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This weeks focus of the Women Making Work Work series is Keelie who is telling us about her solution to making work work for her is to work non traditional hours. Keelie is also keeps a daily blog over on instagram @Keelie90 so why not give her a follow. Keelie also writes a blog about her fertility troubles at www.keeliesfertilityjourney.wordpress.com
Thank you to Keelie for taking part and sharing her story. I love hearing all the different ways that we are finding ways of making work work. Â
Tell me a little about you
My name is Keelie, I’m 29 and mummy to Logan (22 months at time of writing). I work full-time for a large company specializing in the best organic and fresh produce you can buy! I’ve only been with the company for 5 months, but its an incredible company to work for and I’m really happy there!Â
Tell me about how you have made your work work for you
I work for a large company selling organic and fresh produce to the masses. My job covers many aspects, including customer service, product availability, and charity donation.Â
I changed companies as i needed a full-time job that worked around childcare better than my old 9-5 job. Childcare is so expensive and i just couldn’t afford it. I’m very lucky that my MIL looks after my son for a few hours each day before his daddy takes over!Â
My working hours are 4-11.30pm, Monday-Friday. Which is perfect for me because it means I don’t lose out on my precious time with Logan, but I can still work a full-time job and provide for him.Â
I spoke to my managers when I accepted the position and they said they’d advertised those hours with people like myself in mind; parents. Parents who couldn’t work the normal 9-5 because of childcare.Â
Why did you make this change?
I changed from a part-time 9-5 job to my current job for a couple of reasons:
1) I needed more money coming in as I was scraping the barrel every month
2) I wasn’t enjoying being away from Logan during the day, Id gotten used to being with him during my maternity leave and missed him so much when I worked.
So I was incredibly lucky to find a job with hours that meant I could do both. Spend my days with Logan, having mummy and son time, and going to work full-time to provide for him and make paying my bills easier
What is the best thing about your working situation?
The best thing definitely has to be that I get my time back with Logan during the day. I am able to spend a full day with him and spend quality time with him before I go to work. But also working a full time job means I’m able to pay my bills without worrying and can do much more with Logan; take him more places and plan holidays.
What isn’t so great about your working situation?
The only thing would be getting home at 12am 5 days a week; especially as Logan still wakes during the night! But, its a small sacrifice to make for what I feel is a massive gain! …plus I drink copious amounts of caffeine and that always helps haha!
How do you balance your personal life with your working life?
It can be very hard, especially when I throw blogger and collaborator into the mix! But I’ve found little and often to be the key to making things work for me. I do a small clean on a weekend day, every week and I plan my weekends so I know what I’m doing. I’ve always been a lover of to-do lists haha! It definitely takes the spontaneity out of things but its a small sacrifice for what I feel is such a big gain.
