Well, today was the day. I told my employer of my plans and really started onto the "point of no return". I was so excited, that I left work at lunch time and am currently sitting at the library giving you this info. But before I get into the outcome of that, a little update.
I have been stressing a little over the financial implications of this decision for a few weeks now. Well who am I kidding, really it's been the whole time we've been thinking about this, but more specifically the past few weeks. It just feels so impossible. My husband is still working part time and we don't see the light yet at the end of that tunnel. I also felt like if I stayed at my job part time (20 hours a week) that it would be robbing me of time that I really needed to invest into homeschooling and keeping my house. However without any additional guaranteed income, we were going to be considerably short.
Many people at our church are aware of the plans and the impending mid-July date. So naturally at church yesterday people were asking if we were still on for July. With this big unknown out there, I can only say 'yes' to a point. I explained where we were with "Granny", an elderly and wise woman at our church and she said since my husband is working part time, maybe he can take care of the children on the two days he is off while I work part time (20 hours). As simple as that sounds, I had never really thought of that option. We were really hoping at this point that my husband would be back to full time work and I would only need to supplement with about 10 hours of part time. For whatever reason, that brought clarity to our situation and gave me renewed energy as a viable option. I briefly shared this with my husband and while it would prevent him from doing other "work", he agreed it is an option. Additionally, my mom would be available at times to help with schooling or even watching the kids if we really needed it.
So instead of going into work today and asking to go down to 10 hours a week as an independent contractor, I led with my option of going part time at 20 hours. In order to be an actual part time employee at our company you need to work the 20 hours. This means I would possibly continue to be eligible for benefits and profit sharing at the end of the year.
Another thing that is important to note, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before is that the size of my team has been diminishing for varying reasons. We normally have 6 full time people and 1 full time contractor as part of our team. We lost 1 person to another position within our company and 2 people are currently on leave for FMLA. I believe our full time contractor is also leaving near the end of July. So as you can imagine we are already under-staffed. I felt this could be a benefit because I at least am already trained and have expertise on the system that I test.
I met with my manager this morning and shared with her my interest in going part time, either as an employee or as an independent contractor working 20 hours a week. Of course her initial reaction was "you're killing me" because of us already being short staffed. However, she was fairly receptive. Obviously she could not offer me an answer right away, but did share a few of her immediate thoughts. She explained how our head-count is managed within our company. A person is a person whether they are full or part time.... so two part time people count as 2 head-count, not 1 full time person. This means I really would be shorting the team of available hours, without any way of getting them elsewhere. She said she believed that went for contractors as well, so even working part time as a contractor would not solve that problem. She did ask though, if the answer was no, would I resign? I explained that it was a possibility, but obviously we needed to have income to pay our bills. She said that half of me is better than none of me. She did complement me as being one of the stronger players on the team and well respected within our department. Thank you Lord, that was how I hoped she would feel. She said she would really like to work with me and make this happen.
I explained our current timeline with our au pair leaving mid-July. So the ball is in her court at the moment and we'll have to wait for an answer. Please pray for favor and that this can somehow work out.
God is good and He can make a way!
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