piece of paper requesting I continue to work 4 days a week.
She and the Level 5 (should be a Level 6 or higher for the responsibility as Manager) ganged up on me. She said that I should reduce my hours by a day so they could ease the burden on others, and get someone in 2 days a week.
I had queried our interim “Manager” / coordinator (the L5) and asked “are you able to get a new person in?” several times. Oh yes, he nodded his head.
Well, I felt pressured into working 3 days a week, so I did. They NEVER got a new person in. Welcome to the public service, thanks for increasing our workload and stress.
It took me a long time to adjust to working 3 days a week only, but now I like it. I continued renewing my agreement to work reduced hours. I thought the latest ended in October but to my surprise, my current Manager recently emailed me asking if I want to work permanently part-time 3 days per week.
Of course, besides full-time work, no other options were given. Last year after I put in my renewal application, not surprisingly there was not even one email from anyone telling me that it had been approved or not. I only found out by checking the online HR Kiosk.
Anyhow, I felt very strange doing it, but after talking to my partner, I got back to my Manager and said — Yes I want permanent status now as a part-time employee!
After I did this, inspired wholly by me and not being pushed into it, I was surprised to feel a burden shed. It was like lead falling from my shoulders, almost like a noose taken from around my neck.
I felt FREE
No more submitting contracts, holding my breath, fretting, using sick leave, not being able to plan, worrying, checking HR kiosk all the time, muttering or going home sick with worry.
No more focusing on a possible future of lack of money (with the question of increasing my hours where I am, just for more money) but now I have to live in the present in every sense.
I still have a huge mortgage to pay off and I would love to do a professional course on teaching English to speakers of other languages, and any income stream that I can tap into will help (that’s why I’m in the Medium Partnership Program, to make things transparent about that).
The upside and the flip side to reducing my hours permanently is that I now feel “master of time” in the sense that I can look out for other income streams and take initiatives with my “time” (like budget more) to meet my fiscal needs.
The real bonus though is that I am at peace and of course I am very grateful that I have got a secure paid job.
